It’s a great feeling to be able to look back on the year and feel proud of yourself. I started podcasting, went through therapy and got to know a different version of myself. In all honesty, I think this version of me that’s blooming is the one that I had inside all along – I just had to let her heal.
Can you believe we are actually getting to the end of 2021? The irony is that as we enter into 2022 we are headed straight into the path of another COVID surge. I can see how this is nerve wracking for a lot of people. Even I’m concerned! Let’s no forget the fact that I have been in a pandemic for a good portion of my twenties (this definitely is not the biggest issue, but I mean can I get some time to enjoy the world?).
It’s easy to get caught up in doing the exciting things. Maybe you want to go big and try something new. Maybe you are nervous about even going out in the first place. I think social anxiety is a very serious thing to talk about. Being isolated by the COVID pandemic hasn’t helped much either. Right now I’m finding myself in a weird sort of reintroduction period. It really is a shift and we all go through shifts in our lives.
The mind is definitely a powerful thing. It can come up with some amazing ideas and creative pursuits. It can also be home to our own worst critic. How do we learn to quiet the mind? How do we keep ourselves from negative self-talk and gaslighting? We’ve all been in a place where maybe we are more critical of ourselves than we need to be. For this reason it’s important to employ techniques and coping skills that help us become our own cheerleader rather than our own worst critic.
So after 6 months I wrapped up my last therapy session and I am so proud of how far I’ve come. I didn’t think that therapy was something that could really be accessible to me, but I am happy that I took out the time to prioritize me.
I’ve been thinking a lot about validation and what that means for me. It’s easy to understand validation from the aspect of wanting to be accepted and wanting to feel like the things I say and do matter. But there is one issue that I’ve come to understand. We focus too much on receiving validation from other people and it can keep us stuck from growing into our own. We can get so caught up in wanting to be validated by others that we neglect to really check in with ourselves.
One thing we have to do in life is learn how to work with difficult people. Whether it’s a family member, friend, colleague, etc. we have to be able to make sure we can accomplish our goals and tasks. In my own personal experience there are certain people who will act harshly either because they don’t care or they have nothing to lose. In other cases it could be something deeper than that like maybe projecting an insecurity. So how do we deal with people who may have difficult personalities, how do we know when someone may be projecting and what does America’s Next Top Model have to do with any of this?
A quarter-life crisis is something that’s unique to people in their mid twenties to early and one of thirties. Life can quickly become tricky and one of the trickiest things to figure out is the future. What happens when our future is unclear and we begin questioning the the things we’ve been taught are the “right things to do”?
Success is such an interesting topic to discuss. Success can mean so many different things to each of us, but we are all striving for it in one way or another. Whether it’s success in work, life, relationship, our business ventures, etc. we still would like to be considered successful… So what does success actually mean? What does it even look like and why do we feel so much pressure to attain it?
One way to know that you are healing and changing for the better is examining the way you treat yourself. How have you been treating yourself lately? What do you think about the person you are becoming? I can honestly say that I feel a shift between the old ways in which I treated myself and the new ways in which I show myself love and appreciation. I had to just let go of the worries and doubts and realize that I was worthy of good things and that I had everything within me that would help me achieve those things.