Thoughts on what you are not

Happy Hump Day all! I thought today would be the perfect day to share this post with you all, as it might get you over the last of the working week quicker and feel better about yourself.



I've decided, enough is enough with the constant war on myself.

With the volunteering I do for mental health I've always been told I'm so brave to share my story and live my life despite my difficulties, but in light of any of that I've never felt brave. I know that blogging so openly about my mental health in a word that stigamatises it is quite risky and I've been called brave on so many occasions for doing so. I think about it and I think it's good to share my story, but it still doesn't take away my illness. I still feel in my core the very things I write about and share and they still sit inside me rotting me away. But I'm tired. I am tired of waging a war on myself because I feel I have to be 100x better because I have an illness that makes me feel like I am nothing. I think in the struggle to defeat my illness I enhance it because I live in a society where people are just actually better than me. That's just it. There are people doing more exciting things than me, people happier than me, people funnier than me and the list goes on. But I've come to that point where I have to just let that be.

We all have a journey and a role, and sometimes I think just taking a step back and assessing your life objectively is the best way to see your role. Trying to be everything is exhausting, and often, untrue to yourself. Sometimes chasing a way of what you think you should be will trap you in an endless cycle of misery, as you struggle to attain the unattainable. 

The thing with depression is you feel empty. The thing with low self-esteem is you never feel good enough. I struggle with both so these feelings are bound to plague me. But it's worth nothing that being a female in her early twenties means I have doubts about being good enough, because I'm just at the stage in my life, and well because I'm human. For me it can be hard to differentiate between what is an illness and what is just general life thoughts. The thing with spending all your time wondering if you're enough is it consumes your energy to actually be good at the things you're already good at, or could be good at. So it's a vicious cycle of what is what, and how do I fix myself? But I'm not broken.I have an illness that takes away a lot from me, and in my fight to fix what I am not, I keep forgetting what I'm up against.

I've come to realise always had a thing about being "perfect" things can go really well, but I will pick out what did not go well and negate the rest. Wondering about what you are not is a waste of time. You cannot be everything, nor should you really want to be. To always focus on what we are not, means we never appreciate what we are. 

Not funny enough, not active enough, not clever enough. Not enough.

To tell yourself this repeatedly is a sure to way to ensure that stay stuck in a cycle of "not enough." You're enough as you are, and you're enough when you're happy and doing good.

One quote that I read years and and has always stuck with me is "Comparison is the thief of joy" So much of our lives is spent comparing ourselves to others that we ever rarely appreciate how good we are now and just how far we've come. Mental illness or not we're all guilty of what I've written about today and it's time for a breath of fresh air and pat on the back. As much as we'd all like to "get over it" life can get incredibly tough and dark and it's at these points you realise that you've got to take the pressure off yourself and know that you're good enough. Everyone has their own journey, and whilst you can feel like you're not doing what everyone else is because you don't have enough money/don't have a partner/don't have this skill/you're ill, know that you have great things coming for you and not everything has to be now now now. In the mean time I plan to not devalue myself, my friends or my life because of what I think I/they/it should be or because of what other people have.

P.S I'm finding yoga and meditation very helpful, it makes my head a lot clearer!

P.P.S Jess Glynne says it all here . 

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