Note: this is something I wrote a few years ago, but it definitely still applies today! I just wanted to share. I remember writing this just a few months before I got a call to start my first paid writing job. It’s kind-of fun to see where my mind was leading up to such a big change in my life. And more great things are on the horizon!
I have this feeling. I’m becoming something new, yet familiar at the same time (I’m aware that sounds a little Frozen-y ala “Into the Unknown”, lol). I can feel myself becoming hungrier for life, but I realize I need to give myself a break, too. I’m so excited for the future and what I could do. I just want to be me…nothing else. I want to share dreams…to construct goals and put in the work to make them happen. This won’t happen overnight. I have my inner calmness back, and it is somehow pushing me to keep going.
The Pull of Fear
I was in a state of extreme anxiety for almost three years. I see it now. But my soul was trying to keep me safe–I didn’t let myself retreat to the most unhealthy parts of me. I no longer wish to underestimate myself. I will also not berate myself for not moving fast enough. Sometimes, for real change to happen, the processing is necessary. I was not my true self for that whole time of anxiety. This truth was so incredibly painful for me. But I realized pretty quickly that my hard-working, dutiful, all-cases considered self was also beautiful. Something just felt off about me, and I didn’t have the tools to understand what it meant.
I asked my husband if he even noticed that I wasn’t myself. He said that he thought it was just a new part of me. And in a way, this is true, too. I responded to life with a defense that made sense to me at the time. Wow…the compassion and understanding that came flooding in after understanding this are what has allowed me to move forward. I can be myself again, only maybe a more self-loving, self-aware, unafraid version. I can see now the beauty of me–I’m the only one! This is my only true responsibility because I see how with trust, the only thing that will follow is me doing what I always do–give it my all. Now, I can speak up more, trust my feelings and responses…but also still learn every single day.
The Awesome Things to Come!
If I can come up with a plan, I can still do what is deep in me–hear and appreciate my own heart-song. I knew I had one somewhere, but it was so hard to find. I think I can actually take steps to make a dream I didn’t fully understand happen. My dream was vague and hard to sort through, but I see that it involves writing and talking about the deepest thoughts inside. I see now that just by sharing my story, I could probably actually help others. This was always the other piece of the puzzle that I had trouble understanding. I still don’t quite know how to get there, but I don’t think I’m as resistant to making it happen.