… It’s been a minute.
I can’t believe I haven’t posted on here since July.
July.
It’s a solid seven months later.
As each month passed, I fell more and more guilty. I never expected to disappear nor did I expect to stop writing altogether. I hate to say it, but I defined myself a lot by the posts I made and the books I read. I was proud of putting myself out there and trying to make a good life for not only myself, but others as well.
I spent ages 19-21 in a deep, deep spiritual hole. I didn’t leave my house much or really even get on with anyone. I kept to my solitude because there, I had purpose. I had my little writings and spiritual teachers to make me feel like I was doing everything right despite how terrible I felt deep down.
I always look back to 2016 as the year I entered this self-help, spiritual world and 2017 was the year I went at it 100%. I never thought for a moment that I was trying to justify not only my isolation, but the fact I never felt anyone understood me. I needed something outside of myself to blame because without that, that means everything was my own doing.
That’s something I didn’t realize about self-help for a long time. It’s amazing to want to better yourself, but when you’re trying to implement every little positive routine or won’t let yourself see the bad in anything, you’re missing the point completely.
Self-help was never meant to be a field to fix everything wrong about who you are. It was never meant to cast a shadow on the negative things you’ve experienced. It was created as a way to become aware of your personal struggles, show compassion for yourself, and how to move forward.
To quote spiritual teacher, Teal Swan, she states “We, as people, go to every corner of the globe trying to find out what is wrong with us. Then we go to every corner of the globe trying to find out how we can make ourselves better. And it never really works. And so we go to every corner of the globe trying to figure out why it isn’t working. When the reason it isn’t working is that the only thing that is wrong with us… is that we think something is wrong with us.”
The entire capitalist side of self-help relies on this.
We’re constantly told about new diets, new supplements, new habits to form for a ‘positive life’ and when we can’t enforce it all, we shame ourselves. We feel we aren’t doing the things that equal a ‘better’ version of ourselves when in actuality, all of these things you’re being fed to do aren’t the things that will make you feel better.
I spent years looking for every new habit to add to my routines. I’d wake up to meditate and journal at 3am when I had to be at work at 6am. I hated every second of it, but if I missed those steps, I felt automatically worse about myself for the day.
In 2018, I tried to keep up with yoga and journaling in the morning and while I shamed myself a lot less for missing it, the underlying feeling of laziness stuck. I told myself the most successful people in the world had these productive, down-to-earth morning routines and wouldn’t let myself stray from that idea.
As 2018 and even 2019 came along, I slowly stopped doing my morning practices altogether. I still haven’t finished a journal I started in 2018 while I used to fly through at least four back in 2017.
Call it a change of priorities or a lack of effort, but I pushed all those practices behind me. Every time I try to come back and do them, I feel like a fraud. I put my 2017 self on this high pedestal where I didn’t think twice about those practices yet completely block out how miserable I was most of the time.
I have posts on here from 2017 so I don’t know how I still keep that year as a good memory in my mind. Looking back on those posts, I can see how sad I was in my words. I was looking for validation in everything I read and wrote because I had no people in my life who made me feel good about myself. I couldn’t keep a friendship due to my own anxieties and with living away from my hometown, I often felt like I had no one. I looked for validation in men when in all honesty, it was only sexual. I was in no place to commit to anyone and even now, a year in to an actual relationship, I still struggle with opening up. Relationships and love in my life are surrounded by the strongest walls I could’ve built. They’ve come down more and more over the past year, but damn are they strong.
In the end, I stopped writing for a multitude of reasons.
Instead of spending my time reading and writing, all I’ve done the past year is spend time with my boyfriend, co-workers, and in constant internet holes. Posting on social media has been rare. I stopped writing in July but even before that, my last post on Instagram was May. I wrote a little blurb on there about a month ago when I started thinking of writing again, but that’s been the extent of my social media posts.
I spent the past couple of years being very vocal on social media, so 2019 ended up being a very different season of my life. I needed the solitude. I needed to focus more inward than sharing everything with the world.
I still spend a lot of time thinking there’s no point in even posting these things. I go in to that insecurity of feeling like no one gets me. I’d rather just observe from afar and not expose myself to possible backlash.
That isn’t fair to myself though.
I like being open and sharing the things going on with me. I like giving insight in to experiences I know others deal with as well. I’ve been told multiple times that I’m too open on social media and I’ve had countless reactions of people being uncomfortable with things I’ve posted.
It boggles me though.
The only thing I’m doing with these posts or even sharing long Instagram captions is sharing bits of my life or discussing a thought/idea that intrigues me. It makes my mind go in circles trying to figure out if I’m really in the wrong for sharing or it’s a matter of different opinion.
On my good days, I’m confident in the things I do, but when depression creeps up, I go down the other path. I see no worth in my words and yet, I feel guilty for not sharing them.
Writing produces a ying and yang I never could’ve expected when I started out.
You find a niche you’re proud of, but there’s always an underlying sense of doubt.
So instead of falling deeper in to my niche, I’ve ignored and escaped it. I let outside opinions weigh over how I feel about my hobby.
I can’t say how often I’ll write or what my plans are right now, but I’ve been dying to check back in on here. It’s been far too long and I owe it to myself to continue.
I might not be the same girl I was when I started out, but life comes in seasons. I can’t expect myself to stay that same 20-year-old girl who might have been real good at meditation, but fell in to a personal bubble I wouldn’t let anyone enter.
My life is different now and maybe that’s a good place to start. How things have changed, the good and the bad.
I’ll be back sooner than later.
And if you’re been here a while, thank you so much for sticking around.
Let’s see where 2020 takes us, together.
Love y’all <3
❤️