"Self discovery is the best investment that you can make." - Michele Scholz-Evers
I also wanted to say, as someone who thought they had life figured out when
they were younger, that it's okay to still be learning and figuring things out
about yourself and life, and who the heck you are at any age! I genuinely think
we'll always be learning something about ourselves throughout our lives. It's a
beautiful concept, that you'll always be learning something about yourself, and
that we're able to learn and discover things about ourselves, that you're not just
an original but you also have the capability and will/can become a "You
2.0", and a "New and Improved You", and then a "You As
You've Never Seen Before". There are so many versions of you to discover
and unlock throughout life and that's amazing! Who will you be next year? Or in
2 years? Or 5 years? It's insane and exciting but also daunting, definitely.
Don't get hung up on the version you may be now, if you're not who you want to
be then tweak something if that's what you want, try a new hobby, make and
practice a new and better habit, set more boundaries, stand up for yourself
more, as long as you're safe and not hurting anyone or yourself then you're
okay, because you'll always learn something about yourself along the way. (That
or at least you'll be able to make a decent joke at your expense! 🤷♀️😂)
So without further ado, here's my list of things that I'm still learning! 💜🌌
Things I'm Still Trying To Learn:
1) Being More Conscious/Aware: Does anyone else sometimes feel like
they're not fully paying attention to things or throughout the day and they're
just floating on by? Like you're just going through the motions? This is
something I've recently noticed with myself, whilst trying to decide on what
exposures to do to tackle my OCD and learning more about why I do what I do,
I've found that sometimes what I do, whether they're compulsions or safety
behaviours, or going through my day, they're just habitual or "going
through the motions" as it were. I'm not actively deciding in the moment
what I want to do. I think this is because all I've been doing since, well,
2021, is living (or really existing) for my OCD, everything I did was to
appease it, whether it was completing compulsions or doing things in a certain
way so as to not trigger the OCD, I wasn't making decisions for myself. I guess
it could be seen as a sort of coping mechanism, what I had to do to get through
the hard times. I still find myself stuck in doing things like that, doing what
I normally do and not being active in my decision making. It's weird when you
think back and wonder why you do things the way you do and how you could
challenge it and you realise that you're not always fully sure why you do what
you do. This is something I really want to work on and need practice in doing.
I think it's also especially difficult when you've got a long-term medical or
health condition as you just go through or have to go through the same motions
every day, day in and day out, that you just mentally shut off because it's
easier and/or because it’s habitual? It's second nature (which is just kind of
sad)? This is what's happened to me, in terms of coping and also suffering from
the effects of having this illness for such a long time.
2) Balancing Resting and Pushing Forward: This is another big, major one
for me! As I've written about before, when I was younger, I would just push,
and push, and push, I struggled taking breaks or with my schoolwork, I wouldn't
really take a break until it was a holiday where I would then ease up from
studying and preparing for exams. It got to the point where one of my teachers
sat down with me and helped me create a revision timetable so that I could
actually schedule in time off and rest (and if you're wondering, I still
remember, it was every Friday after school/evening time 😂)! Even as I got
older I was still doing an "all or nothing" type of way of doing
things. When I went to uni, I struggled balancing studying, work, chores,
social life (whatever that is! 😂).
I now know this is because I'm Autistic and my brain simply just struggles to
naturally navigate between balancing and handling multiple areas of my life
with the same energy. And that's okay! More recently though, I've struggled
with knowing when to push through when I'm struggling, whether that's with me
having a bad mental health day or period of time, or when I'm stressed etc.
When do you push through and keep going, to get it done, and when do you take a
step back and say, "Woah, hold on, let's take a break, don't push
it"? I need to learn when and how to navigate between the two because it's
something I struggle with and it comes up quite often in life, I find, when to
go hard and push yourself but also how to balance that out so you can rest,
look after yourself, and not push yourself to a breakdown. If anyone has any
tips or tricks or techniques on how they manage between the two, please,
please, please either comment them below or message me over on Instagram or
TikTok, I would be entirely grateful! 💜
3) How To Trust Myself Again: Something else that I'm still learning is
how to trust myself again after my OCD took away my autonomy and ability to
make decisions for myself. I saw this post on Instagram by flippedlid_ocd
(awesome username! 😂💜)
where it said that, "Self-trust is probably the hardest thing to get back
from OCD." And OMG is it completely true and something I really understand
and connect with! 😱
I've been really struggling with trusting my own judgement and decision making
with everything, even trivial things that don't really matter! It's infuriating
because before, I liked to think that I used to be really good at making
decisions and choosing stuff, now, I go out and have to video call my Mum to
talk through my options on what drink I should get or what hand sanitizer do I
buy because I don't trust my own decision and/or because there's too many
voices and trains of thought happening in my head, that I just get so confused
and/or overwhelmed! It's just really infuriating and I think it does all stem
back to the fact that OCD is the "doubting disorder", the illness
makes you question, worry, and overthink everything so when you start to
recover and live your life for you again, you're lost and not sure what to do
when making decisions and questioning whether they're right or not. This is
something I'm desperate to work on and get back, not just for my sanity but I think
also for my Mum's! 😂
4) How To Navigate Life With The Knowledge That I'm Autistic: Now
something I haven't talked in detail about much is my Autism and the impact it
has on me and my life. I was only diagnosed 2 years ago, at 22 years old, so
I've gone through my whole life not knowing this about myself. You may wonder,
like I have, "Well, you've always been Autistic and it didn't seem to
bother you before so why should it now?" And the answer to that is
basically what this whole blog post is about, I want to learn and understand
myself better which means looking into my Autism and it's representation in my
life. For example, my masking behaviours and tendencies, stimming, traits, and
limitations etc. And booooyyy is there a lot to unpack and process! 😂 But I think that
might have to be a story (or blog post) for another time! 😂
5) Loving My Physical Body: If you've read my previous blog post,
"The Unloved Love Letter," then you know that I've not always had a
great or even good relationship with my body (and if you haven't read it
yet, I highly recommend going back and reading it after you've finished this!).
Loving my physical body is something I'm really trying to learn to do because
I've gotten better with treating, caring, and loving myself as a whole but,
looking at every factor of what makes me, me, the relationship I have
with my body needs some work and love. My first step for this, which is
something I really advocate for anyone when it comes to learning to love and
care for yourself, is simply allowing yourself to exist, to be. I'm trying to learn
how to accept myself as is, not making nasty or mean comments or judgements
about myself, the way I look, nothing. I allow myself to simply just ✨️be✨️. Once I feel good about that and
more confident with that way of thinking, it'll really help guide me into the
loving my physical body mindset. I've found that it's a tough area, learning to
love your physical body but also wanting to make better and healthier choices
for your body, like I've decided to focus on losing weight, I'm trying to add
more movement and exercise into my routines which, I don't know about you, but
I feel like we've been conditioned into thinking that when we're making changes
in our diets or exercise regimes or something, we must hate or not like
ourselves? And when you're trying to learn to embrace and accept yourself as is
as well as wanting to change and improve upon things, it's really difficult to
try not to fall back into that negative, derogatory mindset. You want to accept
and love yourself as you are in this moment but also want better for yourself
which is actually difficult when you're used to hating yourself and not
liking/loving yourself. I'm proud of myself for getting to this stage where I
actively want to love my physical body whilst also wanting to make changes, not
because I hate myself or my body but because I want better for it/me. 💜
6) What The Bloody Hell I'm Supposed To Do With My Life: I feel like
this one is going to be one of the longest journeys if not, the ultimate
never-ending journey that I'll be on (or any of us will be on for that matter)!
I've written about this before (I even dedicated a whole blog post to it -
"Does Anyone Know How To Figure This Out?") so you know I'm no
stranger to questioning my life and what I'm doing and going to do with it! 😂 This is one of
the most unifying questions and worries we all share, what we're doing with our
lives or want to do with them. It may sound strange but it's somewhat nice and
comforting to see other people questioning and worrying about their lives because
it really shows that we’re not alone in that thinking and worry. I obviously
wish we didn't worry about it but knowing that we all do, is somewhat nice to
know and to help me not feel so alone. For me, learning this about myself is
something that may take longer than I used to think, or from what I compare
myself to what others may have done or are doing, because of my health. I
didn't expect or plan to have to deal, heal, and recover from an illness that
nearly took everything away from me, and a lot of others won't experience that.
And that's okay! We all have different journeys to take so comparing our
journey to someone else's is like comparing apples to oranges, we all have
different things to deal with and live through. I'll tell you one thing though,
I like to think that writing is something that will be a constant on my journey
in life. 💜
So there you have it! That's my list of things I'm still trying to learn! Now,
it's over to you, I would love to know what are the things or something that
you're still learning about yourself? Are you learning how to stand up for
yourself more? Are you learning how to allow yourself to rest? Are you learning
what you want out of life? Let me know! My socials are tagged below and you can
comment on this blog post as well! 💜🌌
Self-discovery, it's a never-ending journey with so many pit stops,
destinations, and lessons. Where there are times you feel lost, and then you're
in awe about everything, and then sometimes when you just want to take a break
from it and breathe, and that's okay! No matter what version you feel like
you're in, you're beautiful and amazing, you’re worthy of love, respect,
honesty, protection, and anything you want in life. Don't be afraid to keep
learning things about yourself, it helps you to keep moving through life so you
don't feel like, "Hey Universe, Did You Forget About Me?"
Thank you for reading! 💜
Please feel free to comment, share, and follow me on my socials below! 💜🌌
All the best! 💜
Emily 🌌
FOLLOW ME ON:
Instagram: @heyuniverseblog
TikTok: @emily_heyuniverse
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Hey Universe, Did You Forget About Me?, 2024, all rights reserved.
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