Consistency is good until you encounter dark days
Trying to stop shaming myself to personal growth
There are some days I feel like I can take over the world. I can create things, become different versions of myself. Find love, love my job and be fit.
There are other days I don’t think I will ever change or have the energy to create something.
I think both of them are me and both of them are true to some degree. Probably I can’t do everything I want to do but it’s also true that I can end up in a better/different place if I tried. It’s true that some days I will have what it takes and some days I will just survive.
I decided to perceive the days I am struggling as still part of my growth. The days I can’t move my body or cry myself to sleep, they are all part of the journey.
You probably heard the saying “consistency outpaces talent”. “Show up even if you don’t feel like it”.
Most of the people who we admire have strict morning routines. They have time carved out for focused work that they show up each day and do the work even if they don’t feel like it.
When I started to recover from anxiety & depression, I realised I can use the tools and techniques I learned and I can go beyond the absence of suffering, I could actually thrive. I could develop a morning routine for the first time in my life, create this newsletter and do way more using the “show up” rule.
But these rules don’t apply when your body is shouting at you to slow down, when it says I can’t handle what you are thinking right now. You thoughts are driving me to total exhaustion and I need rest. Everything is a threat and nothing will ever get better. Just let me rest.
What would happen if I treated myself from the start of this as if I was sick, like really sick and needed to recover? How I would talk to myself when I was going through this?
What if I stopped judging myself for not being able to let go of worrying?
What if I acknowledged the strength of anxiety/worry loops I mastered my whole life over the short encounter I had with mindfulness in the last couple of years?
What if I could believe I am not a diagnosis and anxiety is just a coping mechanism but at the same time treat it as if I would treat a long term illness?
What would change?
What if….?
Consistency and showing up are great until you can’t do it and start to shame yourself all over for it.
Be gentle.
Love,
Flux