When you feel like doing something for yourself, don’t be sorry to be yourself.

There will come a time in your life wherein you will encounter people or situations that would challenge you – place you under pressure or something that is different in what you believe in, that would make you pause and re-think, “is this really what I want to do?”, “Is this who I am?” “Am I doing the right thing?”. And I just had this encounter that I want to share, and the things that led me to this point of not being sorry for asking to be yourself and choosing yourself.

One day I woke up feeling heaviness in me. It made me ponder of what is its cause. It came to a point that I realized I was giving so much energy on trying to be the kind of person I deem to be in the relationship with the people close to me. I realized that even at that very moment of me thinking those things I was near my breaking point. And by breaking point I mean, my mind is on the verge of losing its stability –  my sanity. That heaviness I felt was the sum of all the bottled up emotions and thoughts that consumed me while I’m trying to fit myself in different characters for different people I face with. Then it hit me. “Why am I even thinking about this when I’m suppose to give my energy on what I love doing, what inspires me to keep on thriving, and the quality of headspace that I have been taking care of?” At some point I blame myself as well, for forgetting who I am for an instance. And how I allowed myself to be swayed by the people, the changes, the circumstances that is going on around me. From that moment of realization I decided to deal with it from the core. To let myself take a step back from people and actually remove myself from what’s causing my headspace to crumble.

For me, how I keep my mental, emotional health in check is just as important as to how I keep my physical body healthy. And the quality of headspace that I have is important for from the thoughts produces the quality of life you also ought to live. If I would allow myself to be swayed to become someone I am not, my thoughts would process things like “am I not good enough?” “Is there something wrong with me?” “Am I being too much if I am going to voice out these things.” It’s like wearing a shoe smaller than your size. You can walk with it but it will end up hurting you – your feet, it tires you out and will eventually make you stop walking at all. It makes you uncomfortable that leads your mind into thinking, “Is this all that I’m worth of? Is this all there is to my life? Is size 5 really good enough for me when I’m size 6? Don’t I deserve more than this?” It goes on. And it would feel like complaining how the wrong shoe size is a bit too much. That some people would take it as you’re asking for too much. Or that there are no other sizes just deal with it.

The thoughts never stop. It never did. We only get to choose the thoughts we want to believe in, and what we allow ourselves to fuel us. And that is what I want to do for myself. To keep my headspace clean, at peace, in tact. To keep the things I believe in solid – unshaken. What I feed my mind becomes who I am. What I allow my mind to think determines how I would live my life. And the changes that happened in my life challenged me and my mind how to respond in such a way that I can keep my sanity intact. Sometimes for an introvert like me, the changes that occurred takes time actually get processed in my head. And if I’m not careful and aware where my head is at, I’d be swayed like how I was swayed to compromise what I really want, who I really am. But the hard part for me to do now is not how to keep my sanity or myself whole as a person. It’s a new learning for me to be honest with myself that certain things – certain people has greatly affected my mental health that I need to take a step back – remove myself from it. I realized the process of me asking to be distanced from people is also a way of giving myself the respect it deserve. It’s never wrong to choose yourself if it’s something that will make you achieve a healthy mind, heart, and body. Never be sorry for doing something good for yourself. They call it self-love. And I learned something new from that too. I realized how much I love myself that I can’t settle to allow the things around me – people, to disturb the sanctuary of my mind despite the changes that is happening in my life. And that is not something to be sorry for. You need to do it for you to be you. I do need to. If you’re going to ask me how did I do it or where did I find the strength to do it, it all started with darkness. Let me back track a bit.

Last year 2020, for me, is not just the beginning of fighting the virus that caused the world to be anxious, but also the beginning of a fight within me. Just as how the pandemic caused many people all over the world to be challenged with their mental health, I too was affected to a point of darkness. I was at the season of my life, a quarter-life crisis they call it, that I don’t know what to do with my life anymore. I don’t know who I am anymore. I got stuck in a moment of questioning the existence of my own life. Why, why, why? I was in the deepest darkest space in my mind – in my life, that it felt like I have no sense of hope at all. My biggest dilemma, has always been about my career. I shared that a bit often in this blog how I struggled with it that much. I had this thought at those times that I am not good at anything. That I never will be. I don’t know anything so I don’t think I’d be able to do anything good at all. I lost my passion, I lost the drive to do the things I used to love. And the lockdowns caused by the pandemic made it extra difficult to find a safe haven – physically,  mentally, and emotionally. I embraced all the lies my head could possibly create and tell me to. It was also in that season I struggled with defining my self-worth. How I have allowed so many people, so many unnecessary relationships to let it define who I even am as a person. I used to ask myself if I’m even lovable, if I am even worthy to be loved, if I have been a good friend, have a ever been a good person. I let my train of thoughts consume me and led me to self-pity. I let my mistakes define me. And the turning point of how I got out of that darkness was a quote or saying I’ve heard somewhere. It goes along like, “if you don’t want where you are right now, why are you even there? If you don’t like where you are and you feel like you’re stuck, get out of there. You are not a tree, move. If you don’t like who you are now, what are you going to do about it? Change.” From thereon it was like a ray of light to me. There is still something I can do with my life. If I don’t think like I can be good at anything I might not have tried harder to actually search for what is I’m really good at. Those were my thoughts at that time. And with prayer, honestly, it’s being anchored to the Source of life, is what gave me strength to keep chasing for the ray of light I found and stay in the light. If I would have to simplify it and actually put it in steps this is how it went for me.

1.) KNOW WHO YOU ARE and WHO YOU WANT TO BECOME. For me, I wouldn’t know who I am apart from my Creator and I wouldn’t know who the kind of person I want to become apart from Him too. And self-love starts from there. Knowing the kind of person that you are and working on the kind of person you want to become.

2.) BE PATIENT. Be patient with yourself, your progress of changing, your progress of learning, your process of healing, your process of discovering, and your season.

3.) USE YOUR TIME WISELY. I believe that as you are patient with working on yourself, allowing yourself to embrace the change to grow how you spend your time is important. And how you spend your time each day affects your progress -your process. I’ve always been the kind of person that aspires to have a quality time for everything. A quality time for myself, family, friends, work, hobbies, and passion. But above all, I set a time – a quiet time to just be in the presence of God. A tip I can share as how I spend quality time for myself as well is to really slow down, sit and allow my thoughts to process the day and the week, and write. I write down what challenged me, the things I learned, important moments, certain memories, anything and everything my mind goes to. I allow my mind to process what happened. For me, it’s a way of respecting myself how I process to get through and also giving my mind a rest of its own.

4.) ONE DAY, ONE STEP. I learned this just recently as well. And I’m still working on it. I didn’t wake up one day realizing all of these things, learning everything and the next day boom I am a new person. It’s a constant process of changing. It’s an everyday learning. A work in progress. You may have figure out the kind of person you want to become, the kind of life you want to live, found something you are passionate about, and found the kind of people you want to have in your life, but getting there doesn’t happen in an instant. You continue to make mistakes along the way and continue to learn from it. As you go through its process, you will all the more appreciate how fulfilling it is to know that that is what made you become the person that you are at the present day.

5.) REMEMBER WHY YOU STARTED. It will never be an easy journey. But always remember who you are, why are you doing what you’re doing in your life. Remind yourself why you need to distance or remove yourself from the situations or people that’s causing you to not be yourself.

It’s just like me right now. I’m telling myself the same thing. I need to remember why I got to do what I need to do. I need to do it for myself to be myself. And I’m not going to feel sorry for asking the things that would make me be myself. It may not be easy to ask for something you need to do for yourself – for your mental health, but then, do it anyway.

I hope you learned a thing or two from this. Till the next blog. ♡