Alternative Style Blog l Delusion, but it didn't work Pt2
So! The follow up to delusion week! Well, let’s just say I was delusional to think that was going to work. I woke up last Thursday to my cat cuddled neatly in my arms and thought, damn. I’m not going to get up. I’ll work out later today. Then after a long day at work and a long commute home, my ass wasn’t in the mood to be delusional. I felt so bad, so disappointed. So I extended my timeframe. Okay! I’ll start fresh on Monday and just carry this into the next week! Talk about how it’s going! Well, guess what happened? Delusional I may be, but not in the I’m the best version of myself and got my shit together. Delusional as in, dude. Why do I set expectations for myself constantly too high? I know if I fall flat I’m just going to sit in this self loathing state of mind that will be so hard to shake. I spoke about the pressures of social media and how it can mess with our own self worth, but if you’re like me, this goes way further back than my existence on social media. This is something that’s always been here.
The pressures of being the best version of yourself is difficult. Family breathing down your neck, someone possibly succeeding in a field you’re barely getting by in, a slip up in a small interaction that leaves you feeling wilding embarrassed. You know? All the things that keep us up at night when we’re just trying to fall asleep. That small sliver of time where you’re like tomorrow I’m going to do that, this and the other thing that I keep putting off and change my whole life. That’s the true delusional hours of our lives. Mine always consist of going back to the gym, not eating food that makes me sick, getting rid of 75% of my belongings and possibly making long overdue phone calls to people I’ve lost touch with. The next day comes? Have i done the things that seemed so easy in those delusional hours? Nope. Do I feel racked with guilt? Yup. Is it an unbreakable cycle? I’m not sure. There’s been large life events that i’ve faced that temporarily allowed me to let things go, but somehow I always find myself back at all the same points of self guilt. Thinking what I could have done to change my life, or what I should do to change my life. Never, oh, I think I’m doing alright. What’s that ancient wise saying? If you’ve got one leg in the past, and one in the future, you’re pissing on the present. Well, that’s kind of how I felt about delusion week when the guilt started to settling in. Why am I beating myself up so badly about this?
My schedule doesn’t allow all the insane things my brain just instantly wants to do. ADHD mixed with instant gratification addiction is not a very good combo. (I recently read my entire birth chart, and let me tell you, this shit was written in the stars from the moment I was born) Dopamine hits and the aftermath of whatever helped to get it, man. I don’t love that cycle. What does this have to do with delusion week? Oh yeah, the gratification I got from just thinking I could do it. How much better I was going to feel. Sometimes I feel like we’re addicted to just thinking about how much better we’re going to be. It’s like how much fun is it to buy all the stuff for the hobby VS sitting down and actually doing to hobby. The delusion that we can be better dominates our acceptance to our flaws. Actually ditching delusion week altogether made me really think about what I am doing currently in my life, and how I’m not appreciating it. I’m just thinking about what I should be doing instead so I can be proud? it’s a damn cycle! I’m going to try and break that! I need to, I really do.
So! Here’s some things in my current week to week life I’m very proud of. I have a dedicated cleaning day! It just kind of happened really, every Sunday I tend to want to clean and pick up the house. Let me tell you, I am not a clean and tidy person. I live in constant chaos. It’s been an issue my entire life, but somehow without setting out to do it-writing it down and planning on it-I’ve created a clean day. I’ve also been cooking a lot of new stuff lately. Trying to up the protein in my life, eat better, but I didn’t set a Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I do this now! I’ve just been doing it. I’ve been sewing a lot lately, I mean a lot! I haven’t been posting about it or styling it as often, but that doesn’t mean I’m not doing it. Also my sewing skills have greatly improved since last year. That was my own work going into it, not me sitting down and being like-okay this time next year I’m going to be able to do this kind of stitch. It’s just happened. Sometimes we want to live in that “what could I be if I just got my shit together” headspace, instead of, let me reflect on how much I have grown.
I’ll leave with this, years ago when my mother died I was distraught. Lost. Completely a mess. I worked an incredibly hard job, had some of the worst ongoing health issues I’ve ever had, dealing with cleaning out my mother’s home. It was A LOT. When I would go to therapy I would talk of the future a lot. Well by this time, by that time, when this is over, all that kind of stuff. My therapist pointed it out to me once and she said our minds can be like three lakes. There’s a lake of what has happened, what’s happening now, and what is coming ahead. I keep trying to swim to what’s coming ahead, but I’m pushing against a current that’s not meant for me. We need to live in the present. We need to take care of what’s going on now. Here I am 5 years later, in a beautiful home, a new career field, a wonderful partner by my side. All of these things were once in that far away lake i couldn’t swim to. Now they’re my what’s happening now lake. Why be delusional to what we could become, when we aren’t even appreciating what we’ve gotten through. If you were hoping for a great up to date delusion week blog, dude, i’m sorry. This did make me sit back and realize I’m not determined by what I should be doing, and I should stop trying to cross into that other lake so often.
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