~Deep Emotions ~

Re-reading all my old journals has been hilarious, cringe worthy, and at points so so sad. 

The thing is— I was really fucking MEAN to myself. And I saw it clear as day in the way I would talk about my worth, my thoughts, the constant self deprecation and hate. I saw it in the way I internalized comments from peers and well-meaning (?) adults when they commented on my changing weight + body. I grappled with the societal pressure to be thin and live up to impossible beauty standards. The  weird feelings of receiving the male gaze and all the ways I was told I should feel about it. The crushes, the first kiss!, the HEARTBREAK. All caps because everything felt SO BIG. I saw how sick I felt all the time because of my undiagnosed food allergy. The frightening exhilaration of going to college and making new friends and keeping old friends. The struggle of figuring out what to DO and who to BE. 

Mostly, this was a big call to make self compassion an intentional practice— just like yoga and gratitude. It’s a call to revisit those dreams that resurfaced again and again and again— and to intentionally put effort toward achieving those goals. 

I wanted to share this because I think of myself as a positive person. Even positive people have these feelings and thoughts (even if they’re not vocalizing them). If we don’t notice we’re thinking like this and then actively try to think differently... how can we expect anything to change? We can all work on interrupting negative thought patterns + adding more compassionate thoughts. 

My favorite part of all of this was watching the way my signatures in these journals changed over time. For now, I’ll leave y’all with one of my favorites—

~ * ~deep emotions~ * ~