Woah, what a ride has this year been. And what have we gone through. I am so proud of and happy for everyone who has made it this far and we need to continue moving forward, overcoming any obstacles that mean both personal, communal.
But let me get to the point – with this blog and writing about my personal experience I wish to help people who have lost themselves trying to figure the world out. And, in this blog, create a small safe environment where shame and labels stay on the exterior side of the door.
I haven’t written here, however, in a very, very long time and that was caused by a beautifying process within me. I have successfully gotten rid of feelings of jealousy, emptiness and am curious about life now more than ever. One thing in particular, I am so proud to not question people anymore: I just roll with whatever they have to offer to me.
The days of self-oppression are over and now that I am reflecting on them, lets see what I used to do to harm myself:
- Deny my beauty: beauty is both objective and subjective. But I’m talking exterior beauty – the façade of it all. How can I seem welcoming when I wasn’t welcoming myself? I used to call myself ugly and for what – I wasn’t giving myself the objective opinion: has anyone ever called me that? And if so why does it matter? Why should I let it apply to me? When my opinion is the one defining my rules and the world around me.
- Work excessively in order to feel like I deserve anything good that happens in my life: unfortunately that has ‘disfigured’ my mind the most. And while I still continue to do it, I have changed my mindset about it. I used to tell myself that I wasn’t doing enough to deserve happiness, love, patience – so I was always the one-person-show – doing the most myself, just so I don’t have time for myself. That has made me a workaholic – and now that I do not believe that I don’t deserve anything anymore, I’m going to keep being a workaholic, because it makes me feel good!
- Distancing myself from people: always putting myself in other people’s shoes and it turned out that was actually a toxic trait that let me distance myself – and that hurt not just me, but people around me too. I always got the wrong impression about others’ perception of me and it’s unbelievable how many relationships with potentially important people in my life I have broken that way…
- Let others get into my mind: one bad word was just enough for somebody to get under my skin and absolutely control me for the rest of my life. I believed that word, repeated it to myself and slowly became it until there was nothing left. Building an opinion about myself let me also create a shield that protected me from unsafe eyes.
I am now free of the heavy load of my toxic feelings and, for the very first time in my life, let myself stop, rest a bit and figure out how am I going to enjoy my time – the one that is left, free of crap. It’s finally time for me to take my first breath of freedom from (self-) oppression and out of the jail cell I had built for myself. I am finally able to see the beauty of the world. I still, however, have some more working to do. But I can’t make myself sad anymore. Never again.
The only opinion that matters and applies to me is mine – pure and unseasoned by other people’s feelings. And now that I figured out how to save myself, I need to find the answer to the next big question: how do I help others? Especially those who have played the largest role in my self-definition and are now where I used to be. This is what I will be working on next, so I wish myself luck.
TOMMY EXPLORES THE WORLD 