As womxn, we are often told very confusing messages as we age. You should be confident, but not so much to the point of where people know that you like who you are. You should care about how you look, but not so much to where people believe you are shallow. You should be yourself, but only the parts of you that others will like. With all of these thoughts bubbling in our craniums, it can be very hard to persevere and love ourselves enough, and this can lead to us becoming our own worst enemy.
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Life can be really dangerous if you try to focus on what the people around you want from you and only that. Soon enough, you are just one of them, picking apart your every word. This past year, I found myself constantly picking apart the things that I said, the clothes that I wore, and the things that I did. Life began to feel like walking on eggshells, as I feared what others would think. In reality, I was worried about an imaginary opinion that I had created on my own.
When you begin to live a life picking apart every piece of you, you lose a lot of the aspects of you that define you. I find that the first thing to escape me is my creativity when I get in one of these funks, because I lose confidence in myself, and thus anything I could possibly create. I lose my individuality, too. I don’t want to dress in a way that expresses myself or do my hair in a fun way. I typically just want to hide, so I dress in baggy clothes and whatever doesn’t stand out.
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Picking yourself apart is the easiest way to obtain a pessimistic outlook on life. You recall every wrong word you say or step that you make, and it becomes really hard to find positives in it all.
For me, I always try to look back to what made me happiest when I was younger when I feel like I assume the role of my own worst enemy. I look to the books that inspired me to be how I am, the characters I loved most, and what truly brought me happiness. When you look to these things, it is easy to brush away the problems of your frazzled adult mind and focus on what truly made you joyous.
So, when you find that you’re fighting yourself, look back to what made you who you are today and think about who that little girl would want you to be. I promise that she didn’t want you to tear yourself apart.
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