No Time Like the Present To Start Loving Yourself
It’s safe to say that life until now was one big epic blackout. I wandered around the world in a daze of my own existence. Here but not really here. Half in, half out in my own life.
Then one day I woke up in Hawaii.
A place far from home where nothing was familiar. Living alone in an apartment that was mine in a place that I barely knew anything about. I crawled out of bed one morning and looked at the Pacific Ocean. It was as if I was seeing the ocean for the first time in my life. The sounds were more soothing than they ever have been before. The smell of sticky salt graced the air. The most beautiful shades of blue on the horizon, 100 feet away from my door. I dreamed about this day for so long. And now, here I am, looking at this dream of mine that I have been so blessed to call my reality. I was raw, vulnerable, and ready to explode. It’s funny how waking up for the first time can do that to you.
Moving to Hawaii was about getting healthy.
It was 2017, and the world was fast. All I wanted was for things to slow down. I needed to try and figure out what in the world was going on in my world. Things were just moving around me. Rushing past me like cars on the interstate. But I am standing on the side of the road of life, just watching as everything passed me by. I couldn’t see what was going on. I had a hard time hearing anything that anyone was saying. I was numb to the core. I was tangled in my own mess. I was lost.
t was through the untangle that I found my flow.”
The choice to get away seemed pretty obvious, but that does not mean the choice is pretty easy. These would be the hardest actions I would ever take.
Things felt stuck. Frozen, like a deer in headlights. There just was this long patter of burn out. Up with the highs of the caffeine. Down with the drowning of the day to day. Submerged in a sea of sharp nothingness. The sadder I got, the more it hurt. Pangs of sadness that had a tremendous effect on my mind, body, and spirit.
The mind, high as a kite on obsession. Lost in the sea of the past. Contemplating the future at a rapid pace. A pace that only speeds up your heart at every juncture. Chasing the dragon of mind chatter. If I just get to the next thought, it will save me from this one. Suffocated from thinking, thought after thought.
The physical body was inflamed larger than it has ever been. Stressed from the stress of not taking care of myself. At this point, I have 12 years of sobriety under my belt, but my body feels like the junkie in their early stages of detox. Exhausted from life. Sick and tired of being sick and tired.
The spiritual connection was about as low as you can get, as if I was your phone at 1%. The stress of trying to find your charger was just another item on the long list of what I should do. An emotional junkie lost in the world, looking for that quick fix to save me from the sickness again.
At this point, bottoming out on being alive meant I knew I had to commit to something. I committed to moving to Hawaii.
Committing: A Grand Action Hero Move
By making this commitment to myself, I was subconsciously committing to self-care. At this point, my relationship with wellness was never consistent, EVER. Things were sporadic at best. I loved to get into one of these wellness tricks for like 6 months then never do it again for like 6 years. I could never really commit to myself. There was every excuse in the book not to do it. I was left feeling chronically unhealthy and lost. And as if that wasn’t enough for me to be left with, I also suffer from extreme perfectionism. If I was not doing the wellness thing PERFECTLY, I simply bailed.
So here I am, waking up in the palace by the sea ready to commit to myself. But where do I even begin? The constant self-abuse was starting to take too much of a toll on me. I could no longer face myself in the mirror. The selfies stopped. The darkness set in. The rabbit hole of my self-abuse was just too deep and dark to start digging myself out of. But at the end of the rabbit hole...
Part 2 The Electricity Returns.
Like any great action movie, there is generally that scene where everything comes crashing down. There’s a series of explosions. I exploded. My internal armor of emotional walls erupted as the closing scene of life before Hawaii commenced. Emotional debris flying in every direction. The hero emerging in a blaze of glory.
My hero arrived in the form of a one-way first-class plane ticket from LAX to HNL. I resigned from my role on the Global Marketing team at Spotify. I stopped my world travels. I left the long-time boyfriend. I said goodbye to everything I ever knew. I packed up everything I wanted to take and moved to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. How ironic that this place is the farthest landmass from any landmass.
“There is no time like the present moment to start loving yourself in the middle of nowhere or right where you are!”
The whole thing was hard to process in the beginning. I was alone in an apartment that was mine and only my responsibility. There was not much around to distract me. On days when the surf was not up, I was left to just be with myself. That felt weird. I wanted some person, place, or thing to distract me from me. The quieter things got, the louder the voices became. Who was going to help? Be there to talk about nothing?? Entertainment? Having nothing but myself was extremely painful. The loneliness felt chronic. I was digging so deep to find comfort in all of this. In myself. Because that was all I had for a while.
I got here on death’s door. I kicked and screamed. I was being dropped off at “rehab” by the sea. As the doors to my old life began to close, I glanced back to make eye contact with my emotional demons one more time. To see them for what that they are. The greatest gift that has been given to me. And the biggest challenge that has ever been presented.
Now listen. Not everyone can pick up and move a million miles away from everything they know. This part of my story was something far beyond my control. I begged for my life back and this was the journey I embarked on. Every case is different. Every person on their own journey. What works for me might not be right for you. I share these words with you today so you can have hope that one day, things can be different. That not every day is sad. That a steel armor surrounding and guarding emotion can be broken. That one day the words will make sense and you and your life will be different.
Part 3 How to Not Lose the Lights Again.
Embrace the SURRENDER. Hold the white flag and wave it loud and proud. Surrender to the whole darn thing and start looking at self-love and self-care the same way you would approach drinking water every day. It’s a necessity. Try the best you can and not skip those moments of self-love and self-care.
Try and find ACCEPTANCE exactly where you are in this exact precise moment. If you are sad, great. If you are mad, even better. If you are feeling good feelings, well, good for you! Embrace all of who you are, no matter what box it is wrapped up in. Don’t go to war with yourself over what is going on. Give yourself a break.
ALLOCATE TIME for yourself throughout the day to reconnect with your mind, body, and spirit. But listen to me. Treat “YOU” time the same way you treat eating a meal, as a NECESSITY, with the same approach as above. Crucial to survival. 5 minutes of self-care is better than none at all. Use this time for you. Choose things to do that make you feel better.
LEARN about meditation and grounding practices. Start to CREATE a meditation practice for yourself. The beginning will be slow and uncomfortable. Start with 1 minute of breathing and each day increase the timer. Use apps.I opened a book that opened doors about me for me called How To Meditate By Pema Chodron. Practicing healthy mind control is like working out at the gym. You have to keep up with it to get the muscle memory. Work those brain muscles like you would your abs 6 weeks before summer.
INCORPORATE healthy eating and exercise. Nothing crazy to start. Just small steps in the direction of making healthier conscious choices as it applies to your workouts and diet.
FIND literature and practioners that you identify with and engage with them. You can find my references list here. I spend so much time with my nose in a book. Listening to articles and podcasts. Sign up for different email addresses of places you identify. This stuff is my reference points for being in the world. Read one chapter. Listen to a few minutes of something. Fill your brain with the knowledge of what you are trying to accomplish. These will come in handy in the moments you need it most. Every month I see doctors, therapists, chiropractors and healers no matter what. This is part of my recovery plan.
GET INSPIRED by what others are doing for self-care. Ask your friends what they do, what they read, who they are listening to, what practioners they love. Lean into your community and like-minded individuals to excite you on your journey. Share your struggles with them. Although this work is an inside job, we need our tribe to love and nurture us along the way.
CONNECT with a universal, higher consciouness. You might call that God, The Universe, Your tree does not matter just start actively connecting to a power greater than yourself.
TAKE MINI-MICRO MOVEMENTS towards loving yourself. But try and make all these big changes and you will most likely be right back at square one in a few weeks. Make one mini adjustment and stick with it for a few weeks. Less means more, with a bit of time and commitment. Then take out or add something else. Guys, this is a marathon, not a sprint!
Now let me tell you this. NONE of this came easy. Lessons were learned the hard way almost every time. Everything was painful. I fell flat on my face time and time again. I cried and cried and cried and cried again. I wanted to give up numerous times. But I didn’t. It sometimes felt like I was crashing. The plane was flying from the sky headed for its destiny. But then at the last second an AH-HA moment that evened out the ride. I held onto those moments with dear life.
Each day something felt a little bit different. My thoughts were changing. My practices were getting deeper. My body was reforming. I had an inner strength that I never knew existed before. I was becoming calm. I could feel the joy around me. I was no longer an emotional junkie lost looking for the next fix. My mind was not running out of control lost in my own existence. I was for the first time in my life I was awake.
One time in an AA meeting, someone said
“Take action and let go of the result.”
That is precisely what started to happen.
Good luck angels! You got this!