The past two months have been an absolute rollercoaster of stress and emotions but I think I am finally back to a state where I can start consistently blogging again. -Sorry for the minor setback.
I’m here to talk to you about what it really means to fall in love with yourself. It doesn’t just mean you can look in the mirror and recognize the fact that you are confident in your skin. Don’t get me wrong, that is a very important step to the whole process but there is sooo much more to it.
First of all, I am going to address something that has taken me a very long time to realize its importance: owning your solitude. If you look up the definition of solitude, there are two different options that come up. The second definition reads “a lonely or uninhabited place.” This is how most of us interpret being alone. But with that being said, we also have to address the differences between being alone and feeling lonely. It took everyone leaving me and going away for college (which made me regret staying home for school instead of going away just that much more) and always feelings like there was never anyone I could hangout with during my free time to realize how “go go go” I’ve been my whole life. I didn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have at least 3 plans lined up for the week. I hated sitting at home or being at work knowing my friends were out doing something without me. These emotions kept piling up and piling up to the point where I didn’t think I could take another second of it. It was right during my breaking point that I stumbled upon this quote: “Solitude is not the absense of others, rather the presence of oneself.” It was this quote and the sudden notion that I may not have control over my feelings but I sure as hell have control over my thoughts and it was about damn time that I started feeding my brain with more positivity. I knew that change had to be done but I didn't really know where to start so I wrote down a list of changes that I wanted to make for the new year:
-find a passion
-start a blog
-get a new job
-mend my relationships with others/make those relationships stronger
-buy a new car
-find a therapist that is right for me
And I took this list and decided to let it consume me and allow me to grow into who I want to be. I suggest making a list for yourself if you are struggling with feeling lonely because not only will it help you develop yourself and become more at peace with who you are/who you want to become but it also takes up a lot of your time. The busier I am, the less lonely I feel because I know that at least I am being productive. I genuinely believe that the best time to work on yourself is when you feel most alone in the world.
The second point that I want to address is owning your emotions. I have always had a really hard time with owning how I feel and I’ve always been too afraid to voice my feelings. In most situations of high emotion, I will usually just stay silent, try to act tough like I don’t feel anything, or use humor to display my feelings so that I the situation isn’t taken as seriously as I feel it to be. Recently, I was having a really hard time with a situation I was in and my therapist told me to go home and give myself even just 10 minutes to completely let all of my walls down and let every emotion that I was feeling flood my being. And to take those emotions and write them down. Focus on the good emotions first, then allow all of the bad ones to be put to words, second. It is really important to be in tune with your emotions because they affect how you react to things and how you process thoughts or events. It is also very important to be in tune with your emotions because, like I said, you will affect the way you react which is okay but you also need to be taking responsibility for your actions and understand how they could make other people feel. It would be very ineffective to say something hurtful to someone who hurt you instead of owning your feelings and explaining to them that what they did/said hurt you. Owning your emotions and accepting that you have a right to feel them is a huge part of falling in love with yourself.
Now I am going to “quote drop” a few of my favorites that made me feel something or motivate me when it comes to this topic:
“Feel what you need to feel and then let it go. Do not let it consume you.”
“Take full responsibility for your actions, your choices, and your life. You made it this way. If you’re happy, keep going. If not, then choose to do something about it”
Love, me