Questions from Melony Hill’s Writing for My Sanity Therapeutic Writing Workshop.
What are you doing to make changes for 2020?
I don’t know what will happen in 2020. I made plans for 2019, and none of them happened the way I expected.
I felt like I have been on an upward rise ever since I started going to therapy. My journey here was a long one, starting sometime in 2017 when I began watching Celest Viciere‘s Therascopes, where she would do public therapy sessions via Periscope. They were daily, practical sessions gear towards improving your mental health. And best of all for broke me, they were free. After around a year of that, I finally hired a therapist with Boundless Innovations in Baltimore, and things really began taking off. My self-confidence drastically improved. I began becoming more assertive. I took my self-care very seriously. I began doing yoga with Andhyana Yoga. I started working out. I began slowly cutting people out my life who were not encouraging me to improve. I got divorced. I healed.
The level of improvement that I’ve been on, and the trajectory that it has taken me, tells me I need to keep living with open hands. To keep moving forward. To keep loving. Keep being vulnerable.
Changes will come in 2020. But if I’m flexible and strong, I know I can handle, and even love these changes.
What steps do you need to take to catch up on doing the things you didn’t get to do in 2019?
The list is long. I want to get my book of art published. I want to get ready to move out of my house. I want to get fully back on the saddle with work so I’m bringing in a serious income again. I want to make sure I keep investing in my health; mental, physical, and emotional. I want to keep growing, keep loving.
- The Book: I need to set aside an hour a week to work on the book and get it finished.
- Move Out: I need to pack a box a week. I need to research places to stay. I need to secure funding for my next house and for the move itself.
- Work: I need to commit to a regular schedule, and make sure I find a place I can work and focus while the kids are in school.
- Health:
- Mental: I need to make sure I continue going to therapy every week, start couples therapy, and come to the Writing For Your Sanity course at least 2x a month.
- Physical: I need to go to the gym 3x a week. Minimum. I should also be going for walks in the mornings when I drop off the kids at school.
- Emotional: I need to take care of myself, and make sure I am both vulnerable with my girlfriend, but also not using her for complete support.
If I didn’t feel shame of fear, what would I do now?
Oddly, I fear being vulnerable. Not because I fear being hurt or damaged. I feel like the pain I’ve been through has helped prove that I can get through that. What I fear is being a burden to my partner, to my friends, to my family.
If I didn’t feel that fear…? I would ask for what I need. Not stress about if they’re not available to be there for me. And keep moving.
The moment I am willing to change, it is amazing how the universe brings me what I need.
This has already begun becoming true. Today, I had a meeting with my bankruptcy lawyer, and he told me I’ll likely be out of my house in February.
That oddly pacified me, because now I have hard dates to follow, and a guide and a goal. I can now work towards that.
And once I became peaceful with that, I started to have people reach out to me. People from church, people from activism, even just friends, asking how they could support me with paying for housing in my next move.
I feel so loved. I feel so cared for.