Stepping Back to Move Forward

#feministambivert #reflectionsofafeministambivert #reflections #traumainformed #selfcare #keepingitreal #emotions

I haven’t been around on here much lately. I have been navigating some personal challenges. I have been emotionally and physically hurting.  I have had to prioritise my energy, and this meant being able to sit with my inner thoughts for a while.

There were days and especially nights, where this felt extremely difficult, and I often felt overwhelmed with anxiety. My emotions have been very up and down, and it has often been a challenge dealing with everyday tasks. Everything feels like a constant juggle, and I have been dropping balls or flaming skittles everywhere!

Have I been working hard, yes-although it has felt like I have not been giving my best self to my work at times. Have I been socialising and going out, yes-at every opportunity to distract myself and heal from a lot of heartache and pain. I love seeing my friends and my family, and mostly I feel safe with them and can have some escapism. But this leaves me feeling guilty like I am actively masking and not being my true self or open to those I care for. Have I been maintaining my household chores, sometimes, and my family has been cared for as a priority always. So, I guess to the outside world I have appeared relatively ‘normal’, whatever that is meant to look like. But when I am alone, dissecting my current situations, I start to listen to my inner voices and allow my emotions to flow. I then feel lonely, misunderstood, unwanted, distraught, unsettled, depressed, frustrated, fearful, angry, and frankly quite lost, like a huge piece of my soul is just missing.

I have made choices this year that have been life changing. Most of them have absolutely been the right choices and despite being hard ones, I have little to no regret in making them. But others have made me question my self-worth, challenged my boundaries, and forced me to acknowledge some hard truths about my life-past, present and where I want to be in my future.

I have been attempting to advocate for myself and give myself physical care. But one of my challenges, I find in my personality and have often been told, is that I struggle with middle ground. I am often one extreme to the other. I know this for me, is a trauma response, but I still find it hard to manage when I am triggered. I either go all in and become productive, with what seems all cylinders firing -fitness, nutrition, water intake, skincare and sleep routines, housework, creative projects, helping others, work etc. Or I go all out and ignore warning signs and allow myself to become burned out. I start to feel physically weak, binge eat, ignore priorities, procrastinate, neglect certain elements of self-care and hermit myself away from anything that isn’t necessary. This then leads to me talking negatively about myself, overthinking, and worrying. I feel like I have let myself down and in turn others. It is a very hard cycle to break out of.

Despite being rationally aware of these patterns of behaviour, I find myself remaining beholden to darker thoughts and moods, even when I know I have many positive things in my life with plenty joyful things to look forward to and be grateful for.

I am not a person who often asks or reaches out for support, despite encouraging this to others. I find it difficult to be able to rely on people, as this has so often left me feeling vulnerable and hurt, wishing that I didn’t invite anyone into my private feelings or life. This has left me with issues around trust and abandonment. It’s still a conscious effort on my part to work on overcoming years of self-blame.

However, allowing myself to acknowledge and voice these elements of my character is self-care. It is emotional growth, and it is the acceptance that I may always be this way. What matters is that I lean into these extremities rather than resisting, because this only causes me more inner conflict. I know I must work harder to embrace who I am, as a whole person. My lessons, I feel, are to not let external situations have so much power over my emotions, and certainly not give it/them power to define me. I now remind myself that even when I am feeling like a professional hypocrite when I am feeling at my worst, that it just means I am having a human experience.

There is seemingly societal pressures that has become ingrained, that to not feel or be perceived as a ‘failure’, success and self-worth is measured by what we own, popularity, our accommodation status, our materialistic or employment value, or how robust, longevity and successful personal relationships have been. It can be a way to convince ourselves that we are comfortable in our lives, and we should be grateful despite at times feeling unhappy. But I think being comfortable is very different from being content. Being content within, does mean being self-aware and confident enough in ourselves to listen to our intuition. It is to trust that sometimes you can take a step back in life, or maybe what feels like quite a few, to be able to move forward. Moving forward can be little steps or giant leaps. Either way, it is embracing your authenticity and always thriving to have a better understanding of yourself.

So here I am, back reflecting, still trying to better understand myself. I have taken my steps back, probably not for the last time- but for now I am moving forward.

Watch out world, here I come.

Love the Feminist Ambivert x