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lessons that i’ve learnt so far
I haven’t been on this space for a couple of years. Revisiting this space is like a step back into a part of my past self - the part that’s most anxious and depressed. When life got too difficult, I would leave traces of struggle in the form of words. Punching the ‘post’ button always felt so strange — it wasn’t cathartic, it never truly encapsulated what i felt, it didn’t exactly make things feel better — but at least those thoughts were out of the mind and contained in a space.
Recently, I’ve rediscovered this space, reread my entries and realised how far I’ve come through the years. I guess I want to summarise the things that I’ve learnt so far, in this journey of life and hope to continue practising. Excuse the shabbily typed out brain dump.
1. Be humble, learn about yourself + the world
The brain is extremely tricky and stubborn. More often or not, we probably don’t know ourselves as much as we think we do. We tell ourselves narratives of who we are, especially when life is hard and we’re not feeling good.
Know yourself, in and out, through objective means. Cross-reference like crazy using personality tests (Attachment styles, MBTI, enneagram etc), horoscopes, ask your friends what they think of you. Constantly question: who am I really?
Read and research repeatedly — read self-help + non fiction books / listen to talks + podcasts by renowned professionals that debunk your understanding of you and the world. I personally love watching Youtube vlogs of people I look up to - especially when I’m feeling down. The change in perspective is almost always refreshing.
From there, you can break the narratives that you tell yourself everyday. Knowledge is powerful, it keeps us humble and open.
This journey of self-discovery has no end. But that’s the fun of it, because we are always changing as time goes. We’ve got to understand ourselves because no one else will do it for us. Truly understanding ourselves really is the first step to knowing what works for our lives.
2. Acknowledge your shortcomings, but celebrate everything
As we learn about our strengths and weaknesses, there comes a point when we have to accept our shortcomings. Accept, then take action to improve on the things that we can. There’s going to be so much inertia at times - some days feel fine while others make you feel like you’re back to zero.
Track your progress, celebrate the small wins. Encourage yourself constantly, be your biggest cheerleader.
3. Your feelings are not you. Feelings come and they go.
Feel. Do not push away your feelings, even though they are so intense & you feel like you want to disappear.
I find solace when I think of them as: 1) The sky. Yes, the weather changes, there are seasons. Rainy days, sunny days. But the blue sky can be there, at the core we are that beautiful calm sky. 2) The ocean. The waters are always different. Waves roll in as they roll out. Despite how the ocean behaves, you can’t help but think how beautiful and vast it is.
It’s so easy to attach yourself to intense feelings as they come, because you feel every ounce of it so deeply. The brain naturally attaches to painful feelings much easier than the good ones - its really our job to try to rewire its preference against negativity.
Fear, anxiety, sadness - they are real. But so is love, grit, resilience and all the wonderful emotions we have the pleasure to feel.
4. Take good care of yourself. Find healthy coping mechanisms.
You are your biggest asset – believe it with all your heart.
It can be really difficult — sometimes life feels so intense, there’s so much destructive energy, and a lot of times we take it out on ourselves if not on others. My question is — will you ever want the people you love to do the same thing, to suffer? No.
Instead of doing things that simply distract you, replace them with things that uplift you. There are things that are proven to work if you stick to them — journalling, working on what you love, exercising, meditating, hanging out with people who support you. Healthy coping mechanisms look different to everyone and they change over time - so find the things that help you feel better and hopeful about the future.
Taking care of yourself; no one is going to take that job and frankly, do we really want to pass that responsibility on to someone else? When we take care of ourselves, we then have the strength to tend towards those we love.
5. Set boundaries
Boundaries. If only they taught that in school.
Know your triggers. Set boundaries that protect you from your triggers. Communicate your boundaries, make sure to uphold them. Find people who respect your boundaries.
Yes, there are some people who will shit on your boundaries, gaslight you blabla. Do not give them the power to affect your reality. Distance yourself if you can. Cut toxic people out of your life. If you can’t, try to do what’s within your means to not let them take away your energy.
We have a limited amount of energy in a day. More when we are having a good day, less when we wake up to a bad one. Where you place this energy, is where you choose your focus. Focus on the good, always.
6. Learn to plan
Some people are natural planners, but others are not due to their personality or the environment that they grew up in. It took me so many years to understand the power of planning, even more to learn how to do it. I’m still learning every day.
When you’re someone with emotions that come so intensely, planning takes a whole lot of stress off for your future self. Having a plan can also feel like hope. When the mind is depressed, at least there’s a routine to follow. Learn to plan the way that works for you + your life. Kickstart this by learning how other people plan (Youtube, I love you so much) & tweak it to your liking.
So many days when I felt like doing absolutely nothing. But doing absolutely nothing will only make you feel even more shit and its just a downward spiral.
Do the easy shit first, feel good about the easy shit, then do a slightly harder task and another and another. Remember to congratulate yourself always, even if that task is ‘eating a proper meal’.
Oh yes, there are gonna be days when you can’t do anything even after planning .. when you absolutely can’t, don’t beat yourself up for it. Rest, recharge, try again.
7. Get up and learn
There’s going to be many bad days + failures. It’s life, we just got to accept that. But really what matters is getting up and learning from them. There’s always something positive to be learnt. A mistake not to be repeated. If your failures look similar, its life giving you the same lesson.
Getting up and learning is resilience, grit and humility. There’s nothing more romantic than this.
8. You are not alone. Seek help.
We can do a lot, but sometimes there comes a point when we are just struggling way too hard. Ask for help. Reach out. A friend. A lover. A therapist.
You’ll find love and support in ways that you can’t imagine, plus the strength to live again, fuller + brighter.
9. The Breathe
It truly blew my mind when I learnt about the power of breath through yoga and meditation. When the mind is going absolutely batshit insane, don’t think - just breathe. There’s no point adding fuel to the fire. Breathing and being present in the moment - it recentres, grounds and resets.
Learn about the breath and how it affects you + the world around you. Sometimes — when I stop to properly breathe, I feel connected to the universe again. It’s simple but endlessly interesting.
That’s all I can remember for now. May peace and joy be part of your every day.
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a void that grows larger a wound that doesn't heal living, invisible inside of me it expresses pain in fits of anger nights of tears in the dark manifests in insecurities & fears it sits beneath everything else years, decades, for as long as i can remember i'm an imposter, i live like i'm ok when will this emotional abuse halt? my whole being begs it is a weight that pulls me back with this proximity, in this cyclic circumstance i'm caught in the middle, turbulence within the grey but mom you'll never stop because you've more years of hurt than i have
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my self-esteem is at an all-time low and my insecurities are soaring.
all these negative feelings are rushing back into my life, and i don’t know why. perhaps its all these gorgeous girls on instagram, all these people who are being recognised for their work. these feelings of not being good enough, the feeling that the person i love with all my heart will eventually leave me for someone else and its all just a matter of time.
"
Don't be that way
Fall apart twice a day
I just wish you could feel what you say
Show, never tell
But I know you too well
Got a mood that you wish you could sell
If "I love you" was a promise
Would you break it, if you're honest
Tell the mirror what you know she's heard before
I don't wanna be you anymore
Hands, hands getting cold
Losing feeling's getting old
Was I made from a broken mold?
Hurt, I can't shake
We've made every mistake
Only you know the way that I break.
”
this meaning of this song really struck me hard, i’ve had these feelings since i was a teen and i’ve slowly waned them off over the years. but now they are coming back again, in huge intense waves, and i’m not sure how to deal with this volume. maybe its just a phase, maybe it’s just me trying to figure life out again. i don’t know.
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honestly, i cannot remember the days when I don’t have to feel sad or dissatisfied for no reason. i wonder what kind of art or work i can immerse myself in when i’m feeling low that’ll take me away from this dark place. the future seems so uncertain. abandonment feels like its just around the corner. i don’t know how to stop all these somewhat irrational emotions. i just try to continue working while sighing in attempts of getting rid of a heavy heart.
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“Here’s my advice, hold. Hold beauty.”
— Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband
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“You are not lost. You are here. Stop abandoning yourself. Stop repeating this myth about love and success that will land in your lap or evade you forever. Build a humble, flawed life from the rubble, and cherish that. There is nothing more glorious on the face of the earth than someone who refuses to give up, who refuses to give in to their most self-hating, discouraged, disillusioned self, and instead learns, slowly and painfully, how to relish the feeling of building a hut in middle of the suffocating dust.”
— Ask Polly: Why Should I Keep Going? by Heather Havrilesky
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Two women gaze at heavy surf while lying on boulders on the coast of Nova Scotia, December 1961.Photograph by Volkmar Wentzel, National Geographic
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i’m sorry i’m sad a lot it just gets really hard to be alive all the time
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Virginia Woolf, from The Complete Works of Virginia Woolf; “The Years,” written c. 1937 (x)
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I don’t quite know what to do with this well of lows and sighs, these fears and anxieties that seem to be linked to you
the highs are soaring but the lows linger on
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Life has been fucking painful. I've been a mess and i've been struggling to get out of it. I poured so much of myself in this. I worked hard even on the nights when I truly wanted to give up. I worked alone even when i knew that I needed help and that I would eventually burn out. It sucks.
Things feel different now. I feel more alone. I don't even know what to say anymore. Do I matter? Superficially, life goes on. Deep down, why does everything feel so fucked up? Who knows, who cares?
Lows are low. Why do I wish that you knew better?
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No one understands half the feelings i feel, its intensity and how they can make me fucking crumble. No one knows a shit bout' how i feel most of the time, because since the start it's always just me trying to regulate my overwhelming feelings just so they will match your expectations and reality. Or hide these feelings because they don't mean anything. I hate everything so much right now, i am so unhappy, it feels like my whole body is gonna combust and i feel like destroying everything but it's completely against my nature so I'm just fucking stuck with self-destruction.
Wished i had a switch in my life to turn off these things completely and just not give a damn. It's torture, feeling these lows. Some days I just want to rip my heart out.
A day after this it'll be okay after i feel everything out and fucking beat myself up for it. Or let someone else tell me i am fucked up and wrong to feel like this if i do show just a bit of it. It's easier to keep it all to myself when it's never understood anyway. And I'll forgot about this and brush my feelings aside just like every time until something makes them resurface again. All of this happens on another plane where only i know of. On the outside I'm just a normal, functioning human. Yet i have so much trouble focusing and going along with my day. Why can't i feel normally?
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“Land Girl”. Iris Palmer Photographed by Tim Walker for Vogue UK January 1996
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