Hello Friends,
This week has been a learning curve. I am trying to heal intentionally in this new chapter of my healing journey. That means checking myself constantly along the way. I have been battling mental illness long enough that I have learned the negative signs/habits I tend to lean into when on a downward slope. So, the goal of this week has been to be aware of these habits and avoid falling back into them. Through that, I learned three things this week; I need to be more patient, prioritize sleep and carve out more time for self care.
1. I need to work on being more patient – This came up in a post-breakdown reflection at the beginning of this week. Incoming piece of advice: I have learned through this new chapter of my healing journey that a breakdown met with a reflection (preferably on paper) often becomes a breakthrough. Which it did in this case. During this breakdown, I felt stressed about not having everything figured out and after having a breakdown for a page and a half in my journal and allowing myself to feel the stress and frustrations. I reflected for a half page and found myself at a breakthrough.
The breakthrough made me realize that I need to be more patient with life and myself. Through throwing myself into new things, I am learning rapidly in many areas of my life. Which is excellent; however, I need to be patient with myself as I learn through these new things rather than getting frustrated with my slow progress. Slow progress is still progress, my friends, and that is something we all need to remind ourselves of from time to time.
Progress Requires You to be Patient
2. I need to prioritize my sleep – I happened to be pretty anxious on Thursday night this week. For no particular reason, just regular good old anxiety. Anyway, I decided to try to “wait it out” before heading to bed. BAD IDEA, my friends. I ended up waiting it out till 2 am, and my anxiety only got worse. So I was not only getting less sleep because I was going to bed at 2 am, but my sleep was also very affected by the level of anxiety I had when I went to bed. Not to mention, the next day, it was much harder to cope with the remaining anxiety because I was exhausted.
So, I learned my lesson and am now making a point of prioritizing sleep. This means not just getting enough sleep but specifically going to bed at a decent time. Even more than that, it means doing a proper wind-down/bedtime routine, which leads me to my final lesson of the week.
3. I need to carve out more time to consistently take care of myself. During the last couple of weeks, I had been exhausted by the time I got to the weekend. This is a relatively normal thing in our society, but I have not been physically exhausted but mentally and emotionally exhausted. Knowing me, this is a sign I am not taking good enough care of myself.
The second sign is that self-care-related tasks have fallen to the wayside recently. These things include doing laundry, showering, journaling, etc. Before you freak out, yes, I have still been showering. I have just rushed it/not made it as much of a priority as it should be. Okay, disclaimer done, continuing on. I have struggled to prioritize self-care throughout the entire length of my battle with mental illness, so I have learned when it starts to become less of a priority, I need to check myself and make changes.
I made some important breakthroughs this week, and a new week is ahead to implement new positive habits!
Until next week, My Friends!
P.S. I’m proud of you 😉