During this pandemic, we might find ourselves losing hope and allowing for our mental and physical health to be deteriorated. That’s inevitable when you stay sedentary in front of a computer all day without much social interaction. But we’ve made it this far, which shows a great amount of strength and endurance than anyone of us expected to have to face at this point in our lives.
We are strong. We can endure anything. I talk to people who tell me that they spent time teaching themselves a new skill, trying out a new Chloe Ting workout, or learning how to cook. It’s amazing to see how people took something so difficult and turned into an opportunity for self-improvement. To admit that there’s something you can improve about yourself and be honest with your mental health is a huge first stride. You’re doing so well. But aside from the ways that you know how to take care of yourself (drink water, get enough sleep, maintain a healthy balance of work and home life), there are ways that you don’t even know that you’re hurting yourself. Let’s discuss them and more than that, let’s overcome them.
- Isolating Yourself
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It’s one thing to feel alone, but another to reject your friend’s and family’s attempts to be closer to you. One of the most toxic things you can do to yourself is to shut yourself down before anyone has a chance to realize that there’s something wrong that’s making you hurt. Of course, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with wanting to be alone, but if you purposely isolate yourself from people in anticipation of them failing you, you end up failing yourself. And you do not deserve that. Try taking baby steps and make the effort to talk to one person a day, building up to the point of being open to more people who love you and want the best for you.
- Overspending
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Every part of our day is filled with companies trying to sell us things. We open up Instagram or Facebook and find an ad for something we looked up earlier that morning. Spending money in the time that we live in is so easy. We have the world’s entire marketplace at our fingertips and all we have to do is click “place order” and the object of our desires, at least for that moment, will appear in 2-4 business days. This is an extremely slippery slope that allows the potential for overspending, trying to fill the void in our life with meaningless clothes and gadgets and in turn, creating a void in wallets. Our images of self-care soon get clouded by the expertly placed packaging of face-masks and sugar scrubs. Instead, create a budget and allow a certain amount of money for self-care so that you won’t find yourself spending $300 on Target’s new line of pink, sparkly, vegan, pore-minimizing, unicorn sweat-infused bath salts with minimalistic packaging.
When you need help, it’s okay to ask for it. But many of us try to push it to the side, and as a result, we internalize whatever pain we are dealing with. Your feelings are valid and they deserve to be echoed. One way that I find beneficial is to write all your feelings down in a journal. Treat yourself to a new journal and begin writing down how you feel every day. This journal would be for your eyes only, but imagine you’re writing a letter to a friend you’ll never meet. Discuss your thoughts and feelings, what you’re grateful for, what you’re sad about. And at the end of the week, read it over and imagine that the letters are coming from a friend. How would you respond to them? Would you tell them to shove their feelings away or would you validate their feelings and help them work through it? Sometimes, you need to be your own friend and love yourself before you can love others.
- Staying in a Toxic Relationship
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This one is a tough one and I would be remiss if I preached being able to leave a toxic relationship when it took me too long to leave the ones throughout my life. Toxic relationships don’t always mean romantic ones. Perhaps it’s your best friend that you’ve known your entire life. Perhaps it’s that one boy who you keep running back to even though you swore him off. To be able to say to yourself and to that person, “I loved you. You were what I needed at one point in my life and you helped me grow, but I can’t have you in my life anymore because we’re no longer compatible,” is extremely difficult. I don’t know the perfect concoction of things to say or do to make this easier or to help you overcome this. But, as you read this, ask yourself who popped in your head. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate.
You are so strong and you have so much power. As Winston Churchill once said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” We’re almost there, let’s just keep making moves towards self-improvement.