We have more control over our mind than we think.

Learning is growing.

Today was a rough day for in small amount of time pockets. Its amazing how a whole day would have been ruined, if I had held on to every single thing that made the day rough and ruminated all day. My mind had a tendency to ruminate when COVID happend in 2020. I was not able to let go yet. I wasn't trained in that. I was good at either holding on too tight or trying to bury it. I found that I needed to let somethings go from my past and stop carrying them around, as if they defined who I was. I had to forgive and move on. I had to find out who I was at this time and who I wanted my future self to be. I just finished university in 2019 and was surely proud of myself for finishing it. I proved to myself, that I could finish even though it was hard considering what I went through. I had a rough time and the only way I could survive was to bury all my issues and truck on to the finish line. When I finally did it, my education became my identity. I assigned my education to be the one thing that could save me. The fact that COVID closed down the world, my lack of experience within fields I was educated in and wanted to work at, became an issue for me. I wanted a job I loved and enough money to not worry anymore. Money to have kids and settle down. I got many rejections. I now see that biggest issue was that I didn't know what career I would love to pursuit. That meant my job applications were more bland and insecurely written, in comparison to how I write today, after a lot of practice and soul searching. I was so stuck in the mindset of finishing my degree, that I didn't really think of what type of job I would like. I loved learning about all the subjects at the time I was in university. I was grateful for having the opportunity and making the best out of the situation. But then I was faced with the real world. My education provided me to work in a teaching setting, which I didn't want and marketing which wasn't it either and so fourth with other ereas. I knew I wanted to help people with diffulties in life, so they can achieve quality of life upgrade. I then became angry and sad, that I wasn't allowed to study psychology from the start when it was a wish of mine. I felt a sense of hopelessnes and meaninglessness. I learned I will never decide for my future child or children what they should choose as a career, because that could have saved me from a lot of pain later in life. Instinctively I knew that I had to acquire some kind of experience within that realm. I later on started with volunteer work, in order for me to do that type of work and look at places it made sense without education but used psychology as an aspect. I also needed to work on myself to lead by example. I did exactly that.

I remember thinking I needed to punish myself. For instance by not allowing myself to eat, even though my body was signaling pain in my abdominal erea. This punishment was all in regards to the mistakes, I thought I've made. I forgot to love myself or be kind towards myself. But strangely enought I found that it wasn't me talking, it was my past haunting me. I could hear another voice that was demanding, condescending, blaming and constricting. What saved me was my compassionate self that argued a lot with the negative voice. "I told you so", "You are dumb", "You can't do anything right" and so forth. I had a war inside my head. I was still living and breathing, but not at the capacity I could have. My inner dialog was disorientating, rapid, confusing and misleading of what was reality. I just wanted to make it stop, so I drank and smoked and it got worse. Symptoms started to pop up such as rumination, low energy, loss of focus, forgetfulness, suicidal thoughts, among others. The psychiatry was my only hope for feeling better, because it was free. They gave me different diagnoses very early on and pills quickly. I can understand why I would get these particular diagnostic assessments. They were following a checklist and many symptoms overlap at times. The issue was that they didn't take enough time to really get to know me, so I didn't get the proper diagnosis or treatment. This set back was fine though, because I got to learn about the diagnoses I did get assigned, and because the symptoms overlap I could still get some things out of the group sessions, eventhough I had a hard time fully relating to the issues others had. The better I got to know myself, the better I could distinguish how and when it felt right and when it didn't. I've learned that with a diagnosis or not, we all need to meet our basic needs like warmth, eating, drinking, exercise and social interaction. Moreover find activities which we would like to fill our daily lives with and contributing to society in ways we can. I strongly believe that painting was a part of my healing journey as well as other hobbies, because I had something to look forward to and create things I didn't know I could create. I also expressed myself through it at times I needed to. Before trying painting, I just tried to notice what gave me a plesent feeling when I was inactively participating by scrolling content on facebook, reddit or youtube, which made me feel curiousity, longing, excitement, freedom, calmness or joy. These feelings made me more aware of who I might be right now, what I needed and what was missing from my life. Sometimes it was false alarm, but trying it out and finding out that wasn't what I wanted was as satisfying as finding out it was what I needed. As I see it, it was better than not trying at all, because either way I learned something about myself instead of being stuck and stagnating. I have now got some of the diagnoses deleted. I can delete the last, but at this time I am tired and over it for now. I am at a good place right now. I learned that I had to forgive. If I forgave, that meant I could forgive myself also. Let me take you to another direction, before I stop this blog.

I have learned to be grateful and compassionate towards myself to connect with myself on a deeper level. I had to be strong for the two parts, the child and the teenager within me, whom had carried around a lot of hurt. I had a profound meditation session, where I met both of my younger selves at a island, they poured out their little hearts to me by expressing fear, longing and sadness. I hugged them both and told them they could always talk to me, because they live inside of me. They are safe. I told them that they should protect eachother, because I couldn't be there for them all the time but atleast they had eachother. I brought them to a peaceful place that they would enjoy being and consented to. Lastly I told them I would visit. I might have to do that soon, to keep my promise to myself. This was a turn around for me. I was suddenly a bit more aware and present. I felt like weight was lifted off my shoulders, at ease and connected to myself. Now I could focus a bit more. I could once again go back to improving myself with a sense of motivation and strength that was generated by that experience. Why am I writing this? because I urge you to love yourself deeply with understanding and compassion. If we don't do that for ourselves, it will be difficult for others in our lives to provide such support for us. In other words it will be hard for us to believe the positive things others notice about us and tell us about ourselves, because we don't believe it ourselves about ourselves. It all start with ourselves. The saying you can't help others, before you help yourself is kind of similar. Feeling worthlessness, hopelessness and meaninglessness comes from somewhere. Identify from where, be there for yourself and in extension let others be there for you. Start small by saying you are proud of yourself or you are doing the best you can. Even though you don't believe it in the beginning. Consistency is key. You have told yourself a lot of lies already about yourself or believed others that defined you as a person that isn't good enough. Now is the time for you to catch those beliefs that are in your way of you becoming happy and content by working with yourself instead of against. If some of the lies have some truth in them, make the changes you need, so that you can become proud of yourself. It is never to late to change and become a better version of ourselves. It is also a continuous job to check ourselves and become present so we do what we really want to do and stop autopiloting through life. If you want to be compassionate towards others, be that towards yourself. If you want to be less reactive, learn how to for you and focus on becoming better at that. What ever goal you have intrinsically or externally, you will have give it attention, time and seek knowledge. It will flourish because of care, practice and awareness. All of this has helped me and I believe you can do it too. Life is not stagnate but moving constantly, even when we are dead, so keep moving. It is never too late.

This was a long one. I apologies but I feel good about it, I hope you are feeling good too. This is a small part of my journey but I think it is enough for now. I know I have missing pieces, but have to let go and publish it, otherwise I will never publish it. Hehe. I wish you great health, joy and love. See you next time.