“Nothing kills you faster than your own mind.  Don’t stress over things that are out of your control,” Daniel Chidiac.  I’m not sure if it’s some sort of cosmic alignment but I haven’t been able to shake this funk I seem to be stuck in.  It could be some deep rooted wounds surrounding worth creeping in again but it has been a fight to even wake up some days.  With that being said, I am fully aware it’s in my mind—and I’m angry about that.  I have absolutely zero reason to be upset about anything right now.  Truly—I am fully aware and grateful for what I have in my life and I’m also aware of what a gift it is to live the life I do.  I have what I need and am creating the rest of what I want.  I feel aligned with the universe and see signs supporting my growth yet I have this overwhelming feeling of doom, like something terrible is going to happen, almost like this is too good to be true.  I’m sabotaging it before I even give myself a chance to enjoy it and I am ashamed of it.  The mind is such a powerful thing, and how twisted is it that it can take something perfectly fine and warp it into disaster?  Why would something with so much power lean toward anything negative?    

My mind always was a dark place to be and I improved upon that with YEARS of work and focused effort on healing.  I see what I’ve built around me and I am proud.  But this nagging voice in my brain constantly tells me that I’m not good enough for this, I don’t deserve it, that I can lose it all.  And it IS killing me.  My brain almost killed me once when it convinced me that I wasn’t worth the air we breathe, making me believe the world was better without me.  It is killing me now in putting these spinning/confusing thoughts in my head.  No matter how bright it is, if the brain decides it’s dark, we believe it’s dark.  I want to use my mind for good and I am wasting my energy convincing myself to not cower in fear every day proving to myself I earned what I have.  And folks, this is just good old fashioned anxiety, this isn’t even counting the outside factors influencing me (or anyone else).  There is so little we can control in our world but our mind is supposed to be the one domain we have total control over.  It feels incredibly helpless and frustrating when your own mind won’t cooperate. So this is your reminder to make sure you’re watching those thoughts and change them as fast as you can.

I know this has been a sort of down and out type of post but it isn’t meant to be like that—this is meant to be honest.  It’s meant to be a demonstration of how, even in our darkest times, we can be a light for others and sometimes those brightest lights are still dark to themselves.  We live in a complicated world—complicated by our own humanity, to be fair, but complicated nonetheless.  It doesn’t get any easier if we allow our minds to run rampant.  It’s a reminder that we need to be kind because sometimes the person who seems to keep it together for everyone, the one who is always smiling, is the one quietly falling apart inside.  And that space, when it feels like the inside is breaking down, is anything but quiet.  We need to be there for each other. We are all so aware that the way things are now isn’t working—we all feel a degree of shallowness and emptiness and disconnectedness because we have real feelings in fake times.  But real life keeps going and if we aren’t careful we can get dragged along with it.  So reach out.  Don’t believe what the mind tells us—and I know that can be easier said than done.  If you can’t reach out, find a way to remind ourselves that the mind isn’t always telling the truth.  The world has a lot of good, we are just a lot distracted and in a lot of pain.  Put it aside and when it feels like too much, if anything, just stop.  Breathe.  Ground in what we see/hear/smell/feel around us until the mind slows down.  Then remember that there is more out there and we can take it one step at a time—that’s all we ever could do, so allow ourselves to slow the pace.  Breathe again.  Begin again.