Category: Growing Me

I decided to switch it up and talk about my journey of getting back up after falling. I feel like there are other people out there that are like me that have fallen from the progress that they were making on their journey. I rather write about it as I am trying to get back on the right path instead of pretending it never happened or waiting until I made it through it.

Some Things That I Have Been Considering Doing To Get Back On Track Are These 5 Things

Start Back With Reestablishing Your Routine or Start A New One All Together

I do not know if you are anything like me but sticking to a routine is hard. For me it takes more deliberate effort to stick with a positive change and motive myself to do the task consistently. The lack of a routine causes stress, poor sleeping, unhealthy food choice, and to lack effective use of time. There are benefits that routines can provide. They help you have better health, sleep, and more consistency in your life. I am not saying schedule out your whole life. I think that cause more stress. I personally hate scheduling my life day to the minute because it feel like it takes away my freedom. It is about finding what works best for the person.

Start Examining Where You Fell And What Is Needed By You To Start Restrengthening Yourself.

This point and the point below are related. By starting to look at where you fell allows you to see how you were effected by a situation. It is easy to go through something in life and brush it off as it was nothing but it could have some type of hold on you. It is not until you stop and look at the event you can start to see things more clearly. Then if necessary make the needed changes.

An example from my life that has empowered me to write about this part of my life is the relationship I have with my mom. I started talking to my mom again for a few months and was later rejected by her again. A little bit of background is I was not raised by my mother instead by my aunt, but I have always wanted a relationship with her. Back to the example. I can see now that it has an effect on me being rejected by her. I started feeling like something is wrong with me and I am not good enough, so I stop making progress because I did not feel worth it. There is something in me that I have to change. What I need from myself to regain strength is my journal. Journaling helps me get out what is in my head when speaking to someone is not easy for me. Writing about my feelings of being rejected helps me move forward to not get caught up so bad the next time it happens or I feel this way again. To start restrengthening my feelings about myself, I needed to go back to practicing affirmations to remind myself I still matter.

Determine If There Is A Lesson You Learned

There is a lesson or a purpose for everything that happens in life. It upto us to decicide if we want to see the lesson or not. Once you can identify the lesson(s), you can start moving forward again. I feel like it helps with going back and forward in your head about situations because you took the time to see it for what it was.

A continuation of my previous example. The lesson that I am learning and learned is it is always going to cost me my progress if I allow it. I can not fit in someones view of who I should be then I will lose who I am meant to be. The lesson learned is I cannot shrink or be something for someone to make the person or people happy. I also can not go along with things that go against what I believe in or want to do.

Gratitudes

Gratitudes maybe you read my post from awhile ago about it. Gratitudes is a good positive change to have in your life. They can change the way that you see yourself, your situation and, the world. I have practice gratitudes before and they help me to see life in a better view. It doesn’t take very long. It is just a reminder of things in your life. I connect with the gratitudes more when I start the statement off with saying I am grateful for… verse listing them out. Try them out and see if helps you with getting back on track with your progress.

Mind, Body, and Soul

There are so many things that you can do to reconnect with yourself again. When it comes to the mind. Mediation, yoga, and breathing exercises can help to reconnect the mind with the body. Exercising has it benefits to with how you feel about yourself. Prayer, listening to music, and watching motivational videos can help to rejuvenate your soul. The interesting thing is you can pick one and possible help in another area. The mind, body, and spirit are hard to balance even if you have not fallen out of practice with your progression. It is important to keep all three in mind because they are a big part of who you are.

We all fall in life. It is just what we do afterward that we have to stay mindful of and our next action. If we go down the wrong path, make an effort to try and turn the situation around.

Read more about the benefits of routines if you would like.

https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/health-benefits-of-having-a-routine

I often find myself asking for permission from other people to live my life. It doesn’t look like the way you may think such as literally asking someone. I mean when I don’t go after the things that I want to accomplish. I do not just mean goals alone either. I also mean with my healing from the traumas that I have experienced, letting go of the past, or just moving forward with life.

There are a lot of people and things that tells us who we should be like parents, friends, experiences, and the things we see in media. But we are not meant to adjust to everyones view of who we should be. We are individuals no matter how something/someone tries to make us seem all the same. People may judge us on if you do not meet their expectation. Then label people as there is something wrong with you type of mentality. I think today, it is easier to forget who we are as people. I think that it is easier to lose the essence of who we are created to be. The thing that I have been realizing is we do not need to ask anyone else who we should be… I believe we know who we are. It is just actively living it out daily.

8 Ways To Not Ask Permission To Be Yourself

1. You don’t have to wait for other people to agree with you or believe in you to move forward with your life.

I think too often we wait for people to be onboard with what we want to do. The truth is if you know it is something you need to do or feel like it was put in you to do then why wait.

2. To not worry what other people are going to say about you or to you, which, of course, is easier said than done.

People are going to say something about you and what you are doing no matter if it is good or bad. You are never going to please everyone. Take it from me. If you put in all the efforts to please everyone you may end up alone not really knowing who you are.

3. Just Start Working

I know for me. I spend too much time in my head than implementing the things I want to do for me.

4. You don’t need someone else to like what you like or go with you to places. Just do what you enjoy doing.

I have heard many people tell me that they can not do something alone and they need someone to do something with them. The truth is you do not need someone to go with you to enjoy life and the things that you enjoy doing. I have been to spoken word performances, movie, dinner, arcades, etc. It may sound weird but if it is something you want to do just do it.

5. Create Time And Space To Just Be

Too often we are there for other people (friends, family, customers depending on your job). We are not just here to be there for other people. We owe ourselves time to hear ourselves. We are no good to other people when we focus on only others and not ourselves.

6. Always be yourself and not conform to what other may perceive or want you to be.

Conforming to other peoples ideals leaves the world empty from the things that you bring to the world. Why do that??? Conforming to peoples ideals is the worst decision you can make because people are to finicky. One day they like you and the next they can not stand you. That honestly makes you feel more hurt than just being yourself.

7. Try New Things

There are some things that are out there that you may be interested in or thought about trying. Allow yourself the curiosity to experience new things even if it is not something you are going to choose to do on a regular basis.

8. Ask Yourself What You Want.

I believe that we all know the things that we want. Stand by the healthy things you want out of life and do not allow other people to sway you decisions.

You do not need other peoples permission to be you, to heal, to change, to grow, to learn, to be the best you. Just be what you need for yourself to be a better version of yourself.

An important aspect of self-love is being true to yourself. Sometimes we can take on the identity of other people and their wants for our lives. It has negative repercussions on how we see ourselves. The way that we see ourselves is often how we treat ourselves. I am learning that if you can be okay with who you are and who you were created to be, there is so much joy and peace. A question that I have had to ask myself repeatedly on my journey is who am I living for? Which leads to the question, who am I?

I am a people pleaser working on boundaries. When I look at my life in regards to the question, who am I living for? I realize that I was living for everyone else in my life except myself. I was living for my mom, birth mom, dad, grandma, friends, family, etc. I spent so much time denying myself that I hated myself. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t want to take care of myself. I learned that the more I live for other people, the more depression symptoms I experienced. This is a hard truth for me to confront because it left me feeling empty but made me aware that I was miserable. It is still something I am working on, but I believe that awareness is the first step in the right direction.

It wasn’t until recently I saw and experienced the freedom of being who I am and was created to be. I started showing up for myself because the decisions I was making were not based on other people. It allowed me to see myself differently. Which led to taking care of myself and doing the things I am interested in regularly. Learning to be authentic is a work and progress. It has and is helping me love who I am.

Now, ask yourself, who are you living for, and be honest with yourself? The question has helped me, and I hope it helps you.

Growing up, I tried to be perfect, and I think it was more out of fear of being abandoned again. That fear I held and still hold with me throughout my life. I learned not to rock the boat, to have a mild manner personality for the sake of enduring. The road of perfection left me with staying quiet. I had to make sure I said the right things. I had to look a certain way. After all those years of oppressing myself, it leads to me experiencing depression to the point I didn’t want to live anymore. As time went on, I realize I wanted to live; I didn’t want to be this version of myself. Still today, I feel like I have to confirm to be deemed acceptable, even though I know being accepted by others doesn’t really mean much. People experience different things that make them change without warning making them like you one day and the next maybe not.

For the past couple of months, I have been thinking about who I am and separating who I am and who others say I am—trying to be everyone’s perfect, Maggie. When I say perfect I mean, everyone’s pleasing, yes person, accommodating Maggie. One way I have done that is by making decisions about my hair. Pretty much my whole life, I have had my hair chemically treated. Every time I get it done, the center of my head would hurt long after it was washed out. I never told anyone that it was hurting me. During the pandemic, it was something that I got a chance to decide on. There are a lot of people who don’t like it, and that is fine. I made a decision, and I am happy with it; besides, my head isn’t hurting as bad anymore. I may change it back and deal with the pain or not. The most important thing is I like looking more like the person I want to be and instead of thinking and wondering.

Often I am a watcher of life and not experiencing life, making it easier for me to conform to other people’s ideas. Right now, I like to illustrate my journey as two roads, and I am sitting on a bench. I love this illustration when describing my life and my journey. I write a lot about hope and working to change as a person. I have realized that I have been writing and living from the perspective of sitting on the bench and comparing and contrasting the difference. I know that if I go down the familiarity path, I can expect to not be heard. I can expect other people to decide who I am. I can expect not to reach my goals. I will most likely never be myself fully.

On the other side, the path of different. I know only the small part of what I can see down the path before it rounds out and can no longer see down. Even though I do not know what to expect that path to hold, I can imagine that it has everything I ever want down it. The reason I say that is because I have already been down the path that I have been on for 15+ years. When I was crying and hoping to die from the abuse I faced, I knew the better things that I wanted. I wanted then and still want a relationship with people. I want more time to be myself. I want more time not being a people pleaser. I am grateful for the old path allowing a break before remaining on the path because I do not have to go down the same horrors I went through before.

On my journey, I decided that I am ready to get up off the bench and continue the journey to new even though I will experience the good, the bad, and ugly experiences of life. Still, I will have more of the awareness to stop and make adjustments. When I say adjustments, I mean stopping to take care of myself and expressing to people I trust when something is not right instead of powering through it. This is my journey update.

At the end of last year, my life started to shift. I had a desire to be apart of life instead of just watching it. What I mean is I wanted to put away my past and everything that has defined me up until now! The biggest thing that I learned is I don’t need other people’s permission to be myself, to exist, or to live. I have been waiting for so long to be accepted by others that I elected to neglect myself for people to like me. What I learned was they still didn’t like me, and I hated myself. I continued to put my life on hold to support the people I cared about because I was trying to fulfill a reputation that I created for myself. The way that I care about people was developed because I know what it is like to not be seen or heard. I try to keep my promise I made to myself to show people that they are heard and seen. The problem is I don’t offer myself that same courtesy. I treat myself the same way people treated me growing up. I didn’t see myself or hear myself. Take it from me; it is a bad feeling to feel isolated from others, but even worst, to feel isolated from yourself.

I decided to mark this year as the year of completion. There are many things that I have put on hold because I was too afraid that I would not be accepted. The truth is my identity is not based on likes or dislikes. No one’s identity is defined that way. My identity is based on me fulfilling my purpose as myself, and not the bits and pieces of who people have told me who I am and should be or need to do. My overall goal is to complete the things I have started, and it is a lot. It is all about the beliefs of what you think that you can accomplish and the action place behind it. I know if I don’t try, I won’t fulfill my purpose and keep wondering what if…

My mom was telling me all throughout last year; life is all about what you make it. The perspective that you choose to have for the new year is up to you. I shared with you the hopeful mindset I plan on having for this year. I encourage you to take some time and write down what you want to do with your life. To be an active participant and not get swayed by other people’s beliefs. Reflect on it when you are ready. I don’t believe in new years resolutions. I believe people can make changes at any time of the year to improve their life. People should make changes and decisions when they’re ready. Then there is a higher chance to follow through. Regardless, my hope is we all stay grateful and pushing through the difficult aspects of life that we all experience individually.