I've been going through some personal changes and my heart has felt the heaviest its been in a long time. I couldn't handle social media the way I was managing it before, and I didn't want to post continuous content or connect with anyone.
In the spirit of honesty, true to the nature of Struck Inside Out, I've never been more irritable and judgmental in my life! I've been having a hard time going out into the world and being social. I've struggled with normal day-to-day tasks and the thought of having to be positive for others, or even myself, just wasn't something I was capable of. Everything that came easy and natural to me before suddenly felt burdensome and uncomfortable.
Have you ever been here before? Have you ever felt like you were so deep in the thick of something that you would never find your way out? That you would never feel like yourself again?
It's pretty scary when you're in it because your perception is completely altered and you don't trust the way you're viewing life or yourself. You begin to wonder if you were ever really happy before and if what you're experiencing now is the "real" you versus the one who was optimistic prior.
I know this newsletter is meant to uplift, inspire and help prepare you for a new week, and I promise I'm getting to that. As with any low point in life, transformation typically works its magical powers best when you're down than when you're at an all time high.
My reason for sharing this with you today is to: one, explain my absence for the last month, and two, to let you know that it's okay to not always be okay. It's okay to feel your emotions and embrace your darkness. It's okay to be anxious, sad, depressed, lonely, antisocial, and any other trait you feel when you're going through something.
Now that I'm coming out on the other side of this, I'm beginning to see habits, beliefs and thought patterns that weren't serving me before and I can make changes best suited to who I want to be and how I want to feel moving forward.
I've also realized that I put a lot of emphasis on what I think I should be doing rather than what my heart really wants to be doing. I've learned that my mind often leads me down one path when my heart pushes me toward another.
I live in both worlds and feel my heart and mind equally as strong these days. When my mind takes over, I can fall into small ruts. When I let my heart guide me, I'm following my wisdom.
It's not always easy to balance our internal worlds and the constant cycles of highs and lows, ups and downs, happiness and sadness, confidence and self-doubt. This is our nature of being human though, and I'm learning, ever so patiently, to not avoid my own depth of feeling. To not shut out what I'm afraid of falling into.
Even our darkest hour has beauty and even our lowest days offer potential to rethink how we're living our lives.
I'm starting to see my light again and I can feel its warmth pulling me in. I know the changes I needed to make revealed themselves to me through my shadows, and I'm grateful for this experience of being alive, of having the capacity to feel emotion and the chance to start all over again, if I choose to, at the dawn of a new day.
