Spotted Garments and the Healing Power of Owning Up!

The Evolution

In this last quarter of the year, I am giving my vulnerabilities a lot of exposure to a lot of new companies. I am amused with how the person I have become is just not as weak, afraid, and too flustered as they thought or even used to be. In the previous year, this time presented me with a lot of anxiety, triggering moments, and a new way of life as I had to come to terms with the unusual pleasures of life. My depression was at its peak. There are a few considerable changes I have made peace with which are not even close to how I thought life should be lived. I have somehow managed to adapt to a life of not keeping up with everything and everyone I care for. I never saw this as a possibility in my many years of trying to please everyone else but myself. In learning to be okay with not being preferred or understood, I have unlearned a need to overextend. It is not easy, but it has helped me have time to get to be more stable with the person I am, for there is more time for myself. To be left with the truth that health is wealth for a while there, being hospitalized was rough. It was even more rough to be in there and be sure that rightfully, nothing or no one had paused their life till I was better. You need no conviction than that, to realize that in the end, it is your life and not anyone else’s to be well lived or wasted. I have come to leverage the ‘not wanting to be right” – pleasure all too well. It saves me a lot from the need to explain my thought process and moves. I am calmer and more receptive to disagreements, disappointments, and mistakes. It turns out, such things take away nothing from my truth, opportunities, and growth when I let go or give in. It saves me a whole lot of energy as well. My mind has fewer thoughts to juggle, and my sleep has improved. It still gets to be too much there and there, but it is less scary now since I am aware that I have developed the capacity to overcome it.

The Awareness...

I have been through a lot that has left me accustomed to functioning at ease in my own space and time in situations I would have opted to be surrounded. My need to share every experience with others has dropped to discerning better what is better off retained, contained, and untamed. A mystery to everyone is a jewel for the right one. I am the right one, only to God to know mostly and completely. I had an almost fatal accident driving to work this month, and I was completely in the moment on my own like most things lately. In no rush to call anyone or relay over the experience, I calmly assessed with a few strangers and then carried on with my journey saying endless prayers. I do not know if this is because I have made peace with the fact that in life, much can be taken away in a matter of seconds and it would be a waste of valuable time thinking all your individual experiences are ground-breaking to others. There is something special about being present within yourself. We are all living lives that matter after all. Everyone is special in their way, and what may be “a wow” to me might be “an okay” to others. Do not get me wrong, I believe some people would feel my absence if I were no more, but I also have come to reconcile with the reality of how life goes on with or without my presence. It is one of those hard life truths most people would rather not read, hear, or speak of. So, here I am now, as the year is almost to its conclusion – the things that are rather unattractive about me and life itself I thought, how am I dealing with them? The ugly sides and the parts that I know very well, I am unsure, unhappy, unsatisfied, and evsfiedrdened by – how am I making peace with that, without taking away from the glorious parts? Reconciliation in taking no pleasure or interest in being right, and the acknowledgment that I can live though I am not in the know, relevant, or wanted is a thing for me at the moment. These things are not easy to swallow at all, but they are very much of reality in so many cases and spaces. I have been putting the blame and shame on myself for the spots in my garments a lot as part of my healing. What a humbling process!

Accounting...

In my previous post, I asked a few challenging questions about my beliefs. Some in the pause and self-evaluate section entreat how one reconciles with oneself and how at peace they are with themselves. I may shed some light on this as I follow through my life’s journey. Believe it or not, a big part of loving yourself and accepting who you are brings about a way in which you can correspond with yourself, especially in moments when you are struggling to handle your faults, mistakes, challenges, and even misfortunes. And this is when you can discover your way to be at peace with whatever you are about. This is part of self-reconciliation. You must value acknowledging where you are against yourself to grasp the depth of your potential. Some of the things that haunt us are not out of the ordinary, you can find that you just haven’t developed a deeper sense of awareness when you are wrong. This is why learning to apologize is difficult for some. This was one of my struggles. I FELT as though admitting I was wrong gave others or things power over my life. I have learned to come to terms with what I embody that is not good for me so that I do not resist change and even progress. Not wanting to be wrong blinds in seeing a need to wash one’s spotted garments. Most of the time we start focusing on those of others instead. This has a ripple effect in stunting our growth since we will be people who are of no account. No accountability is simply a lack of responsibility. Irresponsibility usually leads us to a distorted outlook as to why a lot of things in our lives do not work for our good. It takes courage to own up to where we are to blame. Courage in this attracts grace, and grace is a powerful companion to a serene relationship with self. I am all about this in this post.

Some Spots in my Garments

In retrospect of most things, I have been through (whether good or bad – to my own doing or those of others), one thing I feel I could have used to live a much more fulfilled life rather than a depressive one is that of looking at myself more rather than shifting blame. I am not in any way excusing where I have been wronged, shamed, betrayed, hurt, abused, or anything like that. I am just putting it as well, that at this point of my self-care journey, it is very rewarding to focus on where I inflicted harm on myself or may have contributed to my demise. The time wasted in shifting blame and being a victim has left my life garments with so many spots, covering me. Some of them are so stained, they will never be spotless again no matter how accountable I have grown to be. Some stains have even ended up leading to a worn-out look as I have tried so hard to wash the same spot repeatedly with no success. There are so many things in my life that cannot be undone which I wish they could. In my failure to accept that even though the stains were not my doing, it was still my clothes covered in the dirt. In other words, my life remains mine no matter how badly it may be affected by other people or matters I cannot control. Being in denial can work for one’s demise as it is an inability to look deep into self, as to where it is one could use a change. The focus on the external is most of the time cowardice I am convinced by now. It is a move that serves the weakest parts of my being. The parts that feed the part of me lacking in self-care. There has been an element of deeper healing power in owning up to my own mistakes or even understandable side effects of some traumas I have experienced. It is wisdom, to gracefully notice the spots in your garments and make an intentional decision to wash them I have learned. It gives inner peace that cannot be tempered with. This is a big part of living in love with yourself, which is about self-acceptance (the theme of the blog for this year).

Being Intentional about growth

I listen to a show called Ask A Man on Metro FM a lot during weekdays, and as people come on anonymously to ask for advice on how best to deal with issues in their relationships of many kinds, a lot of times it turns out they are the ones to do a better job of relating with themselves first, before they can even manage relating with other people. No matter how painful their situation is when they share what they have been put through, the advice that always resonates or stands out is how much more of themselves they need to love and care for. It always echoes the need to accept, and forgive themselves and then start a healing process. All these are elements that raise self-awareness to a need for better self-truth and care. I only reaped from my self-care investments only when I started doing the same things. Whether it involved my childhood trauma or Postpartum depression. From my Spiritual journey to my career. Marriage and friendships. Even my financial health status demoralized me to own up first to my bad decisions, and lack of discipline before I could even find healthier ways of managing. This I am convinced is how best one can reconcile with themselves. It is how they can be at peace with who they are. I have spots on my garments ranging from not trusting my gifts and talents to not letting go of things to open room for what is coming through. You could say, I hold on to pain, lack trust, and even use fear as reason enough to not fully go for what I know and have even seen I am capable of. I also care too much and end up carrying much of other people’s weight as though it is mine. I believe life has struck me hard enough to know how fragile I am to even try and play hero. At times, I also have some insecurities about my lifestyle. However, unwilling to conform, I often feel like an outcast whenever I am with regular company. But I do remind myself every time, that my sole purpose in life is not to fit in. I have yet to find people with similar interests to be in proximity physically. As a result, I naturally doubt if I am different or just indifferent. It is not a train smash, it has helped me receive different perspectives from mine with clarity. Also, I hardly ever spend time with my best friends, maybe I should prioritize this in the coming year. Practical matters!

The Healing Power thereof...

There is so much I socially do not fit into in my own opinion, which is in fashion yet so out of depth for my liking. The beautiful part of this though, is my growing disinterest to advocate my dislike for it all. If people around me are comfortable with their choices, I should be able to focus on my own. I work against myself through overthinking (as mentioned many times). It is through a close call of losing a relationship with someone I value that I realize I am putting just about every other bad relationship ever experienced in my life on them. The extra thoughts on it that they couldn’t possibly love me as they claim were valid though, for even I was not loving myself enough. Most things we experience in our lives leaving spots on our garments have a way of coming back to how we are internally unwilling to wash them off yet, if at all. The surface of ours only we can see, feel, and even choose to hide, or expose is of enormous significance and should not be neglected. If you lack an embrace of being vulnerable, your garments have a good chance of having long-lasting stains. I am one of the gracefully broken in life I believe. Everything about me in my consciousness I believe can truly show this. I did not just wake up knowing about myself, able to be at peace in isolation. I did not just wake up one day and start knowing that I could handle the humiliation of publishing a blog with grammatical errors and yet – keep at it for three years now. I am not just able to speak my mind and be okay with being misunderstood. I do not just prefer non-alcoholic drinks or dancing freely almost anywhere. I am not just suddenly able to be vulnerable and meet up with people I used to avoid. I am not just here suddenly sharing memes in the socials and not being tense all the time. I am not just able to drive from one point to another on my own longer than usual and not be crying hysterically. I do not just write confidently, I talk, smile, dance, laugh, cry, come through, and be through likewise too. This takes a lot of self-work. I had to do some work of in taking an interest in myself. The things I like, what I do not like, my limitations, my abilities, my life’s setup and its demands, adjustments to real-life changes as well as those in me. I had to acknowledge where I was a wreck and embrace where I was shining. It is not an easy task to carry for anyone. It tickles me in all the right places when I notice the progress in handling some things that used to break me. It especially makes me proud knowing that I patiently continue to gather broken pieces and permit myself to see where I can still mend and again, where I can cast away. It gives me a healthy appetite for life. The work in progress I am tapping into the peaceful side of living. The continuous prayer for more presence in the joys of what the hard work is paying off is comforting still in moments of terror and wilderness. I do get caught up in my emotions still. I still get some isolated sleepless nights. I get insecure still asking myself why certain things had to happen in the first place. I do choke when I think of lost opportunities or opportunities that aren’t falling on my path that would ease a lot of things. My garments are not spotless at all. I am, however, not sitting here not doing my laundry. This is why I am breathing better in my own space.

The Encouragement to Reconcile with Self

Suppose you are like me and know very well your garments are full of spots. In your neglect of or keeping the dirty laundry locked away in the closet, would you confidently say it is best to serve the life of living in the power of your significance? I know some life encounters leave us in doubt and feeling small, though we can camouflage it big time. But I will ask again if indeed you are at peace – with yourself? Can you reconcile with the honest answer you came up with and pray for yourself PLEASE? It matters that you consider living a life that encourages you to own up to your part in internal and external wars of life. You can grow from seeing your contribution to defects and detests’ to your detriment. Put off the comfort of feeling sorry for yourself and do your laundry. It is one of the hardest things you will ever do, I won’t lie. It is an everyday choice to make, for the rest of your life. Consider what it is you can be in serenity with, though some parts of your life demoralize and overwhelm the living out of you. It can be comfortable to not be working on oneself intentionally but just smooth sailing in life. To not be thinking of the bad or hard things about your life at all sounds good. You may even be convinced you are just a positive person. However, the acknowledgment of what is discomforting can be your ladder of growth. Learn to appreciate the climb, it Matters, and You Matter!

“Everyone loses their class when they travel through hell, but only a few will regain it if they remain humble and accept the part they played in their own misery.” ― Shannon L. Alder

#selfcare #selfawareness #selfacceptance #selfdevelopment #courageous #mindset #mediafromwix #youmatter #selfevaluation #goodreadsquotes

Regards

Livhuwasha