I feel like I’ve come leaps and bounds since the last time I wrote here, and it has been a while! ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

Things have been busy busy and I have been trying to keep up with everything but the more you have on your plate the less you can see of everything.

In this in-between time, however, I have been making leaps and bounds with reconnecting with my spiritual self and connecting with that part of myself that hates everything I do. I feel like, on paper, the changes that have happened seem quite small, but they’re impacting me in large ways and in good ways. And a testament to that growing freedom of myself is that I have been spitting out pages this past week. I’m impressing myself (trying my best not to burn myself out by accident) with the amount I’ve been able to write considering I hadn’t written a word for like the preceding month __φ(．．)

This is why it’s so important to self-explore and really let yourself discover and be who you are ♡( ◡‿◡ ). And this is ongoing! There are going to be parts of you that you’re pretty confident in, but always allow yourself to explore. Don’t shackle you to anything you’re actually unsure of. And most of all, don’t build yourself on what others think you should or shouldn’t be. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid (and I know it’s much easier said than done!). The more you love yourself, the more you’ll love life and be able to get the best out of it. Surround yourself with things that make you happy, because you are the most important person to you. Even when that little voice is telling you you’re important to no one.

Sometimes, when I have a really bad week and begin to spiral, I visualise it like a slide. And I get off early saying “yeah, no thanks, this is not a good time”, and I try to prompt myself with something I care about of find amusing, like looking at pictures of animal or memes or talking to people who are good at having interesting conversations that will distract me. Once I get the foothold, I get off the slide and head over to that place instead. The real hard part is going back to the slide later and restructuring it, reframing it. Yes, the slide is there and I was on it, but what can I do to make it a good place rather than a bad place. And sometimes what I need to do is just let go of it. I worry that by letting go of emotions, I invalidate my having had them in the first place, but that’s not the case. Letting them go means I have room to work on them and develop a better way to work with them next time. Letting go of your baggage doesn’t invalidate your struggle or suddenly mean none of it never happened, it just alleviates you of your burden to carry them. Which, for all of us carrying them, is something we deserve. In place of those weights we deserve to plant new sprouts of happiness, whether it’s in people, things or places.

I am on an optimistic high. I can’t maintain 100% optimism and that’s normal, but I’m really trying to practice approaching everything with “what can I do” rather than a “can do” attitude that falls flat and feels super disappointing or a generic “I can’t do it”. I compromise with my expectations, as I learnt when I was young that a low bar meant that it was hard for people to disappoint me. But that doesn’t mean I should have low standards. I am striving to be positive about everything whilst maintaining realistic expectations that don’t shackle me to expect a negative outcome. And it takes practice, but any practice is progress (و •̀ ᴗ•́ )و