This quarantine thing will be the death of me, I am bored out of my mind. Yet, it may also be a good thing. It's made it so that I no longer have the public me, the polite me who will not say anything about being walked all over. Yeah she doesn't exist anymore. This entire experience had shown me so much about myself. Not all good either, there are some things that I have learned about myself that I absolutely hate. For instance, I shut down at the slightest confrontation. GRRRR! I don't like confrontation to begin with, but developing the self-preservation to just shut down?! Nope, just no.
I refuse to allow others to have that power over me. So I'm changing that, simply by allowing myself to feel the emotions that I have shut myself off from. How? The one way I would have never thought of (MidnightKoneko is the one who deserves ALL of the credit for this). Meditation. It's not easy either, allowing myself to feel the emotions AND focus?! Pffft, yeah it's a journey. I've got a routine though. If I feel overwhelmed by ANY emotion, I meditate. I only do it for 10 minutes, I have a sound playlist that helps me focus, and I have this candle that I focus on mentally. Go figure, the pyromaniac focuses better on fire. 🙄 Once I get set up, I do these steps:
- Completely focus on the candle, shut off everything else.
- Determine what emotion I'm feeling. What am I feeling?
- Identify why I'm feeling that emotion. What caused it?
- Allow myself to feel it, don't shut it off.
- Acknowledge that I am allowed to feel the way I do about whatever.
- Release the emotion, allowing myself to go back to the centered and calm place.
That's it. I've been doing this for a few day now, and it's gotten so that I don't even think about needing to do it. If I'm overwhelmed I'm instantly stopping whatever it is I'm doing and I'm headed off to meditate. My mind knows what it needs and I feel SO much better afterwards. It's kinda invigorating. It can also be exhausting depending on what emotion I'm dealing with.
What else am I doing? I'm painting. I haven't painted in months, and I'm just enjoying the relaxation I get from "artistically" spreading paint on a canvas. Sometimes it makes no sense. Like none. Other times it looks amazing. Case in point:
I'm also getting back into music. Granted, I've always listened to it, but I'm making it again. 😁 Happy Dance.
The one thing that I've been doing though that has probably been the most stressful. Everyone has had or still has friends that aren't the most... supportive, or they're constantly asking for something (money mostly). I'm evaluating the few friendships I have and I'm determining what I feel. I've learned that a lot of the people that I considered to be "friends" don't feel the same way, so I've been cleansing so to speak. I let things sit as they are, unless the are CONSTANTLY asking me for money, then I let them know that I will no longer be pushing myself to maintain a friendship that takes advantage of me. It's hard, and I'm not complaining about it. I'm simply stating it's hard. I feel better knowing who my true friends are, and I've made new ones as well. I guess being honest with yourself because you've got nothing better to do isn't a bad thing.
I hope y'all have an amazing weekend, and stay safe out there guys.
Thank you to all of the essential workers out there too. These are scary times, and y'all are truly heroes.