THE JOURNEY OF LEARNING HOW TO ALLOW MYSELF TO EXPRESS CREATIVITY.

Every day gets a lot better. In fact I have found myself wishing quarantine would never end.  It’s like the world has stopped and for the first time I’m giving myself permission to do exactly what I want. I think I have spent the better part of my life walking the tight rope. Tying to keep myself happy by keeping everyone else happy. No, I’m not going to say I try to keep everyone else happy, because that’s not the truth. Truly, the feeling that gets me the most is what I feel about myself. If someone else is happy then I feel fine, and If I feel fine then all is good in the world. If someone is unhappy with me then it has the power to create self-doubt and a desire for self destruction. Granted this happens on so many levels depending on the person. I have realized it always comes back to me. I think I have spent lifetimes thinking I do it all for everyone else, but I don’t. I don’t think I can ever truly escape the cycle of self sabotage of letting others control my emotions but I can definitely get better at it. Certain people have a great effect on how I feel about myself. I have spent time thinking about who those people are and why they have that effect. I haven’t been able to completely understand why I would give my power over that easily but I have and still do at times.

With the isolation I have been living the last month I have thought a lot about this. I feel like the world has fallen away and I can set foot outside the castle of guidelines I have created for myself to stay safe and maintain my good girl persona. I wasn’t always this way for sure. I spent the better part of my teens and 20’s as the wild child, always keeping one jump ahead of getting into any serious trouble. I didn’t want any attention for my rebellious behavior I just wanted to forget that I was shortchanging myself while burying all my deepest desires and passions. I was really good at day-dreaming and just as quickly kicking my dreams down to the deepest part of myself. My denial was so deep about the possibility of achievement that I didn’t even give myself the chance to entertain the thought of what would bring me the most joy. I had zero confidence that I would be capable of accomplishing anything. I made it look like whatever I was interested in actually had so many bad qualities that it wasn’t worth pursuing.  Not because I truly believed it, but because I was scared of failing if I tried. 

I came up with every excuse I could think of why that one thing that was calling me would be bad or disappointing. The journey to considering that I actually would be capable of such tings has been long. I figured everyone else had the natural ability to succeed and I must not have been born with it. That was very discouraging to me to think like that. Again I remind myself of my shortcomings, because not only was I not capable of accomplishing what I truly wanted but I was also lacking the natural ability to accomplish in general. As I write this now, I think to myself, no one will want to read this. The only difference now is that I don’t give a fuck. 

I’m going to write it anyway. I’m going to write it for who ever randomly comes along and needs to hear it. Maybe it’s my neighbor or someone in Singapore or maybe it my daughter or maybe it’s just me. At some point I discovered that It doesn’t matter how bad I want to hide behind my fears and insecurities, I have to stand up and reconcile with all the dreams and desires that I have humiliated and abused because of my fears about whatever I might think about my self. Because let me tell you, it’s not about what other people think, it’s about what I think!  Because when that disapproving glance comes from whoever, it’s not about what they think it’s about how what they think makes me feel. And we all have a choice. I had to make that choice that it was ok to feel however I felt. What wasn’t ok was continuing to let myself make choices that diminished my dreams and passions because I had that reaction. 

So today I feel good about being in quarantine. I like being with myself. I love giving myself permission to consider a life of doing exactly what I want. For the first time I feel like no one is looking. In a strange way, I’m banking on everyone being so distracted about the virus that they won’t notice me living my life, trying new things, falling and getting back up. As if I can learn so much more from failure than I can from success. Maybe that’s why I put so much emphasis on what I’m failing at. I must really recognize the potential for growth by leaning from my mistakes.  

With is the constrains of this quarantine I feel so much freedom. I believe that too many choices can create a lot of chaos in ones life. Now I’m limited to just a very few. It seems that I thrive in that environment.  As a dear friend said to me today, “This is an introvert/empaths dream life, and we don’t have to feel bad about it.”