Today was cleansing.
I’ve been feeling like utter and complete total shit recently. A lot of drugs and alcohol have to do with that. No one feels pretty hung over. But there’s just things I’ve been trying to do, meaning to do for like over a year and everyday I just don’t make them happen. I feel like I bounce around so much I can’t get stable. When I’m home for a decent amount of time I get in a groove, I find my niche, I start gaining traction. And then for some reason or another all my hair products end up in a suitcase and I’m off to someplace or another. Exciting? Yeah, kinda sorta. But really disorienting. I keep coming home feeling changed ever so slightly.
Sometimes I feel like there are two of me: One that sort of sucks and one who has it so totally completely amazingly together. I mean, even when she doesn’t have it all together she doesn’t even give a fuck because she knows she’s a boss and that God smiles on her everyday and that everything unfolds as it should. My therapist told me I might have a case of the “perfectionism” thing. That I’m fixated on everything in my life being the most perfect version of itself, mainly…myself. Meanwhile…come into my room on like any given day and the piles of shit everywhere would definitely make you think wait, perfectionist what? She told me to look at this page on her website about perfectionism to see what I thought. Turns out a lot of the things on there rung true for me.
What we’re working on now is balancing those two “Nomi’s.” Everyone has a best version of themselves. A confident, successful you. And naturally everyone has a “dark side.” A side with insecurities, anxieties, fears and doubts. You need both sides to be whole. You need both sides to be human. My tarot card readers have been trying to nail this into me for some time, too. “You can’t force yourself to stay ‘up,’ Nomi. You have to allow for the range of emotion, the range of feelings. They are all valid. It’s our down sides that fuel our up sides.”
What my therapist is trying to get me to learn is that those sides need to exist side by side. One can’t sit on top of the other, because then that allows the other to sit on top of it. I.e. if you try to suppress all your “dark” side, then you give your “dark” side the power to eventually suppress your confident, successful side.
What I take this to mean is that when I’m feeling down, or depressed, or doubting every decision I’ve ever made, or feeling like I’m a total waste of space, I bring in some elements of things that I just know to be solidly awesome things about myself. And also acknowledge that hey this a low moment. Right now I’m feeling not so great but let me just feel all the corners of this. Let me explore what this feels like to be down, and what made me feel down. Let me live this. It helps knowing things come in cycles.
But I realized it only takes three things for me to feel good, to get me back into a positive space:
- Exercise (like everyday)
- Being at least mildly conscious of what I’m eating
- Journaling and praying (not to like “God” but just whatever is making the world go round, you know)
Like today was one of those “enough is enough” moments. I slept in till like three and looked at myself in the mirror like “alright girl, time for you to start killing it again.” I made myself some breakfast, worked out for like 20 minutes, did all my laundry, cleaned my horrifically messy room, polished my jewelry (which I’ve done literally never times, but my mom keeps nagging me to do it), cleaned my makeup brushes (Apparently you’re supposed to do this like once a week? Do people actually do that? Like is that a thing?), had a business call I was sort of putting off, straightened my hair, and cleansed my room with crystals and sage smoke. I’m feeling pretty fucking awesome.
Sometimes moving forward and making progress isn’t as complicated as we make it out to be. Sometimes it’s mental; getting your head in the right space, reading something that inspires you, listening to music that makes you think, journaling.
Sometimes it really is as simple as cleaning your room and doing your damn laundry.