Yesterday was a very difficult day for me. I struggled. I try not to open up about these kinds of days because I believe I deserve to go through them and that the pain I succumb to is the pain I deserve. When the reality is that it’s not, and that I have to work harder on learning to forgive myself.

All that I have been through. All that I have survived, and I am glad to know that it hasn’t made me hard. That it hasn’t stopped me from feeling. I am not mean or cold. I can empathize with people and see their side, and I can adjust my thought process, and it hasn’t made me not care. In fact, I care too much. And sometimes I wish that wasn’t the case. Things would be so much easier if I remained closed off. I would shut down and stop feeling. Like I used to before I started my healing journey, but then that would put me back into a situation where I was most unhappy with who I was and where I was in my life.

It’s a process and learning curve.

I am slowly learning that I have to stop being so hard on myself. After all, I am my own worst critic. And remind myself that I am only human, and being human means I will make many mistakes in life, but if I take responsibility for those mistakes and work on never repeating them, then that means I am growing as a person, and all the hard work I put into myself is actually working. I am also learning that the pain I feel is a process, and it’s okay to feel it; in fact, I should feel it, but what I shouldn’t do is wallow in it and lose myself.

Learning to forgive yourself is difficult to do. To unpack shame and guilt and to quit having imposter syndrome moments takes time and a lot of self-reflection. To get into the habit of being gentle and generous to myself and to stop falling into the mindset of wanting to self-sabotage because it’s again what you think you deserve. It’s easier said than done and takes practice, but it can be achieved. It simply takes time to re-wire the brain. To go through the steps needed, and importantly, be patient with the process.

Be the adult you needed as a child.

I have stuck with a quote I read a while back and use it as a kind of mantra whenever I need to remind myself of who I am and how far I have come, and that quote is “be the adult you needed as a child.”  I may be an adult from the outside, but inside I am still dealing with all the pain and trauma from my childhood, and that quote is almost like a reset button for me. It makes me stop and take notice. To breathe and recalibrate.

I know there will be many more days like yesterday, but knowing that things will get better and that the more work I do, the easier they will get helps. I have come a long way, and I am proud of where I am. I simply need to keep reminding myself of that.