Forward

I’ve been thinking a lot about how things are going in my life and to say the last couple months have been a mental roller coaster for me wouldn’t be an understatement at all. To be perfectly honest, I’ve been feeling a lot lately. From navigating dating, to finally starting to not only understand, but also apply the tools I’m learning in therapy and feeling the benefits of it. I’m beginning to come to terms with a lot of “stuff”, if you will, that has been brought to the surface for me personally which I do genuinely have my dating experience to thank for that. There are lots of times that I’m seriously considering giving it up just for the sake of my sanity, but it’s caused me to analyze a lot of my habits that I otherwise wouldn’t have had I not been putting myself out there like I have these last couple months. Along with all of this, I’ve also been realizing that applying the things I’m learning in therapy is going to be an everyday practice from this point forward. And by every day, I mean multiple times each day since I made this connection a couple weeks ago. I think it was Chelsea Handler that I heard say, “Therapy is like going to the gym.” And it’s so true. I’m in the brain gym 25/8 these days. It’s funny because before I started applying certain aspects from therapy in my daily life, I thought I was in the brain gym every day. Having anxiety definitely adds to me feeling like that, but it was only two-parted – the having of the anxiety about certain things and then trying to what I thought was logically talk myself out of it, which is a lot of work to be doing mentally. I was missing a couple steps though because why would a workout be that easy? It’s not supposed to be something that I’m comfortable with. I, however, was very comfortable being in that cycle and thinking I was doing a good job at figuring out where in my past those fears came from because it’s what I’ve done my whole life. But I wasn’t coming out of those cycles very productively. I more so was just avoiding the thoughts or using outside sources to distract me.

Some new things I’ve been doing is trying to ask myself why I’m feeling certain ways about any particular situation, validating them, and then challenging whatever narrative it may be rather than just trying to pinpoint aspects of my life that certain feelings may have been caused by. Like for example, I was just sitting in my room a couple weekends ago being sad that I was feeling alone (shocker), and scrolling TikTok. But it had a different outcome than most times this feeling comes up. Usually, I just sit and wallow in it, which fucking sucks every time. More often than not though, I didn’t really believe there was a way to come out of that feeling other than to just try and avoid it and call that “moving on” when I was really just putting it off and therefore prolonging the problem. This time, instead of sinking into the sadness and immensity of it all, I chose to challenge the thought. I’ve been talking about and working on this a lot with my therapist (shout out to her!) for the last couple months and it’s finally starting to click I think. So I asked myself the questions I’ve learned “How can I validate the story I’m telling myself from this feeling, acknowledge it, and then challenge that story?” So I did, and the one that came to mind was, “What if you chose to feel okay with being by yourself in this moment?” It felt like the weight was lifted off my shoulders for those couple seconds in saying this to myself. It took a few cycles of repeating that phrase over and over, and then I took some deep breaths, and I have to admit…it definitely worked. So much so, that I proceeded to pick up the book my dad gave me about a month or two ago now (that I also started about a month or two ago and have put down for weeks at a time) instead of continuing to scroll my phone trying to feel less lonely. If you know me, you know I’m not big into reading and never have been. I’ve read a couple books here and there, but it takes a lot for me to sit down and read. Which leads me to my other realization — the reason I’m on my phone often times is to feel less lonely. The more I’m on my phone the more I feel like I’m surrounded by people, but it also, funnily enough, makes me feel more lonely because I’m reminded that I’m, in fact, alone. This is extremely ironic and actually contradicts itself so much, I know. The thing that feels like it makes you feel less lonely in the moment is also the thing that reminds you just how lonely you are. It also furthers my point earlier about how I have a tendency to “cope” with negative feelings by avoiding them which then leads to prolonging the problem in the long run. It doesn’t change my reality at all to let myself be sucked in to a device, wallow, and try to escape. Regardless of all of that, it was a huge relief to change the narrative in that moment. Granted I did have to continuously ask myself that same question for me to be comfortable sitting with the new train of thought, but as time went on I became more comfortable with it. I’m calling this progress! I think I’m hard on myself because I want to fix all of my problems the right way as fast as possible. This is also something I’m combatting daily. I know I’m going to have to continue retraining my brain in situations like this because I’ve had days after that Sunday two weeks ago when I’ve caught myself in the same cycle of thought. I keep wanting to rush to figure everything out and heal that I end up being way too hard on myself when it takes longer than I originally thought it would — just another aspect that I’m working through. The positive of that though, is that I’m actively taking what I’ve learned in therapy so far and applying it. And I’m proud of myself for that. 

What I’m trying to say is, this is the first time in my life I feel like I’m truly starting to heal. I’m excited for this next phase of it all and also scared because I’ve never experienced this kind of calm. There’s a lot of comfortability in old habits and by no means do I say that lightly. As much as I’ve relied on them though, I’d rather build new habits that treat me better and cause me far less pain than the old ones have up to this point. Time to break up with my toxic exes (a.k.a my old trains of thought). In the words of Kate Winslet in The Holiday, “This twisted, toxic thing between us is finally finished! I’ve got a life to start living.”

Note to reader: No, I still haven’t finished the book my dad gave me. Yes, I’m still scrolling TikTok and Instagram and other forms of social media often, but I’m practicing more separation. It’s a process, okay?! <3 

Second note to reader: If you haven’t seen the movie, The Holiday, and didn’t get my reference in the last line, stop reading my blog right now and go watch it. Or else! ;)