A friend told me about Naval Ravikant recently so I went to check out his content.
“Anxiety is a pervasive unidentifiable stress. You’re stressed all the time but you’re not even sure why.”
This quote was particularly on point for me.
2014-2024 were full of anxiety for me that got steadily worse. It got so bad that I was breaking down into frequent meltdowns. I was in such a bad place before that I was frequently disassociating and distracting myself to relieve the stress.
Through a lot of therapy over the past several years, I was slowly able to identify what the major sources of my anxiety were.
I was wasting so much energy worrying about what other people thought of me, how I wasn’t meeting their expectations, and feeling like I had disappointed others. I was trying too hard to be something other people wanted me to be instead of accepting that I was never going to change the way others treated me and that I needed to start on a new path where I could be myself, accept myself, and grow.
I made the hard decisions needed to break bad patterns, remove people, remove behaviors from my life that were hurting me and making me anxious. It was incredibly difficult to see it when I was in it. But therapy slowly revealed it to me and I was able to remove those things from my life.
Once I answered the question of “what” is my source of anxiety and remove them, it was time to understand why.
Why did I allow these people into my life for so long?
Why did I abandon myself and who I am for so long?
I’ve done a lot of therapy, healing, reflecting, reading, and journaling to unravel why I made these poor choices so that I don’t keep repeating them.
It was programming created to protect my inner child. Those behaviors protected me then but they are sabotaging me in my adult life.
I had to people please to survive in school as a child. I had to be quiet and hide who I was to avoid being bullied. But now things are different. I can make the more healthy choice of just walking away from people who hurt me instead of trying to get them to like me. My inner child is with me and she is now protected and safe.
I’m grateful I’m in a much better place now. I’m at the point where I rarely feel anxious. I’m more present, more productive, and am way more present when with my friends and family.
I understand now what role I played that lead to my suffering and have made better choices that are for my wellbeing. I am on my phone a LOT less and have returned to my Miracle Morning routine. (Though admittedly, I’m not doing them all in the morning but no matter when I do them they still help!)
My healing journey isn’t over yet but I’m proud of myself for the progress I’ve made and for making the very necessary and very hard decisions to love myself, accept myself, and save my life.
I’m very much excited for the future ahead of me. It’s going to be awesome!
⛵