Peace Amidst a Mental Battle

Hi Friend, let’s check-in. How is everything going? How are you doing? What’s stirring within you right now? If you don’t know, take a minute and check-in with yourself. I’ll be here when you come back. 

How are you doing my friend? I hope that was a good centering moment for you. It’s been an incredibly long couple of days for me—How has it been for you? Quite the mental battle for me lately but I am here, I am alive, and I am blessed.

Suppressing Emotions

I’ve been running away and trying to numb myself by consuming a lot of media lately. Between TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, the list could go on. I tend to do this a lot—sometimes even subconsciously— when I’m trying to avoid something. Almost all of those times it’s me that I’m running away from. It’s easier to run away from your problems, distract yourself, and get a quick release of dopamine. I mean, ya girl will spend HOURS scrolling through TikTok, fighting every urge to fall asleep just because I don’t want to lay there for 30 seconds with my thoughts. I’ve convinced myself that it’s easier to do that than to lay there and process the turmoil of emotions running through my body and mind. 

If you know me personally you know that my struggle with depression and anxiety has been a long journey. Depression comes from surpressing and not processing our emotions. It’s when we hold these emotions in or run from them that they come up in this form. The energy and impact that our emotions produce are absorbed into our bodies and the inability to release these emotions will cause the body to shut down or release the tension on its own terms—aka depression/anxiety. 

Process Emotions

I’ve been doing a lot of running and “not processing” lately so I decided for just a weekend, I was going to do a social media detox. Oh mann— when I say your girl was holding a lot in, I was holding A LOT in. Within the first day, I realized just how much emotion I was suppressing and running away from. The loneliness, the exhaustion, the frustration, it all came up so wildly that my mental self just shut down. Honestly, for some time, I didn’t even realize these emotions coming up were emotions that I had been carrying. They came back like a needy dog I had separated from and suddenly it overbearingly wanted all of my attention. Imagine all these surfacing emotions as that anxious overwhelmed puppy. Anyone who has either owns a dog or knows someone who has their own dog knows that as soon as you return home that dog is barking, jumping, whining, literally doing anything they know how to express how much they’ve missed and longed for you, to get your attention. 

My body was detoxing from all of the distractions and dopamine I kept shoving my emotions down with. I found myself reaching for my phone constantly throughout the day. There was an abundance of feelings that day—some of which I have yet to process—I spent a lot of my time drifting from sleep, crying, and longing for something I could not describe or place.

I had gotten to a place in these past few months of great consultation. I was finally able to process my emotions, understanding why I felt certain feelings, or what may have been their triggers. So to step backward and realize I was in that place once again where I felt I had no control, rhyme, or reason for my uprising of emotions, I was at a loss. I began to feel anger, frustration, and even confusion with myself. I spent the end of 2019 and most of 2020 in waves of depression and I starting to feel like I finally caught the wave and was riding it well. I didn’t understand why I was back “here.” I was afraid, I was terrified that all these emotions meant I was falling back under. And I was fearful of having to fight that long and difficult battle again when it felt as if I had just gotten out. 

Seek Support and Comfort

Of course, I did the responsible—and equally difficult thing— I reached out to my support system. I also checked in with a good friend. Amidst everything this person had been on my mind so I decided to call them. There was just something that told me I needed to check in on them. They ended up sharing with me that they too have been having a hard time and they either didn’t want to accept what was emotionally happening in their lives or wasn’t ready to. The advice that I ended up sharing with this friend was the advice that I needed to hear myself. That advice: just be. Simply allow yourself to be.

Whatever you’re going through, just be. So what if you don’t know how you’re feeling? So what if you don’t know why you need to process or if you even have to process anything? So what if you can’t explain why you’re in the state that you are? The point here isn’t to continue to run the opposite direction and ignore what is going on—That’s not the solution. The point is to accept what is going on within you for whatever it is or whatever it may be presenting itself as. Right now, in all of the confusion and turmoil of emotions, I don’t need to solve the issue. I need to simply allow myself to be. To be without judgment. To be without expectations. To be without conditions. To be present, accepted, and loved. 

Sometimes that answer is just that simple. Sometimes, we just need someone to hear us, to validate us, to see us, or to simply just sit with us. This is the affirmation we need so why not give it to ourselves? You don’t need to give yourself the added pressure of trying to process, justify, or explain what you’re going through or what you’ve been through. But what you should can do is affirm yourself. Hear yourself. Validate yourself and your emotions. See yourself in the present moment and whatever extra baggage that comes with it. Do yourself the favor and not judge yourself for it. Instead, let yourself be and simply be there, present with yourself. 

This is me, 

As Myself

Loving Boundaries

Hi Friend!

Let’s talk about boundaries. And no, I’m not talking about the boundaries we set around us like fences or gates or even borders between states and countries. I’m talking about in-your-face Personal Boundaries; The “you can’t sit with us” type of boundaries and the “I suck at saying ‘no’” type. Raise your hand if you are one of those people.

Do you even have Boundaries? 

Before I go on a whole post about boundaries first, what are Personal Boundaries? “Boundaries are personal property lines that define who you are and who you are not, and influence all areas of your life.” Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, To Take Control of Your Life.

In laymen’s terms, Boundaries are imaginary lines that we set for ourselves and others to make sure that we are comfortable and respectful of yourselves. For example, you’re out to dinner with a friend and you order your absolute favorite dish, suddenly, your friend RUDELY reaches over and takes your food off of your plate- WITHOUT ASKING. “Um... rude,”  you might think. However, this friend does this kind of thing all the time so it’s nothing new, it bothers you each time they do it but it’s okay, right? Wrong. The fact that you’re offended by this friend’s gesture is enough for you to communicate and establish a clear Personal Boundary. This way, your friend knows where the line is and in turn, should know not to cross it next time…hopefully. So why do you continue to let them get away with this?

People Pleasing, Guilty.  

Hi, I’m Michelle Pham and I’m a People Pleaser. Really though, I would go as far as to call myself an impulsive people-pleaser (not an actual term). This means, even when I’m not trying to please you, I’m still trying to please you. You know that one person in your life that always goes out of their way to make sure you’re comfortable or PLEASED? That person that makes a 5-course meal for you when you ask for a sandwich or the person that gives twenty different types of Matcha mixes, teas, or powders because you told them you liked matcha one time? They’re the same person that would offer you the shirt off of their back or the last dollar in their wallet. Yeah, that’s me. Of course, an exaggerated version of me, but I don’t think I fall too far from the tree…

Because I put so much of my value in others I really struggle with people-pleasing. And because I am constantly trying so hard to please others, you can see where lays my problem with setting good Personal Boundaries. Honestly speaking, the moment I realized I had this problem was the moment this whole “journey to loving myself” began. Because it is. In order to love yourself, you need to know what you ARE and what you ARE NOT okay with. If your entire life is based on the approval of those around you, does the life you live belong to you or to them?

If you’re constantly concerned about what other people think of you,

Your Life Does Not Belong to You

In May, I was staying at one of my best friend’s house for a while. Let’s call them Ella. Well, at Ella’s house, they had a rule that was absolutely foreign to me. Get this, each person in the house washed their own dishes. I know, so weird, right? I mean, who would go to a sink full of dishes and only wash their own dishes? Come on, are you barbarians should I go out back and hunt for my own food too? I’m joking of course. It was great and I loved it. A little background for you, I come from a family where chores are normally pushed off to one person or when distributed there’s typically some sort of complaining or reason as to why the other shouldn’t have to do it. So, of course, this idea was alien to me but I digress.

My therapist had given me a new assignment. I was to find one thing that I typically do to please others, or in my justification “be considerate to others” and not do it for a week. Well, of course, I couldn’t think of anything that I currently do that pleases others and would be helpful to stop. So, my therapist prompted me to ask those around me who might be more aware than I am to help me figure out what it is I could practice not doing for the week. Uncertain, I walked out into the living room where my Ella was comfortably relaxing. As I prepared to wash my own dishes that I was already holding, with the plan of washing the dishes in the sink also in mind, I explained the situation to Ella. 

“Hey Ella, so my therapist wants me to work on my people-pleasing problem. She thought it’d be a good idea if I pick something that I do and stopped doing it for a week.”

“Stop washing the dishes.” Her answer shocked me. How did she know what I was going to ask her? More surprisingly, how did she know I was going to wash her dishes? 

“But the dishes are dirty,” I was able to force out the lamest excuse. 

“That’s fine. Stop doing them.” I think she was pleased with herself at this point. 

“Okay, but these dishes are dirty.”

“Fine, only do your’s then.” Man, shes good. 

Upon reflection of this event was when I realized my pattern. Each day I’d wash an extra dish or two in the sink, the next a few more, and finally, I found myself constantly washing the dishes in the sink. Of course, it was no bother to me. I was a guest at Ella’s house. It was only right for me to help her clean, but the issue here is she did not ask me to. As a guest, she didn’t even expect me to clean. Her only expectation was that I cleaned after myself. She was not asking me to clean after her or her other roommates. She was only expecting me to clean after myself…

Holyyyyy crap. Where else in my life did I do this exact thing? It was a typical Michelle pattern. An endless cycle. I set up expectations for myself then falsely pin these expectations on others as if they’re the ones making me do these things when in reality, I set myself up.

I Got a Friend In Me

Funny how as a people pleaser, I always find myself fixating on how to be more inclusive with those around me or how to accommodate better to the same people. “Would they like this? Would they be offended by that? Do they prefer this? What would they do?” And yet, I never give myself the same consideration. Why? Because I don’t know myself. Because I don’t know what I like and what I don’t like. I don’t know what I’m okay with and what I’m not okay with receiving from others. I spent so much time making sure I was the perfect person for everyone else and left myself behind. Would I like this? Would I prefer this? Am I offended by this? Do I want to do this? And once established, the most difficult question is, am I okay with this?

These questions opened a whole new door for me. It started a journey that I am eagerly still on. When I learned and accepted these things about myself, I’ve allowed myself to be responsible for My Self. My value isn’t and should not be in others. My value is established by myself within myself and, of course, from the Lord God who made me. The idea is this, if I value myself and take care of myself, I will prioritize establishing personal boundaries with others. Why? Because I’m being a friend to myself and what kind of friend would I be if I let others walk all over and take advantage of my friend. 

This is me, 

AsMyself.