Self-love & Growth

We're gonna get real spiritual up in this bitch.

When I came back from Mozambique, I was a big ball of angry mess. I was angry with myself, angry with my decisions, angry with the world. I hated everything. I was lost. 'When you're lost in the woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realise that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered a few feet off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't know from which direction the sun rises anymore'.

It was destructive. I didn't know who I was anymore. I was losing myself. Self help books were a bore and I'd roll my eyes at every sentence before throwing the book in the corner of the room. I ended up putting them all in the recycling bin. I was even angry at the author for making it sound so easy. I thought maybe I just had to go through the motions and live life in a mechanical manner, until one day I miraculously wake up and be happy again. But that wasn't working for me. I got sick of it and realised that I'm too brilliant for this. I hadn't quite seen all my brilliance yet, but I knew I was too brilliant for this. This reality didn't fit my DNA. I started watching motivational videos. I fell in love with one and watched the same hour long video every night for two weeks. Every night I watched it like it was my first time seeing it. I took notes. I watched it until I knew every word off by heart and I could finish his sentences. I was in awe of him. He was fantastic.

I'll tell you what he taught me and I'll tell you what I did to mend myself.

I stuck post it notes all around my room. Labelled with all the things I am.

I am intelligent.
I am beautiful.
I am strong.

.. And so on. I am, I am, I am. I'd wake up and drill I am. I'd say it out loud and I'd say it until I believed it. Every morning I'd wake up and say one thing I forgive myself for. That was not easy, it took a while. Forgiving yourself is much harder than believing yourself. I found myself having to talk to myself in my head during the day because just saying it in the morning wasn't enough. I'd also say the things I was proud of myself for.

I am.
I forgive you for.
I'm proud of you for.

Everyday I started my sentences off with that. I felt stupid at first, talking to myself out loud like a loony. But it really did help.

Am I pulling out a wedgie? Am I scratching my arse? Find out on next weeks episode of I am a wasteman and this was a dead joke

We try so hard to be perfect, to make few mistakes as possible. But I learnt my best lessons in my greatest mistakes, so don't be afraid of making them. Lessons don't come with hugs and roses. Lessons don't come wrapped in ribbons. Lessons aren't delivered outside your door by a stork. My greatest lessons came with tears on my pillow. They came with weeks of pain and suffering. They came with heartbreak. They came with me crying on Skype to my mum. They came with my lungs feeling like they shattered every time I took a breath. These lessons, they're not easy. The lessons are there so you don't make the same mistake again. Don't make the same mistakes as me and not learn from them the first time.

People want the convenience of transformation without the inconvenience required for transformation. Growth is uncomfortable. Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone. We are biologically wired to stay within a certain zone of comfort and to avoid the seemingly unnecessary pain that comes from stretching beyond it. You find people saying 'oh I've always been this way' or 'you know what I'm like', okay well if that's working for you then you do you. You won't become who you want because you're too attached to who you've been. It's hard, changing yourself. Believe me I know. Sometimes your greatest leap comes from being fed up with something. Your greatest leap comes with being done with something. I had hit my version of rock bottom. I was fighting the start of  depression. It hadn't fully got me yet but I could feel it lurking. If I had carried on going down the path I was going, it would've snatched me and swallowed me whole.

I looked at every toxic behaviour in my life. I came face to face with it. People don't want to tell on themselves. You're trying to do four things: protect, prove, hide and defend. Your energy is consumed with it. If you wake up everyday saying I have nothing to protect, I have nothing to prove, I have nothing to hide and I have nothing to defend, and you let go of that, then you're now in creation. You can be whatever you want to be. Some of us are more committed to keep the company we're keeping than we are being the person we're designed to be. We want to grow but we still want to stay liked by everybody.

Listen to this (or read this even):

Cognitive dissonance is the form of mental disruption when you literally disrupt your own mind by thinking of yourself in a way that doesn't match your current behaviour. It's beyond your current behaviour. Your mind will be uncomfortable because it doesn't match. So your mind will begin to call you to do the thing to make your mental conversation match your behaviour. Do you know how crazy that is? Read that again if you don't understand. Read it a few times. The mind is a powerful thing. If you try hard enough, if you want it bad enough, you can mould yourself into the person you want to be. Disrupt any form of complacency you might have in mediocracy. Your 70% might be someones 150%, but it's still only your 70%.

Now? I feel invincible. There's absolutely nothing you can do to make me doubt the person I am today. I've worked hard at it. My confidence is sky high. I'm still a work in progress but everyone should be. I feel powerful. I'm numb to the world but that's just a defence mechanism and I believe that will go in time. I'm learning to forgive someone who isn't sorry, because I refuse to be shackled to the past. The choice you make, between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life. So I'm learning to let go of the hate too. Sometimes the flashbacks make me stare so deep into space that I only realise I've zoned out when I have someone waving their hand in my face. But I don't want to pollute my heart with anger. I'm learning to treat it as nothing but a memory, and a lesson. The heartache, pain and disappointment I experienced served me a purpose. It awaked me to my greatest self. People can perceive these things as being broken, or they need fixing. You may feel like you're broken, but think of it as you're shedding. You're shedding your old self to make room for the new. All you need is a little self-love and self-acceptance. Don't look for these things in other people. Sure, it offers reassurance but it will last a second. Don't spend a lifetime trying to fix yourself to be perfect to appeal to others. Be willing to be your own rescue at the risk of their approval. Wake up everyday and love yourself, their love is extra. 

I hope you can take something from this. I took bits and pieces of what I've learnt and added it in here. I hope it stirred your soul like it did mine. If you felt a slight tinge of something then you're still in the game. It's never too late. Be willing to completely die to any form of you that you have been, so you can birth the person you are becoming.