Respect - No I am not just quoting the Aretha Franklin song

I haven’t written in 3 days due to various reasons of starting a new job, sickness and just plain not wanting to write. But no excuses (but I have to say considering I didn’t/couldn’t write for 4 months I think I am doing pretty good)

My ramble today is on respect, self-respect mostly.

Hunter S. Thompson is quoted saying:

 “We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”

When I first stumbled upon this quote I despised it.  I hate the idea of being alone. I love being with people, being apart of a group, feeling togetherness, a community, or at least I like the idea of it. Through that ideation I have strived to be well liked, I have worked to understand cultural norms, to fit in with societal standards, to primp and perfect myself so everyone would like me or at least accept me.

And when I wasn’t accepted or liked I would build a wall, find something that was wrong with that person but at the same time berate myself.

I think, but I could be wrong, this happens to many people, this awful self-consciousness that can hinder even the best people.

Overtime through therapy, role models and unconditional love form my friends and family I have began to understand the idea of self-acceptance, self love and self respect.

My brain is very much hard-wired to hate on myself and criticize myself, especially in a new situation like starting my new job, I am constantly fretting if my coworkers like me or if I am doing a good enough job. When I have days when I am feeling low I lash out at my loved ones, just last night I was feeling awful and sick, like my body was betraying me and when Dwayne tried to be generous and kind I lashed out at him feeling inferior and not worth his loving words.

Except luckily I am now in a space where I can understand when I am being irrational, when my hardwired brain is acting out.

I know I am great at my job and I know I deserve to be loved.

(Warning, this part is a bit sappy)

So the other day I was talking with my mother and saying how lucky I felt to be dating such a great guy and how happy I was it was going so well.

She responded by saying she thinks I just found the right one.

Which I do agree with, but I do not think I could of accepted Dwayne’s endless love, compassion, kindness and patience with me if it wasn’t for learning how to love myself and respect myself.

My past dating life has been an onslaught of dating not the greatest guys, they were not bad people themselves, but I never dated guys that I meshed with. I was constantly choosing men I thought wouldn’t pick up on my inadequacies, which led me to dating men who really didn’t ultimately care about me.

Another quote I really love is by Lao Tzu and the quotes says,

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.”

Now I am not at the point where I am not comparing or competing, I am drawn to compare myself and want to be the best. It is a fault I will constantly work on, however, respecting myself and letting myself love and be loved is the an amazing accomplishment I never knew I could obtain.

But this love will never make the fact that we live life alone, just as in the quote Mister Thompson said.

So as I go through life I work towards self-respect because in the end I am the one who has to go bed with my thoughts and wake up every day to live the life I choose to live.

We chose the directions in which we steer our lives, we may not choose if it stormy or calm, but how we navigate what is dealt to us ultimately makes each day what it is.

Love yourself and every storm will seem a little quieter and every calm day will hold more tranquility.

Constant=Change

The only constant in life is change.

This saying is everywhere and I hear it over and over again.

And every time change is about to happen in my life my tummy gets all wobbly and I can’t ever feel fully grounded.

My initial reaction is to push back, to stay stagnant. I try and find any excuse to keep things from changing.

However looking back on my past there are things I know that NEEDED to change and yet I refused to admit that and kept the same path for far too long. Relationships, living situations, bad habits and I’m sure there are a range of other things that I refused to change for a long time.

And then I did something and started creating change in my life. I started speaking up when I felt complacent; I started pushing for self-betterment and personal growth.

And honestly it has made me feel like a spiraling tornado that is creating chaos everywhere I go. Nothing in my life is settled and I feel like my unsettled nature can be detrimental for those around me. I never want my journey of self-discovery to hurt anyone or anything.

Since September I started a new job at Vernon opening a behavior classroom then proceeded to quit that job, got a job working for Portland Roasting Coffee stayed employed with them through the end of December and am now working at Lincoln Elementary. I also moved into a new place in December and oh yeah, started my Masters program.

I give myself a headache just thinking about the changes I have been going through and then I think about all the people who have helped and supported me. Phew. I am beyond grateful for what everyone has done and the support I have received. I wake up wondering how I have been so blessed.

But I also wake up with that question “at what cost am I willing to pay to find myself”? Is there ever a time where I should just slow down and accept life as it is? Is accepting life the same as giving up? Or is there a grace in finding pleasure in what is?

I feel like any wise teacher would tell me it is a balance.

And maybe in time I will find that balance.

But for now I have no answers.

I question if I should keep working on discovering myself and making changes or if I should accept life as it is and let the universe make the necessary changes for me.

Since I know I cannot get away from change because as I have been told:

The only constant in life is change.

RE: Def: To do again FRAME: Def: A particular state; as of the mind

There is this quote I stumbled on the other day and fell in love with, it says:

In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that have shaped you. – Andrea Dykstra

Now I feel like this is a pretty simple idea and some people may love all their experiences and life choices they have had or made throughout their life.

I however am not one of those people. 

I have taken the path less traveled, especially compared to my other siblings. I have gone rogue on my decision making and learning from trial and many errors rather than listening to the wise advice from others.

There are decisions and life choices that I am not particularly proud of; there are segments in my life where I seriously wonder how I made it through intact. And yet here I am making (what I like to think of as) wiser decisions.

But that doesn’t mitigate my past or make how I view my self any more favorable. I still have glaring cognitions that constantly remind me to do more, be more, to push harder and make up for the bumpy past.

So in therapy today (Yup, more therapy talk, this lady is a saint! I am telling you!) We talked about cognitive distortions.  My three glaring cognitive distortions that I thought I had under control are:

1. I am a failure
2. I am a dumb girl
3. I am irresponsible

Now these three distortions are most glaring when I talk about getting lost but apparently with trauma, well trauma does a great job at pulling up all the shit you thought you fixed or at least buried deep enough to not have to worry about for another decade or so.

So here I am feeling like a dumb, irresponsible girl that is failing at life.

WEEEEE!!!! Who doesn’t love feeling that way?

Well me, actually and I think most people.

Negative cognitions are vicious and most every person has them.  The funny thing about negative cognitions is they can sneak attack and kidnap all the positive cognitions. For every ten positive cognitive thoughts, one, just one negative cognitive thought can take hostage of all the good yumminess that was once present.

So I can either throw up my hands and say fuck it and let my negative cognitions hijack my brain (which is easy to do) or I can be a ninja and fight back.

I am practicing my ninja moves as I type; these ninja moves are actually called reframing.

I am assuming most everyone has heard the cliché term “reframe”, change the perspective and it will change the situation.

Simple, right?

WRONG

For every negative cognition, you must reframe it three times.

One simple example I will use is my negative cognition that haunts me daily:

I am fat.  (thanks irrational brain for making feel like fattie)

Now the three reframing phrases: 

1. I workout every day
2. I eat healthy
3. My BMI is no where near the unhealthy range

This is the rational brain and rational thinking. It seems REALLY simple but even as I write my reframing sentences my irrational brain says BUT you ate chips today or had a cookie.

Essentially it is like Jekyll and Hyde in the brain, the good and the bad fighting for the show. BUT the more you practice rational thinking it will become easier and you will start to believe it…(or at least that is what my therapist promised)

So here I am, reframing my life, my experiences. My awkward, jumbled past that I have created negative cognitions for are no longer negative. I am learning to accept my past, that I am human, that all my mistakes and my less than traditional path has helped create me to be me.

And I may not ne perfect, but I am good.

I can do it myself....or can I?

The last two times I wrote was about being lost and the affect being lost had on me, or what I thought the affect was.

Since then every time I have sat down to write I have stared blankly into space, at times I have scribbled words down but nothing felt right. In all honesty the last 5 months since being lost, nothing has felt right. And within those five months I continually refused to believe that one day could turn my life upside down, could shake me to my core so greatly that I lost sight of who I was and how to function in a way where I lived for joy and not just to make it through the next day.

About two months ago I started going to therapy because I just wasn’t happy but I didn’t want to believe it was because of what happened in Canyonlands. I went to therapy because I recognizing things in myself I did not want to see. I had this need for total control, I was constantly on edge, happiness was a far away I thought, the things I once loved doing became a struggle for me. (Yes I realize this sounds like a commercial for depression) Luckily for me I had people who stood by my side and helped me as I struggled (you know who you are) and through this constant floundering I have realized something:

I cannot always do it myself.

My significant other, Dwayne, and I have a running joke that I am always saying “I can do it myself”.  For the past 4 months he has stood patiently as I have struggled with priding myself with my fierce independence and learning that sometimes it is OK to need others.

That is the part that is the hardest since being lost. I so fiercely wanted to be independent before I was lost, I did not want to need anyone. I could do it myself. I didn’t want anyone to have control over me. I wanted to be me in all my glory. Well the desert had a different story for me.

My therapist is having me retell my story through emotions, she is having me identify what I felt through each stage and the sights, the sounds, everything that affected me and then after she asks me my present emotions, how I feel about it currently.

Through this process I am able to work through my anger that no one understands, my anger towards myself, my fear of hiking and rock cairns, the presumption that the desert took away my identity.  

I am learning to accept my emotions and through accepting my emotions tiny miracles have happened. I finally got to see my brother over the holidays and I talked about working through my trauma, he gave me sound advice as tears tumbled onto his cheeks, he was the first person I saw show emotion for my journey. His tears, his emotion, his love, validated me in my story.  For once I didn’t feel like a glorified story of a dumb girl who got lost in the desert. And through this, I am learning to accept my story and the trauma I have to work through.

I still have anger in the pit of my stomach, I have a this yearning for people to understand what I am going through but realistically I know that will not happen.

However I am now beginning to understand it is ok to not always having to do it myself.

There is a love and glory in this world I am finally being able to see again and the joy of living day to day is finally returning.

Here, here to 2017 and 30 days of blogging.