Finding Peace within Myself

This week I started doing something “new”. I wanted to feel content and happy on my own. I’ve never lived alone; I don’t know how to BE alone and since my significant other is traveling this week and for the next few weeks, I knew that I needed to change that. Typically, when he travels, I fall into this weird depression, and I don’t have any motivation to do anything but watch trashy television and eat take out. It is NOT the vibe and honestly, I hate it. I NEEDED to change it, so I did. I bought these reflection journals on amazon a few months ago, Gratitude, Mindfulness, Selfcare, and Unplug. I used the Gratitude one for a few days right when I just got it but almost immediately stopped doing it, not because I didn’t like it but because I was just being lazy. This week, however, I started using Gratitude, Mindfulness, and Selfcare every day. They have little prompts in them, like the Gratitude one has your list things your grateful for and a positive impact you made that day, the Selfcare one has a section to put your workout and write kind things you did for yourself etc. They are really useful for getting your mind into that state of self-reflection. I have also started journaling again. I haven’t done daily journaling in ages, and I forgot how light it makes you feel. Its just a great outlet for all those heavy emotions and energies that you don’t realize you are carrying and are weighing you down. I’ve been giving myself time to decompress after work before I work out, and I have been keeping up with my workout routine. Part of doing this has just been keeping me busy so I’m more focused on myself and less on the fact that I’m alone and missing him but a bigger part of this has just made me feel good. I have been content with myself, and proud of the progress I have made in the past few years. It has brought to my attention that I am in a better place than I used to be, even though I didn’t feel like I was making progress. I mean I still have my moments when I fall into depressive episodes and there are times where I get overwhelmed with self-doubt, but I don’t let that define me anymore. I know how to help pull myself out of those bad spaces and my current goal is to eventually erase them all together. I’ve only been doing this for a week but already I’m feeling so much better in my own head.

Like I said before I am doing this because I have trouble being alone. It’s not something that I’m used to and in the past when I had time to myself, I used it to just sit and be myself and watch the shows I wanted to watch and listen to the music that I wanted to listen to because I felt like I couldn’t do the things that I wanted and enjoyed. I was constantly under this pressure to be someone that I wasn’t that alone time was decompression and rest. Now that I don’t have to constantly keep that façade in place, that alone time started to feel less like a space to relax in and more like an excuse to be lazy. I started feeling guilty about not accomplishing anything but then I wasn’t able to make myself do anything to ease that guilt. It was a horrible cycle that I couldn’t stand to be in anymore. As soon as I was alone, I would just feel depressed and who wants to feel depressed when they are by themselves???? I just wanted to be able to spend the afternoon in my own company and enjoy it. I wanted to be able to be present within myself and enjoy the quiet peace that can come from being alone. I didn’t want to be running from myself anymore. I know that this is just the beginning for me, and it is going to get a lot harder, especially when I start to really face the aspects of myself that I don’t like, but that will come in time and right now I am just glad I started.

With all the light and love,

Alyse

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