Hello, beautiful growing souls,
I dont have a song for you today, so listen to what your heart sings to you best. Listen to the way you love people when it’s hard & hold on tight to it. You’ll need it.
I went through a rough patch recently; I’m self aware enough to know every single thing that led up to said rough patch. Yet, just because you can see a downfall coming, doesn’t mean you always steer away from it. Sometimes it’s good, because we grow. Sometimes it’s unnecessary, because not everything happens for some grand scheme, God driven, fate derived plan. Most of the time, we don’t know which it is when we choose to avoid it or to fall into it. And sometimes, we choose the self inflicted wounds.
Thats all aside the point. I’m relatively consistent in making jokes while I’m in pain, and being transparent while I grow. The transparency of not knowing if it was for a reason to become better, or just the foundational stupidity we all possess. The transparency is always after the pain, and it normally has people flooding my inboxes. I am so, so grateful for every single person who has reached out to me over the last few weeks. I am so honored to be loved and respected by so many people. But this isn’t a long post about the check-ins, it’s a post about the act of affirmation that we are so quick to offer those around us, but hardly ourselves. Even when we aren’t getting it from those we want it from.
If you ask me what I thought about myself, it probably wouldn’t match my actions; some people think the way I view myself is the way I treat myself, and thats not entirely true. The way I view myself is breath-taking to someone who isn’t used to it. I have been instilled over and over again that I am beautiful, a winner, a balanced woman in strength and vulnerability. But my darlings, just because I believe it whole heartedly, does not mean I do not allow the outside world to play its part. It does not mean I don’t allow me to hold myself back sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the dark things said to me weren’t instilled as well, because they were. But what is that we instill into ourselves during the days that crack at everything? Where everything crushes in a little harder?
Occasionally, in my previous posts, you have me seen work through many emotions: love, trust, uncertainty, and most recently depression. Each part of those emotions come from something on the outside and from something on the inside. We could all do better, with what’s coming from the inside.
My biggest example is my maturity. We all know immediately it is an asset, but I can’t help but view it as a down fall during the rare events. I allow my extended, far off boundaries to become pushed, because growing up young ensured I was able to bear the most. I allow my maturity, and my empathic nature for others (a constant attempt for deep understanding for the person or event,) to shadow what I need. As the carer, I rarely remember to care for myself. As the person who loves to nurture, I forget to nurture myself. I choose to bear the pain because I can’t bear to watch it in others. I shadow myself, and how often I justify someone else before respecting my feelings is too hard to witness.
I think we all shadow ourselves. I think the people who were pushed to take care of themselves young have this deep rooted desire to carry the weight on their shoulders. Weights that aren’t supposed to be theirs. Weights that eventually crush us, no matter how strong we are. Always trying to out run the mistakes of our parents that impacted us so profoundly, only to loop back to try to ease the other ones out of it. To make the world better by putting ourselves second, in the event that someone else doesn’t have to know that type of weight we hold. On a chance that those of us who resemble our past, won’t be to know what it’s like to put themselves last.
Lately, I’ve realized that with those deepest efforts I can still reflect “betterness,” instead of bitterness into my life. I am still growing so persistently; the definition of prevailing in places that tell me to accept what is, instead of dreaming of what could be. My entire life I have been so determined to find a better me, that I always focused on my next step. But for now, I have no idea what the future holds; for now I am focusing on me in order to get to the next step (not the other way around.)
Put what you need first occasionally. Speak into your soul as much as you speak into others. There is no selfishness in taking care of yourself when you need to be taken care of. There is no selfishness in voicing your needs, your wants, and desires to those who wish to help you hold the weight. It is just so, so, so important that you VOICE anything.
Despite what you watched, or learned, while you grew; you are worthy of communication. You are capable of true discussions that ease your heart, that ease your mind, that ease your discomforts; that feed your soul. You are honorable enough to express it to those around you that now may not be the time for communication, but it will come when your soul has rested. You are worthy of closure. You have the right to express how you feel to those around you, respectfully.
Despite what the hurting people have said to you, you are more than your mistakes. You are more than your disfunction. You are more than your mess. If your mess is emotions, and actions, then openly accept it. There is no bravery in idly watching your life slip by. Let your mess propel you into your destiny.
Despite what you believe, you are smart. You are beautiful. You are capable of everything you put your mind to; and when it feels like the walls are too much to break down, tell the walls you are too much to be stopped. Step around them, because while the walls may be comfortable, there is a growth beyond them.
It is beautiful to tell yourself “I am still growing. I am yet who I will become. I am a fraction of what I will be.” Instill your confidence that where you are going is where you will be meant to be. Stop voicing your unsaid fears to yourself, when your fears should be the one bowing to you.
Eventually, you will find the place that suites your soul so well that you can no longer remember what it was like to be oppressed into something less than what you are.
Pour. Into. Yourself.
Speak the words you shout to those you love, directly into your heart because you are worth your gentleness. You are worth self confidence. You are beyond what you can imagine, each and every day. You are outstanding.
Despite what they say, despite what you think; your whole is more than your parts. The people who are strong enough to love you, won’t allow those parts to overshadow you.
Embrace all of you; each flame, each earthquake, each star, each hurricane, each moment. Love yourself the way the earth loved the sky before it knew anything else; wild and for what it was. Do not let shadows come from within, when there is only sun and starlight. Love yourself the way you did before you knew who they wanted you to be. Before you knew anything but what you desired. Before you knew anything but comfort and care.
Affirm it.
Be it.
Believe in it.
Believe in you, the way I do,
More than whatever we expected but still faultfully,
Gabe ❤
Thoughtfully and Faultfully, Gabe 