What occasionally possesses inspiration
given enough time
twists and distorts your sense of self
until you feel worthless
and lost and confused
scrolling numblessly yet frantically
searching for someone
or something
to tell you who you are.
Tag: mental health
do more and be better?
This belief that
I always need a goal to be chasing,
something bigger + brighter
+ better
than what I already have;
does that belief still serve me?
The relentless chase
exhausts me
but like a woodpecker
I can always hear the drumming
in the background:
“Do more, and be better.”
Engage with your family more.
Expand your social media + creative audience.
You’re not good enough at your job.
Your physical health isn’t where it should be.
You know better, so you should do better.
Stay off your phone.
Be more social.
Separate yourself into small, neat boxes.
Integrate all parts of you into one; you don’t need to compartmentalize.
Can I stand on the table and scream
“SHUT UP!?”
This life I have right now
is what I once dreamed of
and doubted would ever become my reality.
I don’t need to do more,
and I don’t need to be better.
Who I am, right now, is enough.
overcast clouds
You know me better
than I know myself.
After years of therapy and self-inquiry
I like to believe
I know myself fairly well
but you call attention to
hyperfixations
ruminations
personality shifts
and detrimental perspectives
as though their obviousness
mimics the sun in the sky
while overcast clouds surround me.
How do you do it?
Recognizing
Recognizing
moments
of my nervous system
easefully resting,
my lungs breathing
slow and deep,
my mind clearing,
my heart
opening.
Recognizing
circumstances
welcoming
and embracing me
into this calmness.
Recognizing
the time spent away from here
and the nourishment
in this
reunion.
voice in your head
Walk in the direction opposite
to the voice in your head
if that voice
does not belong to you.
short, clean slates
Starting with short, clean,
clear-polished slates,
twice or thrice
daily lotioning,
keeping mind and body
meaningfully occupied,
together
can grow
a new path through the forest.
reclaiming safety
I had a safe space.
I invited people in.
I realized
my decision was premature
too late.
My safe space dissolved
into an empty void
for months,
tainted by the destruction
I had invited in,
in naivete.
A piece of me broke away.
Remembering
if I made it once
I can make it again
and this time,
add an extra padlock on the door.
No one expects an invitation
so I disregard any felt obligation
to extend one.
Reclaiming safety
for my soul.
quarter-page confidence
I started a new page in the notebook
with a title at the top:
‘What are some things that I feel CONFIDENT in about myself?’
I started a page on the left,
assuming I would need the spread of both left and right pages
like an open book,
to display my confident knowings
for surely, once I started listing,
pages would fill before my eyes.
My list consists of four bullet points,
consuming a quarter of one page.
The rest of the page-spread remains blank.
I cannot think of more to add.
Adding this to the docket of items
to discuss
at my next therapy session.
past can come into the present
As the saying goes,
the past is the past
but at the same time
past can come into the present
if further examination
will help you to process
what did or did not
happen
and who you are now
for it.
Do I remember how to do this?
Months away from the creative page.
The desire to make things
or express myself with words
evaporated and melted away
like the unseasonably warm weather of these winter months
kept the snow away
and prevented it from returning to stay.
I cannot find the words to convey the depths of pain and grief and depression and anxiety and ambivalence and change and interspersed joy that have filtered through and between the days of recent months.
I could not imagine what such words would look like, sounds like, spell like, write like or hear like, so it seemed worthless to spend any amount of time before a blank page, hoping for the imagining to come to me.
The thought of spending time before a blank page cascaded waves of fear, discomfort and vulnerability through every tissue of my body, maintaining distance between us.
I have felt vulnerability before, even embraced walking alongside it. But this felt different. It was vulnerability in a new form, a more terrifying form, and I chose to stay away for what I believed to be my own self-protection.
Last weekend, in the midst of an anxiety attack, I tried to color in a coloring book with pencil crayons, reasoning that the act of coloring would distract and calm my mind. Instead, my anxiety amplified. Fears of choosing the right picture (not too complex but not too simple), fears of choosing the right colors, fears of coloring too faintly, too intensely or beyond the lines, fears of choosing colors to live next to each other that do not complement. Questioning why I am limited to the colors chosen to be within this collection of pencils. Questioning why I need to adhere to rules and lines and systems laid out by an entity separate from myself. After ten minutes, I abandoned the effort.
I want to stand before a giant white canvas and throw globs of paint upon it, then wave a brush to spread them all around under the guide of exploration and curiosity. I want to get my hands messy. I don’t want to abide by arbitrary rules that tell me what’s right and what’s wrong with my exploration of self. I want to translate myself into colors and textures and images that words cannot always adequately capture within themselves. I am evolving. I am expanding.
I must believe
I am strong enough
to rise up against any tribulation
threatening to pull me down
and keep me there.
I have to trust
that I have the means within me
to face each new situation
in the moment.
It’s somewhere deep inside of me
waiting to rise when the time is right;
the knowing of what to do.
All I need to do is trust.
Trust that evolution
is a celebration
and a journey with no finish line.
I must trust that I remember how to do this,
and will remember how to do this
when I need to.
Dawning Words 