Well, life has been very up and down recently. I know it’s not “day 2” for me since I decided to start living wholeheartedly like, last week. But it feels that way. On the first days, it’s easy to be overcome with positivity and determination but as days pass and some difficult things challenge you, it’s so so easy to just fall back into old patterns of clamming up, trying not to feel and wanting to just forget about the whole “journey towards peace” thing.
Of course I won’t just give up that easily, but today serves as a reminder to me that it’s going to be hard, and there’s going to be many more days like this ahead, I’m sure.
Yesterday I went shopping for the first time in a very long time and bought a dress, because I had to as I am going to a wedding on Saturday and had nothing to wear to it. I love this dress I got… I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited about a piece of clothing before. It fits perfectly and it makes me feel confident and amazing and I just love it. I’ve also never spent so much money on a piece of clothing before… haha. But it’s well-made, and worth it. Anyway, I felt so great yesterday with that dress. Then this morning, I woke up and just instantly felt like crap about myself. I could barely stand to look at myself in the mirror while I got ready for work.
This seems to be a common theme… some days I feel great about myself and my appearance, and other days I feel so terrible about it that I can’t even look at myself. Doesn’t seem to be much in the middle, just those two extremes. It’s so frustrating! I don’t even know what the issue is. I look just the same yesterday as I do today, and yet today, I can’t stand it. I want to know why I feel this way.
I know I am not alone in this, but I am finding the “loving yourself” part of wholehearted living pretty damn challenging… at least on the days like today. And yes, I’m in counselling and I’m sure that’s helping somewhat but it’s also bankrupting me. I hope it helps me figure some stuff out soon.
Yesterday’s session was about how to identify feelings, and what complex feelings are (i.e. something that is both good at bad – like my late grandfather – I can be both happy thinking of good memories with him, but also sad at the same time because I miss him). Apparently most people learn this when they are kids. Guess I missed that memo. My ability to describe how I’m feeling basically stops with “good” or “shitty” and beyond that, I don’t really know. So that is something we’re working on, and we’ll see what happens. All I know is that I cried into my breakfast cereal this morning for no apparent reason, so I should probably figure out what that reason is. But it’s pretty hard to figure out something when you’re not sure where to start… Oh well, tomorrow is a new day and maybe it will have some answers for me.
Everyday Michelle: Living Wholeheartedly 