Working On Yourself – Page 7

POV.

The way we see ourself vs. the way others see us.
It’s sooo different, the different point of views. We are much harder on ourselves and see the smallest flaws that no one would ever see or care about it. We make it hard and complicated to self love. It’s time to unlearn those negatives and start seeing ourselves with the same loving, outside POV.

WHAT OTHERS SEE (Boyfriend’s POV)

I will start off and say that I actually do like this picture that my boyfriend took of me. Yes, it’s also the backside of me, so you can’t see any flaws (except my messy hair lol). I usually like the pictures that my boyfriend takes of me over the selfies I try to take. When he takes the photos I can’t see myself, so I’m not trying so hard to pose to look good. He’ll also take a lot of photos of me when I’m not paying attention, so everything just looks more genuine and in the moment like the one above. Maybe it’s just me and I’m a weirdo, but when I look at his photos I look so different to myself. Almost like “wow I really look like that?”, but in a good way. I see myself in the same way that he sees me. It’s a nice little break away from my own thoughts.

HOW I SEE MYSELF (Self POV)

This picture was taken the same day just a couple hours later and from my POV. I don’t think this is a super bad picture of myself, but there’s flaws that I can see. I’m sure it’s more insecurities than body dysmorphia, but looking at the picture I can say that my upper arm is big and meaty, then I think I need to lose weight around the tummy area and do some squats. Which most people would say I’m insane to be thinking all of that because I’m small already, which I agree with somewhat. Yes, I’m small, but small in size not weight. I’m only 5 feet tall so to a lot of people I am small, but when it comes to weight it’s totally different. Seeing these two pictures, it’s hard to believe that they are both of me from the same day.

Learning to self love is tough because we see ourselves so differently day to day. It’s a daily battle, but find a way to love yourself even if it’s something so small. We see the smallest flaws and turn them into insecurities, so why can’t we try to love the small things instead? When things get tough, find a picture that someone else took of you and try to see yourself from their eyes and love something you haven’t seen before.
It’s time to be kinder to ourselves, to love ourselves the way we see originally see ourselves, the way we actually look. Be gentle to yourself and be gentle in your thoughts. Real self love. We owe that to ourselves, we deserve real self love.

What Fulfills You?

What fulfills you?
I think I’ve been avoiding this question for the past couple of years because I really don’t have a straight up answer or maybe I don’t really know what I want in life, maybe I wasn’t ready for the answer. I do admit, it’s hard to find the answer when you’re in your mid 20’s and you haven’t been able to fully experience life yet. So how can I come up with something? I’ve been kind of just floating through my life and having fun in whatever way I can. Maybe being that free is fulfilling to me, it works for me currently.

Like everyone else, I had to face some challenges and with the pandemic my daily lifestyle changed. We’ve all had to adjust in ways that completely flipped life as we know around. I was in a very unhappy and unsure spot in my life and I started to think more and more, what really fulfills me? What do I want out of life? What do I need for myself to feel like I’m living my best life? In the last couple of weeks, it’s all I can think about. I found myself stuck in yet another rut and as much as I want to blame it on the current moon cycle and astrology, it’s an all too familiar feeling. Let’s try connect the dots.

Sally, what fulfills you?

I’ve touched this topic a little bit within my therapy sessions, but there’s not enough time to get to an answer, so I did some searching on my own.
To have a fulfilling life is to be happy living in the present moment. To build a sense of fulfillment, you need to stop thinking about what “should be” and start being grateful for “what is.” It’s a process of failures and victories, not being focused on one specific moment. You can find your fulfillment in all aspect in life like self-improvement, meaningful relationships, health & wellness, and career development. The more you learn and grow within those aspects, the happier you’ll become and building those habits will lead you to joy.

So where do we even start? Where can we find our certain aspects and what do we prioritize to get there? I found a blog post written by Brent Gleeson that had a great list and I’ll put some of my favorites below:

Build relationships over possessions.
Take what you can from life, but always give back.
Be accountable for your words and actions.
Be disciplined in your personal and professional life.
Expunge hate from your heart.
Pursue passions bigger than yourself.
Don’t hold on too tight.
Strive to improve a little bit everyday.

Working on these everyday even if it is just a few every week, you’ll start to see and feel something good grow from you. It isn’t easy and there will be failure, but it’s all part of the process. Without the feeling of failure, we wouldn’t know how it feels to succeed.

I think my fulfillment is changing because I’m in a new environment and experiencing a new life experience, so it’s trying to adjust. I do have some idea of my own, but I’m still figuring out the rest. Who knows, maybe I’ll never really have my answer until I’m well into my 30’s. Maybe I’ll never really have an answer at all because it changes with you throughout your life. It doesn’t hurt to start thinking about it though.

So what fulfills you?

On My Own Time.

For the past few months, I’ve been able to kind of reset, start over and change how I’ve lived my life. Something I didn’t think was possible because I felt so stuck in a routine that didn’t allow me to have any time for myself. I quit my jobs and moved which allowed and forced me to find out what I would like for myself and what I don’t want to fall back into. It is 3 AM and I’m sitting at a breakfast bar inside my room eating a cheese, meat and carrot box, drinking kombucha and feeling pretty happy and content with life.

One thing I’ve learned and trying to incorporate more is doing things on my own time. Waiting until it feels right for me and not rushing into things. I’m not talking about chores, but life decisions. It may be a great opportunity, but if it feels too rushed then it’s okay to say no. When the time is right for you, then go ahead and revisit it. If it’s not available then it wasn’t meant to be. Finding your own timing with things can be a little difficult, but when it’s time you’ll know.

Don’t let anyone tear you down for not doing something right away because it’s what they want for you or because it’s what they expect from you. Some people will even try to use your own timing to make you look bad and make themselves better because you seem happier than them. They just want what you have, pure jealousy. Choose schooling when you feel ready and motivated, choose that job that you’re happy to work at instead of the one where you make tons of money, but you’re completely miserable. You know what’s right for you and only you can live for yourself.

I’m taking this time to not only enjoy my freedom and getting to know my new area, but to make sure I’m choosing me correctly. Making sure I have time to actually make the right decisions. From school, work, and my life outside from those I don’t want anything less than happy. I’ve been doing things on my own time and I couldn’t be happier about it.

SALLY ♡ T

Things That Just Come Into Your Life.

Things will come into your life when you least expect it or when you are ready even when you don’t feel like you are. I don’t know why or how, it just does. They all have some sort of place or lesson for you. There’s always a reason and it will stay present in your everyday life, in every way possible until you decide to accept it.

I am allowing myself to accept things. I am allowing myself to accept everything, I am not running, I choose to heal, I choose to improve myself. It’s hard to always allow yourself to be that open especially when it comes with a whole range of emotions. It’s not always pretty, but I’ve been starting to see different things or signs that I’ve never noticed before and it’ll fit so well with what I am struggling with. It’s crazy to think about how the placement of certain situations and actions in your life.

SAL.LY ♡ T

Dear ST: You Don’t Have to Carry the Burden of Others.

You don’t have to carry the burdens of others, you don’t even have to carry others. Let it go. Release that way of thinking, that way of “caring”. It’s one of those things where it helps one person out, but takes down the other and the other is you. It’s a pattern that you can get easily suck back into.

Dear ST,
You tend to find yourself here way too often. You don’t need to take things on that aren’t yours. You don’t need to emotionally wreck yourself for the sake of others. You can empathize and feel sympathy for them, but you absolutely do not need to carry it for them. Let them have it. You can’t save everyone, you can’t save everyone, you can’t save everyone. Create this boundary, create a line, create something that will allow you to just walk away.
With the things that you have carried in the past, it’s time to unpack and let them run back to who they belong. I know you did it out of your big ass heart and that’s great that you can care so much for people in that way, but you can still show that without sacrificing yourself. For those that you still need to heal from, confront it, confront t h e m. Give that to yourself. Not everything was bad to take on, sometimes others do need that burden to be lifted off of them for a bit to find their way, but just remember it’s not the case with all of them. We want the best for others, but you need to include yourself into that too.
We’re finding ways to cope and heal this year, we’re finding new ways to improve, and to feel comfortable with being comfortable.
“The waves are farther apart.”

SALLY ♡ T

What I Want From 2021.

I’m not going to sit up here and say “new year, new me” because honestly I like who I am and how I am, but there are a couple adjustments that I feel would be better for me. I already found myself a while ago, but it’s hard trying to be that same person without falling in or getting sucked back into old toxic ways. I can tell you that it’s been a real struggle for the past year and a half.

I can agree that I fell back into old ways. I’ve felt like I had to prove myself to others when I really didn’t have too. I felt like I had to save myself when my name was getting dragged in the dirt, when my intentions and actions were made out of love. I let that whole thing eat me alive and I really let it get to me.
I’m gonna talk my shit now, but I really let a person who couldn’t speak or message me without hiding behind multiple fake accounts have so much of my energy. How stupid was I to let that happen continuously? You want to know the worst part of it all? I felt sympathy for this person because I know it all came from hurt, but I was too hurt and mad myself to go about things another way and I got sucked right into the toxic part of it. Before anyone gets ideas and decides to anonymously message me saying that this person wasn’t the only one to create the problem, I know that. I’m not blaming just one side, I’ve been fully aware, this side just happened to be the one that became public. I can also admit and take full responsibility that I fueled a fire and kept it going. What I won’t say is sorry though, I defended my own ass in any way that it felt necessary because a lot of people let all that shit slide and did absolutely nothing, but watch. They wanted the show and we gave that to them.

Now what I want from 2021 is to heal and find my peace with everything I just mentioned and everything else surrounding it. I want to move on and fully forgive myself, my person and all the others. I don’t want to carry this hate and sadness around anymore, that’s just not who I am. What I want from this year is to be able to let go and move on. I don’t want to feel like I have to watch my own back 24/7 whenever I’m in public. I want to be able to meet new people without having to feel like I have to be cautious and question if their intentions are actually genuine or not. Everything that I can do and feel over here is what I want it to be like again there. If you are reading this with ill will, I’m okay with us being complete strangers to each other. I understand that not everyone is for each other and really that’s okay. We can make it mutually known and I won’t ever bother you. I’d rather have that than someone faking to like me because I’m dating this person or cause I hang out with these people. I am not defined by some other person. I can respect the honesty of it.

I know what I want and hope for will take some time and it might not even be this year, but any step closer is good enough for me.
Because I’m going to read this plenty of times through out the year, a reminder, YOU chose to pick love when it was the last thing you felt and YOU did nothing wrong by that. Vivi con amore.
I talked my shit and now I’m leaving it here.

SALLY ♡ T

Not For Them.

Do it for you, not for them.
Sounds pretty self explanatory if you ask me, but why is it so hard to do? Why do we sometimes fall into situations where we allow people to indirectly control our lives? It’s time for us to stop it.

Do it for you, not for them.
It’s easy to confuse the two. You might think that you are doing whatever it is for you, but it’s actually influenced by others opinions or actions. If your decisions or actions are being played down because of so people, are you really saving yourself or are you allowing that to control you? Yes, it might seem like going about things a certain way can make it better, but guess what? You are allowing so people to control and gaslight you. I said what I said.

Do it for you, not for them.
Don’t let the actions of others start to define you. It’s a new year and it’s time to let things go. You’ve been holding in too much. Release it, let it go. The least you can do for yourself is celebrate what makes you happy. You’re here to live for you. It’s okay to become a more private person, but don’t let the boundaries of that get blurred. Not everyone on earth is here to celebrate you or to celebrate with you. Not everyone will be genuinely happy for you and that’s okay. Do it for you, not for them.

SALLY ♡ T

Biggest Challenges of 2020: Therapy.

There’s still this stigma around therapy and counseling, it has gotten a lot better recently, but it’s still very much there. The more we talk about mental health and getting help this stigma around it will only get better. I don’t have any mental health relating problems, but this year has really shown to me the full effect of traumas that I have experienced or dealt with. Hi, I’m Sally and my life is pretty crazy.

THERAPY.
2020 is the year where the unimaginable happened, others and myself were out of work, everything that was a public event was no longer being held or hosted, and places that were non-essential were being shutdown. At the beginning, we really only had time to sit around and focus on ourselves. Well, I realized then that I had a little too much that I had to focus on. Things that I never realized about myself was starting to come to light. I tried to push it away like most because my problems were never anything seriously bad. Well as things started to just sit there, I ignored it. The more I ignored it, it started to subconsciously make its way into my life and affected my dreams how I was feeling for days at a time. I felt lost and like I wasn’t doing enough. The same night that I looked for a therapist, I told my best friend “Everything in my life is going great, I have no complaints, but personally, myself do not feel great at all.” We drank and I had drunk a lot, at 4 AM I was emailing a couple of different therapist. Drunk Sally said, “bitch you need help, I am going to get you help.” I didn’t remember any of it until I got a phone call from one of the centers that I emailed the next day.

Sober me thought I was just being dramatic and couldn’t believe that I had gone as far as emailing. I thought that was just crazy of me to do. Me? I don’t need help, my problems aren’t even that important, but I spoke to my friends about it and they all congratulated me instead. It wasn’t the reaction that I expected at all, but it was their support that pushed me to take the steps to look further into the therapy. It took me about a month to finally set up my first session, but I did it.

You never know how much you actually deal with until you start talking in these sessions. Without getting into detail of my own life’s work, let’s just say what I thought was normal to me started to appear a little crazy and unbelievable when saying it all out loud to a stranger. Even if my traumas aren’t as intense as others, they were still my traumas and why should I think of them or myself as any less? I can say that me, personally, am caught up to everything else in my life or pretty close to it. I have learned a lot about myself through my sessions and I have accepted and forgave parts of myself that I didn’t know needed. I’m better at seeing things for what it really is and not how I want them to seem. It’s been eye opening and I’m not so stuck anymore.

If you have been thinking about therapy, I 100% support that decision. It has helped me so much already and I’ve only gone for 2 months. Makes those calls, write those emails, because you are just as important. No matter how small your problem or issue is, you are just as important. There is nothing bad about seeking help for yourself. Do it for yourself.

SALLY ♡ T

If You Release The Past.

“If you release the past, you’ll move ahead and bloom at last. The heart grows and it knows you can glow.”
Gobi, Over the Moon

Whatever it is that you’re holding onto, I hope you’re not letting it hold onto you. Read it again. Whatever it is that you’re holding onto, I hope you can live on without it. Believe that you can. Whatever you’re holding onto, I hope you can move on from it. Let it go, you can. The time will come and your shoulders will be a little less tense and the pressure of the weight will lift, until then just keep going. You’ve made it this far already, you can make it more.

Some things just never feel fair and I’ll never understand why certain things have to happen. Maybe that’s the problem for me, I keep trying to understand the why and not just letting it go. I can recognize and acknowledge it, but how do I actually apply it and live it? I feel myself thinking, wondering, writing this over and over again. I can see the future without it, I can remember the past of it, but I just don’t know what to do with the present of it.

I’ve been told that my post have been relatable and has actually helped or brought some clarity and I’m happy that it has for those people. That’s one of the reasons why I started this blog. I hope as it has for you, that maybe one day it will for me. It’s so strange, but comforting at the same time.

Remember every moment we have is a chance for something new. Not every moment is the same, so allow it to come to you.

SALLY ♡ T

You Can’t Heal If You Keep Pretending You’re Not Hurt.

To anyone who needs to hear this, including myself: STOP PRETENDING AND JUST LET GO. Let whatever you are trying to suppress out and allow your mind to rest. You can’t just sweep things under the rug and then expect it to go away. It doesn’t. Believe me, I tried and thought it would and now I’m here a year later still hurting about the same things.

It’s okay to feel hurt. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s okay to feel hurt. It’s a human thing, it’s normal. Even though you didn’t ask for it, you can’t let it control you and you have to find a way to accept it. Acceptance can happen in hours, days, months, or even years, but you will get there one day. It doesn’t have to happen quick and most times it won’t, some things are just too big to snap back from. That’s normal. Please do not beat yourself up for not being over or healed from a situation. You’re going through something already, you don’t need to add more to it.

If you pretend that you’re not hurting, you can’t heal. The out of sight, out of mind might lighten the load, but it will come creeping back. The only way to heal is to go about it head on. That can mean talking with people, making amends, going to counseling, etc. There’s so many healthy and positive ways of healing. You never are alone and you don’t have to heal yourself with no help. I think that’s so important for people to hear because sometimes we feel like we’re alone or our problems are just baggage that no one else wants to hear. There’s always someone to talk to and listen, you never are alone and you don’t have to heal yourself without help.

Be kind to yourself and be kind to others. You might be hurting still, but hurting others can disrupt whatever healing process they have going on too. It doesn’t feel good to be on the receiving end, believe that. Plus, projecting your hurt on someone else makes no one happier in the end. It doesn’t help you and doesn’t help them.

I could probably go on about healing and I’m pretty sure this is my 3rd post about this topic, but this is where I have the most feeling. Just like many of others, I’m just trying to accept it, move on and be okay. Just like many others, I’m in the thick of it and still struggling to get to where I want to be and picture myself to be. I am just like many others and if I can help someone while I get through mine, just perfect. The first step towards healing is to not pretend you’re hurt, but to acknowledge it. It’s okay to feel hurt.

SALLY ♡ T