“Sometimes our lives have to be completely shaken up, changed, and rearranged to relocate us to the place we’re meant to be.” -Adrianne Hemenway

I know I’ve written a post before about finding balance in my own life. I’ve also written about finding yourself when you’re feeling lost. I remember writing in the blog “Finding Balance Within Your Soul” about how I was afraid to allow myself to be happy due to the fact that when I allowed myself to let go of this figurative grip I held on my mind, I feared I would lose control. I was afraid of the swift, elated uphill spiral in which I thought would be followed by a dark, downward spiral into depression. Well, I did let go of that grip and I most definitely lost control of myself and my own mind. The cognitive aspect of keeping myself balanced and controlled was gone. So, I’m sitting here now, writing this blog, in order to start processing and picking up some of those pieces that have been lost.

I wrote this blog back in September. The question I had answered was: How and how often do I give myself permission to enjoy life? How do I feel then? I find it really hard to read this blog back sometimes. I had answered this question with an answer such as “not very often.” I discussed a lot of my emotional walls and barriers that I held up in order to protect myself from falling down a dark hole again. If we’re being honest, my biggest fear for a long time was falling back into a state of depression. I always thought I’d be able to control my mind, but part of me knew I had a history of going into a complete out of control state before. However, when I wrote that post, I never would have thought I’d be battling with myself about some of the choices I have made within the last 7 months.

I discussed my lack of trust in myself, the trust I needed to ensure that the majority of decisions I made were what’s best for me. I can say this for a fact that there are so many decisions and choices I’ve made in the last 7 months that have been very poor, but have led me back to this moment in which I am writing this blog, trying to find a new balance between the person I used to be, the person I became within the last 7 months, and the person I want to be.

I had a deep fear that if I fell down into the depressive state I was in at one point that I would be unable to pull myself out. I sit here and ponder on that fear for a minute because I feel like within the last couple of months, life has put me to the test mentally. I have it better than a lot of people and I am forever grateful for that, however, it has not been an easy path to walk down that is for sure. I might have went into a completely different spiral, but at the end of the day, it was my instinct and soul that reminded me that I was stronger now than before and that I was not going to go back to that hopeless, desperate, dark state of mind ever again.

We all use coping mechanisms in our lives to shield us from the pain, feelings, and thoughts that we may have experienced or are currently experiencing. It’s one single part out of the many things that make us human. My coping mechanisms have been to avoid thoughts and feelings that are hard for me. I tend to “bury things in the backyard.” I ignore the problems going on in my life and focus on other things that are easier to manage. I close this figurative door on places, people, and things that I grow attached to in order to avoid feeling the pain when I am detached from them. It’s hard to just close the door and detach yourself from things you thought you’d never lose. I often find myself having to forcefully hold that door open, even if it’s just a little, because once it closes, it’s shut, and is really difficult, or sometimes impossible to re-open.

I’ve really found that the person I became within the last 7 months is not actually the person I am, and it is not the person I want to be.  There are parts of me that I do like, and there are things about my old self that I’d like to improve on. For the most part, this “I don’t care about anything, it is what it is, oh well” type of mindset is only acceptable in certain circumstances.

To say “it is what it is” about the small things in life is a healthy way of not sweating the petty things that we cannot change. I have to find a balance in the sense of caring too much about the small things and caring too little about the big things. I think I care too much about the little things because they’re easier to control in comparison to the big things. It’s very difficult to control how I feel about big, painful, sometimes frightening, life-changing things that typically bring out such strong emotions. However, I can control the little things that are easy to fix without putting much emotion into them at all.

Dealing with emotions is hard, complicated, painful and all of the in between. It’s hard to accept the things that are now, and to move forward to the things that will come. It’s hard not to feel very caught up in the things that give us a lot of emotions all at once. Pain is hard to feel.

I know that moving out of my home, losing things I never thought I’d lose, and having to re-adjust to a whole new normal all have really tested me mentally. I’ve had to find an appreciation for the unfortunate things that have come, own the things that have happened, and grow from the experiences I’ve had. It’s as if being planted back in my childhood home, back in my hometown, and back to my original roots have all helped me re-center myself back to the person I am at my core.  

The thing I’ve come to realize is that I am in control of my own life. I have control of the decisions I made, the people I surround myself with, the places I am in, the goals I set forth to reach, and the emotions I feel. I am in control of me. I have my own back. I have learned to stop allowing things that no longer serve me to continue bringing me down. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” I have to trust not only the universe, but also myself, that I will make it through the dark times, and I will come out stronger and better in the end.

I truly believe that without this opportunity to re-center myself in my life that I would never have found so many of the answers I have been searching so endlessly for. I always like to believe that things do happen for a reason, the good, the bad, and all the in between. To re-center myself means to stop, take a second, and evaluate who I am, and who I want to be. It means to re-evaluate the goals I have set for myself, and evaluate the goals I want to set in the future. It means to re-think some of the poor decisions I have made, the pain I’ve caused others, and the moments in which I should have done better and use those thoughts as a catalyst for growth.

Life does deal a lousy hand of cards to us sometimes. The unfortunate, painful, hard things that happen to us give us this huge opportunity to grow into something greater than what we are. Think about it, plants cannot grow or bloom to the best of their abilities by being planted in the wrong type of soil, in the wrong climate, without the adequate amounts of water and nutrients, and without their preferred amount of sunlight. Plants are like humans in that aspect. We cannot grow when we are in the wrong place. We cannot grow when we are not giving ourselves the correct amount of nutrients, love and affection that we need for ourselves. Sometimes being uprooted from the place you were once planted and had become comfortable in, and transplanted to a new location might be the best thing you never knew you needed. They say you bloom where you are planted and indeed, I have found that it is the absolute truth.

So, if you are afraid to be happy, afraid to lose control, afraid of losing all that you’ve grown accustomed to, don’t be ashamed. You are just like many people, including myself. You are not alone. Just remember, if you feel as if you’ve outgrown the place you are currently in, there is always an opportunity for more. If you are losing everything, questioning your life, and/or feeling lost, you’re feeling the same emotions we all have. Life is a cycle of finding yourself, only to lose yourself again and to repeat that process over and over again. We grow, we change, we bloom, and we outgrow places we never thought we could sometimes. My advice to any of you reading this blog is this: embrace the opportunities you are given, good and bad. Remember that you are strong, you are capable, and you are going to make it out at the end of the dark tunnel you may find yourself to be in.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a blessed day.