on keeping things balanced
It’s Friday again. well for me, right now, it’s actually Wednesday as I’m trying to plan ahead for once in my life and be kind to future me who will most likely need a lot of rest by the time Friday arrives. I have a busy few days ahead of me and I have mixed feelings about it. As I updated you last week, ya gal got herself another job and has suddenly found herself with a pretty packed schedule after months of not really having all that much to do. I think I’d gotten very used to having almost complete autonomy over my days, save for a few hours of work here and there, although hanging out with a three year old rarely feels that much like work. I’m not used to being busy anymore, honestly to the point where I kind of hate it. My pace of life has been so slow over the past year, albeit too slow at points, and this sudden change is a bit of a shock to the system. I think I had begun to associate being busy as a bad thing, equalling burnout and exhaustion in my internal definition of the word. The idea of juggling my responsibilities amidst a full calendar fills me with a sense of panic thats maybe a little uncalled for. I can see the potential for a downward spiral approaching, a resentment for both my jobs threatening to permeate my mind. I could very easily revert back to the mindset I had the last time I was this busy, during university, and undo all the work I have been doing internally in the process. The pressure to not allow this to happen is palpable, my palms are starting to sweat, my jaw clenched, shoulders tightening. And yet it’s easy to forget things are different this time around.
I now have awareness. I have tools I have acquired over the past year spent getting to know myself better, that put me in a position to be able to take all of this in my stride. I have learnt what practices ground me, bring me back to a place of balance and connection within myself. I have learnt to notice the warning signs of an impending emotional release, I’ve learnt the ways in which I can soothe myself through it. How allowing myself to feel seen and heard and to allow the emotions to flow is far more healthy and effective than my previous reaction of doing everything in my power to avoid and distract myself from whatever difficult thing I was feeling. i’m slowly learning how to tune into my mind, body and spirit. To understand what each element of my being needs most in each moment, and most importantly listening to and following those needs. this one has been a difficult one for me to learn, because it has required me to be honest. Both with myself and those around me, and to create boundaries to support those needs. Boundaries have always terrified me. I fear speaking my truth and not being met with kindness and understanding. I’ve agreed to more things in my life that I didn’t want to do than things I did, purely due to this fear. The word ‘no’ is new to my vocabulary. But I'm learning that the more times you do something that scares you, the less scary it becomes.
I’ve learnt to prioritise my rest and relaxation, whatever that might look like at any given moment. on the days over which I still have autonomy, I have learnt to plan my time around what would make me feel fulfilled and re-energised. Surprisingly this has manifested in a lot of time spent alone exploring my surroundings, something that used to fill me with intense anxiety. I am so much more rooted and grounded in myself these days and so spending time with myself is like a treat now instead of a punishment. It’s pretty satisfying to be able to see this shift in myself. That anxiety plagued my life for a long time. It still rears its head from time to time but i’ve learnt to welcome it, to soothe myself through it and to be extra kind to myself in those moments that feel overwhelming and uncomfortable, to bring myself back into a place of balanced grounded-ness. I've gotten better at practicing presence as often as I can. During my busier periods in the past, I all too frequently fell into operating on autopilot, moving from one thing to the next as unaware as I could possibly be in order to avoid overwhelm. this of course meant I was moving at a million miles an hour without taking so much as a second to be in my body and just exist. living like this didn’t fulfil me at all, draining me of my energy so much so that I thought I must be ill. Imagine my confusion when my doctor told me there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. I know better now. Although medically speaking, there was nothing wrong with me, spiritually everything was a shit show. My life was passing me by and I wasn’t experiencing any of it. I wasn’t doing anything that felt fulfilling because I didn’t feel as though I had the energy. All I wanted to do was distract myself from it all until I could sleep. I really didn’t realise how bad things had gotten until suddenly life was turned upside down by the pandemic and I was left to sift through the wreckage.
And that’s what’s different this time around. This life I’m living now is a life I’ve built for myself from the broken pieces. I put those pieces back together in a way that felt truer to the kind of life I wanted to live and the kind of person I wanted to be. I’ve sifted through some of the darkest parts of myself and held them up to the light in order to see they’re really not quite as scary or as broken as I once believed them to be. They were just parts of myself that needed a little extra care, a little extra love and understanding. While I may not have examined and tended to each and every inch of my patchwork whole, for this is a project that will take a lifetime of shifts and regenerations, I know myself well enough to finally begin to trust in myself. I’ve shown up for myself over this past year in ways I would never have dreamed of before and because of that, I trust myself not to tear it all to shreds. I may be busier in the days to come that I have been for a while and as scary as that might be until it begins to feel normal, I have full faith that I can also learn to thrive and bloom in this new season of my life. I have faith that no matter what storms and turbulence come my way, the grounded, rooted presence I feel in who I am will not fail to keep me upright. And should I fall, I know I have all the strength I need to find my feet once more. I’ve proved that to myself over and over again. So all thats left to do is breathe. Breathe into all the change and possibility this new chapter brings, to open my heart to all that is flowing into my life and embrace it with trust in myself that I will not be blown off course. I am en route to exactly where I need to be.
if you want to hear more about my journey towards a more authentic existence, follow me on instagram @the.authenticity.project and on medium . see my photography work on instagram @s.ophiea.lice and connect with me on linkedin.
big love to you all x