Reclaim.

When it comes time to dismantle the thing that is no longer serving you, you have to figure out where it came from in the first place. Digging in holes you’ve tried to fill with so many things over years and years of suppression. As I am coming to find out, we are not only creatures of habit, but the majority of those habits grew as survival mechanisms at one time or another, in response to something we had to face. It served a purpose, even if we don’t know what it is now.
I keep coming back this this idea of self-perception…

Once you start consciously looking at the things you are doing and thinking, how much of it is performative? Who are you today? What part are you playing? What is the image you are trying to project? Why do you feel like you have to BE SOMETHING in the presence of others?

I started reading this book titled “101 Essays that will Change the Way You Think.” the author poses so many great questions that have pushed me toward a lot of uncomfortable things. For the first time I see this as a positive because it means I’m working on doing something different than I’ve been doing for months and years; all the while remaining miserable and dissatisfied. Discomfort means I’m doing something out of the routine that feels foreign. Actions and thoughts are consciously chosen this time and even the act of doing that is a lot.

I’ve been in therapy. I’ve completed one program and working on another, both designed to clarify how one defines a vision for themselves, how one decides to evaluate their present self (mentally, emotionally, physically) and deciding how one puts that information to use for positive change. That is a gross underrepresentation of everything encapsulated in it, but if I were to put it in a sentence: Figure out what isn’t serving you, so you can do what you want the way you want, as long as you are willing to put in the work.

I’ve been avoiding writing. I admit that. There were a couple of weeks back-to-back where things got really painful and uncomfortable. I know that true healing is painful, and it’s unavoidable if one wants to make it through the things that have hung around buried in their unconscious mind for however long. Disassembling survival mode, which includes leaning into trauma that I didn’t know was still there. It felt like I’d made so much progress, and then it was like my mind realized what I’d been doing all this time, and I went back to my old habits, HARD. Drinking almost every night. Not writing. Not painting. Not reading. Slipping back into that mindset of desperation and depression. I tried to go back and do all the things that I thought would make me feel better- surprise. They didn’t. And I came to the additional conclusion that so much of what I am doing is self-sabotage because, if I have this issue here, the goal I’m working toward doesn’t have to be the reason I “failed.” or the reason I’m upset.

I see what I am doing. I know what it is, and slowly I am trying to make progress to replace those behaviors with some that will better serve me. Example: Tonight after work, I still came out to the bar, but rather than diving in head first, I got a CBD water, went to the back room and opened up my computer to legitimately do some work. So, congratulations folks! You are part of my growth process.
That was part one… part two is going to be LEAVING.
If I could express to you how much I both love and loathe the places I spend all my time, I think you might understand the struggle a bit more. (Or perhaps you are immune to FOMO.) I’ve gone over in my mind all the time I spend here/there, how it monopolizes the free time I have at my disposal. I know why I place importance on it, but I also know what I give up by making it the first thing on my list. You do anything consistently, it becomes easier and easier. ( Unfortunately, that goes for things that do not contribute in the way you need.)

Reclaiming my time has been at the top of my list of things that need to be a consistent decision. I’ve catered my life, myself, my time around all the other people in my life, overwhelmingly, and it’s left me with no idea who I actually am, what I want, or what I could be doing otherwise. When COVID hit last year, we all experienced pattern-interruption in the most drastic way. Without an alternative, most of us just felt crazy stuck at home, not being able to do all the things we used to (no matter if they were positive or negative) and it fucked up a lot of people. They weren’t prepared to have to decide to do something else, because they weren’t given an alternative. That might have been the most beneficial thing that nobody asked for. Knowing what I know now about how habits and patterns work, it makes perfect sense the stark dichotomy that we saw on display from people at the height of lockdown. Some hit some really low points. Others used their freedom from their other obligations to redirect their energy into something positive, and it paid off. I bet in the next 12/24 months, we will see the debut of more insightful music, film, literature than we have in decades. Something different fueled their activity( more than passion, it was occupation and new routine.)It just changed the way people created things.

When things got back to “normal”, or as normal as we may see for a while still, the progress and positive change that so many made went away because we had our old spots back. The familiar taverns filled with friends we missed while we were all separated. We ended up back where we were before shut down, with a few more accessories and a few more pounds, ready to pick up where we left off, with more GUSTO!

So here I am… still in a pandemic, but living in a half-functioning world that I want to take advantage to the max, just incase it all gets taken away again. That’s how it feels. Creative endeavors be damned, I have drinking to do and people to see. Sprinkle in the occasional cooking venture, I stalled out. Leaving books and projects incomplete because they stopped being important. That’s where I missed it. Where I missed my chance to continue making new habits for myself. For instance, completing the things I start- even things as simple as books. Getting 3/4 the way through and mentally I’m like “that’s enough”- and never come back to it. Why not finish? What’s to lose getting all the way through something that could be beneficial?

So these are all the things that have been on my mind. It is not coherent, but I accomplished showing up here and talking about something mildly of substance! I’ll take that and think no more of it. I’m not going to proof read this… and that’s a post for another day.

Thank you dear friends.