I feel insane right now.

No, not because I’m freaking out and my emotions are on overload. Not because I’m thinking of far out there scenarios that won’t ever see the light of day. And not even because I’m on my period.

Nope, none of the above.

Truth be told, I feel insane because I’m happy. I’m at one of those bliss points in life where I truly feel like I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. After the storm that was 2017, it is hard to believe.

In the past, I would be waiting around for the other shoe to drop. I’d be waiting for the next bad occurrence to direct my attention to. Thing is, I don’t even feel the desire to do that right now – that alone could make me cry. After such a tumultuous battle with my own emotions, the fact self-sabotage is a thought that’s just passing by feels unreal.

If you’ve struggled with self-hate or the depths of depression, you know how easy self-sabotage can rise up. It won’t give you any credit for your accomplishments. Hell, it won’t even acknowledge anything you do as an accomplishment.

Nowadays, I find I congratulate myself on everything.

From having an honest conversation with someone to saying no when I usually find it so hard to do so, I smile at how far I’ve come. I’m just this little worm inching along in life and with every hardship I surpass, I feel a little bit stronger.

Even when things go badly or I’m deep in a negative emotion, I sit there and let myself feel it. I don’t shame myself anymore. I know I’m always doing the best I can.

These things sound so simple, but thing is, we can easily say we love ourselves when we accomplish something. We’re proud, we’re on a high. It’s much harder for us when we’re going through those dark times. We tend to tell ourselves to get over it or move on, when that my friends, is self-sabotage at its core.

 

It’s not the negative events we create that are self-sabotaging but how we respond to ourselves once we’re in the midst of it.

 

I touched on codependency last week – how I have this innate need to be well-liked by others and go to the ends of the earth for this approval.

This pattern is what has kept a lot of my happiness out of sight.

You see, I could be doing well on my own, great even. But, I would head out in to the world and maybe a cashier would be rude to me. Maybe I’d continuously drop things while shopping and feel foolish. I’d have an awkward encounter with someone I really didn’t want to see.

The smallest situations would subject me to self-defeating thoughts. I’m serious. I would put so much effort in to conversations that weren’t flowing or try to control my awkwardness in public to the point where I blamed everything ‘wrong’ that occurred on myself. I never for a moment entertained the idea that sometimes, other people feel off too.

 

When it comes to the law of attraction, we attract what we are, therefore, we attract certain people in to our experience to amplify what is going on internally.

 

For the longest time (ohhhhh, ohhhh, ohhhhh – sorry, had to), if I went out in a negative mood, I was always surrounded by positive people. It pissed me off to no end because it felt like we were living in two separate realities.

You’d think per the law of attraction I would attract more negative people, but that’s not how it works. We attract from both conscious and unconscious aspects of ourselves. Positive people reflect to me how unhappy I am internally. If I saw more negative people, I would feel validated in my emotions and feel better. The law of attraction is not empathetic – it isn’t looking to make me feel better. It’s looking to show me what is going on with me. I’m unhappy therefore I’ll see people who only reiterate that unhappiness.

However, when I went out today in my positive mood, I came in to contact with a lot of negativity. At first, I thought this was odd. I started to trickle in to those thoughts of ‘what am I doing wrong? how can I fix this?’ – I blamed myself for making other people uncomfortable, but almost immediately, I realized what was actually going on.

 

For once, I was that positive person that was being used as a force to amplify others’ negativity.

 

Holy shit. I had become that person that has pissed me off more days than I can count. It was the strangest realization to come to, but as I got in my car and drove home, I felt such a sense of peace.

For the first time in my life, I may actually be living out this whole ‘loving yourself’ thing. Not for behaving ‘right’ or completing a list of chores, but because I truly do. It doesn’t matter to me anymore what I accomplish in a day as long as I’m feeling good doing it.

I used to write out these extensive lists. Any time I could actually finish one of them, I felt proud of myself. Yet, if even one item was left unchecked, I was discouraged. I didn’t care about the other ten things I had done because the list itself wasn’t finished.

I’d force myself to get up early and fall asleep by 9pm because that’s what the productives do. If I were awake after that, I was pissed at my body for not attuning to this ‘healthy’ schedule.

I had to work out five times a week which usually only ended in two. Due to this, I was shaming myself every week for my inability to be consistent with exercise. This only led to more self-blame for why my body didn’t look the way I want it to.

 

You get the picture.

 

I was a girl who thought productivity meant happiness when all I did was look for my worth in my productivity.

The looking was never necessary. I didn’t need to do anything or be anything to mean something.

I’m enough.

I know this post has been incredibly self-indulgent thus far, but I’m not writing this to gloat. I’m not writing this to say ‘I’m healed!’ cause trust me, I’ve got layers to get through. I’m writing to say that if you’re in a place where you can’t see the horizon, it is there. It’s always been there.

And the horizon begins to appear the moment you question why you’re unhappy. The moment you sit down with yourself, no judgment, and get to the bottom of what’s going on with you.

It appears even more when once you realize an issue within yourself, you know you aren’t to blame for it. You didn’t pick up a codependent pattern or an alcohol addiction to hurt yourself knowingly. You did it because it helped you cope. It had a place in your life where it kept you safe. You had the control, not other people. And while you look at that ‘issue’ now and see nothing but pain, you know now that you didn’t mean any harm. You only wanted to feel better.

 

Being with yourself through your pain is the only way self-sabotage ends.

 

We think we’re beating others to the punch when all we’re doing is preparing for a worst that may never come. We believe we’re safe if we’re the ones doing the beating but I have to tell you, nothing is more painful than being your own worst enemy.

We became the enemy to shield ourselves from the world. Looking now, we see those shields have become walls to keep the pain in.

Again, the inner enemy is not bad. They are not there to hurt you – they want to protect you. The only way we can move past our debilitating patterns is understanding where they come from, accepting they exist, and getting that part of you on board with the side that wants to feel better.

We have to integrate the bad with the good. The only reason these parts of us are considered ‘bad’ is because we’ve already made up our minds that they are. In reality, they always had a very good reason for existing – we just never wanted to hear it.

 

Ironic, isn’t it?

 

We’re told to focus positively and we’ll get everything we’ve ever wanted. The stars will align. Our skins will be stronger and unphased by life’s events. I’m telling you this is a load of bullshit.

To have the light, we need the dark. Disowning the shadow within us puts us against one aspect of ourselves inevitability leading to self-sabotage later on.

We cannot disown one part of us without it affecting our entire being.

We cannot ignore, ignore, ignore and hope the ‘bad’ in us will go away.

It is not bad. It is not a detriment.

Choosing to hear it out rather than bulldoze past is one of the most transformative experiences you will ever have.

We are not a victim to the world we see, the voices around us.

We are only a victim to the degree that we let our inner demons be heard.