Progress

So in writing this blog, it somewhat turned into a two topic blog that still connects together.

It starts with the fact that the reasons I moved away originally are probably too many to count if I really sat down and tried to think about it. But one thing that I've been noticing more with time, which may seem obvious to some, but is the "getting away". Getting away from the people, the drama, the monotony of the day-to-day of living in the same place forever. I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, born and raised. I bought a house when I was twenty two about 20 minutes from where I grew up. Don't get it twisted, I love where I was raised. It is my home and I wouldn't have it any other way. But maybe I don't need to be in my home forever. Maybe I don't even need to go back to my home to live at any point again. Who knows.

If not, I'm completely okay with that. I honestly feel like I needed to get away from all of the same people that I've been around for years. It can seem like such a blessing to grow up with the same group of people your whole life. But our whole lives is a long time. It's a lot of years of growing and changing who we are. So when those people aren't good for you and your life, it's harder to realize it. It's hard to realize that when you've known someone for so long, because you've known them for so long. And you want to keep knowing them. Or just what if the "settling down" image doesn't seem to fit with your future? I know I've mentioned that before as well, but being down here has just given me the time and space I need to truly begin figuring these things out. It took me leaving and getting away completely by myself to clear my head in order for me to fully understand that. Now I can truly figure out what it is that I want.

In addition, not immediately prior, but some time prior to my move, I had experienced people judging me, talking bad about me, assuming things that I am or am not doing, just being in my business and talking about it without actually knowing what's going on. It's stressful. It's frustrating. It's hurtful. I felt like I can't do anything right according to everyone else when all I was trying to do was figure myself out. I'm sorry if I didn't go about it the correct way, but nobody's perfect. I know what I've done and I can admit when I'm wrong, but that never seems to be enough. I was tired of it never being enough.

So then to get away and not have these people around… it's really nice. Like really nice. Nobody knows me where I am, nobody knows anything about my past unless I tell them. I'm trying to be a better person and to better my life; and moving away now feels like the easiest way to do that. Because you can completely start over. You want to be a better person? Great. Do it. Because you can. You're in a new place. Just start today and better yourself every day moving forward and that'll be it.

I also feel like back home I was not using my time productively. When I have free time I would go and have drinks and do things like that, probably end up making poor decisions at the end of it. I was being very irresponsible and just living in a world of nothing. Now when I have free time I try to fill it doing something productive. Something that makes me smile. I see my therapist, I volunteer, I watch self actualization videos and practice techniques, I'm starting yoga this week… I'm really excited about all the positive changes in my life. I quit drinking and have found that I don't miss it at all. I feel like with using my time to do better things, it feels easier to try and be a better person.

I saw a quote that said, "Be a good person. But don't waste time to prove it ". And that meant a lot to me. Because I felt like that's what had been going on in my life. I felt like I was trying so hard to be a good person and it didn't matter because everyone still had these assumptions about me and what kind of person I was and why I was doing the things I was doing and making the decisions I was making. But it's so true when they say you can't judge someone until you've been exactly where they've been, which is essentially impossible. So you can't judge people. Period. End of story. You can judge someone's actions. I know I've done things that weren't right, obviously. We all have. But that doesn't make me innately a bad person. I don't have bad intentions. I don't set out to do anything wrong, to do anything bad, to hurt anyone. And it's very frustrating feeling like you have to prove that to people, and then feeling like no matter how hard you try, no one will believe you, and no one will choose to see that side of you. People choose to see the negative actions that I've done, take those, and therefore make it seem like my whole being is this negative person.

I fell into this world of trying to prove myself while also making decisions that make me happy. It's hard. I was giving too much attention to proving my goodness to these people who think so negatively of me, instead of giving that time to the people who actually care about me, love me, and want to see me succeed. It's so overwhelming to be in the negativity that it actually had me believing no one cared about me. Everyone dislikes me. Everyone thinks I'm a bad person. But that's not true. So now I choose to ignore those who feel that way, and give all my attention to myself and those loved ones who love me.

In Atlanta, it was really hard to get away from that when I was spending all my time thinking about it because I was trying to show everyone else what a not horrible person I am. And honestly, it's hard to not start to think of yourself as this horrible person. To question yourself. Am I bad? Am I setting out to do horrible things? Even though I know I'm not, you can't help but question it. So it's been incredibly healthy for me to get away from just all the negativity that has been in my life recently. I'm learning to love myself. I'm learning to truly be a better person, which just makes it even that much easier in the process of loving myself.

Which leads me into what else I wanted to share...

I've mentioned before about speaking with my therapist about my low self-esteem and low self-confidence, and that's something we're actively working on. And I definitely think this is a better time and a better place geographically and a better place in my life to actually work on this. If I had tried to work on this before, I'm not confident in how far I would've gotten. But I'm choosing to live a positive life and things are going well. I'm really practicing both loving myself and liking myself while simultaneously bettering myself. I'm working on the process of self actualization, mastering my emotions, being positive and taking things in stride, not being defensive, working on my ego, being open-minded, etc. The list goes on and on. I want to be the best version of me that I can be.

I'm also working on loving myself physically. This is something I have struggled with greatly for as long as I can remember. I go to the gym, I eat healthy, I drink plenty of water, I take my vitamins… And I've been feeling like I'm not seeing any results. And that makes it even harder to love myself physically, although I should regardless. I have to learn to love my body during the process. I'm trying to achieve something that I feel like will make me happy. But with my low self-esteem and the unreasonable expectations I set for myself, I'll never actually get to a place where I am fully happy with myself physically if I can't start now. Before I reach any specific goal.

I have to love my body the way it is. Or else when something gets progress, I'll just see the next flaw that I need to fix and I'll obsess about that until it's fixed. And I will just continue on and on. So this is something I'm working on as well as a part of the loving myself process. It's extremely difficult when you've been dealing with this for so long. The bulimia has impacted my body a lot as well. Doing that for years takes a massive toll on your body. I know that's part of the reason I haven't seen progress like I should because I only stopped nine or so months ago. It makes your body unable to build muscles the way it normally should, and many other things. It also takes a huge toll on someone mentally. I have a very distorted picture of myself and I'm realizing that and trying to comprehend and do something about it. I don't see myself the way other people see me.

So I'm just trying to learn to be patient, enjoy the active lifestyle, enjoy getting fit, and love myself now. And to also not be so hard on myself. I really do set unrealistic expectations for myself to where it's impossible ever achieve them and therefore will never love myself if I continue this way. I can see another female who looks almost identical to my body type, and think she looks great, but for some reason, for myself, it's not enough. This muscle isn't big enough this body part isn't small enough, there's too much fat here, there's not enough curve here.

It's just ridiculous honestly.

And I'm really tired of myself.

I always say I haven't seen any progress the whole time I've been working out, but that's not true. I weigh myself, and take measurements, see how my clothes fit… and it seems like there's no difference and I get really down about it. Like really down. There have been times I'm in the gym and all of a sudden this overwhelming feeling of defeat sets in. Sometimes I get very emotional about it. Sometimes I have to leave in the middle of my workout. For what seems like no reason. And then I feel even more defeated by the mental aspect of what I'm putting myself through.

So I dug around recently for some pictures to see if I've taken any gym pictures, kind of like a before picture. I don't take many. I've taken more now, but I used to not take any at all. I didn't want to see myself like that. But I dug around and I found four pictures over the course of about 2 1/2 years and there's a drastic change in my bicep muscle. That was the only pose I could find, all four of the pictures I found were all of the same pose, which was my bicep. And it was a drastic change which made me so happy to actually see progress right in front of me. It's the first time I've felt like that since I began working out. Again, I think it's just me being so hard on myself all the time. As I continue to work on that, I'm hoping to gain body positivity for myself at all stages of life. Starting here and moving forward.

Progress. I'm making progress. Whether I am physically or not (or if I am physically, but just can't see it), either way, I'm making it personally. Within myself. Which is the most important to me.

So I say all of this to say, sometimes running away is for the best. LOL. They say you can't run from your problems, but sometimes you have to run away from your current situation, current living place, in order to face your problems fully. It is extremely overwhelming to work on so many things about yourself, but it's the best thing you can do. And before I had too many distractions, too many other things to worry and think about that shouldn't have even been taking up space in my mind, with my emotions, with my energy. I'm excited that I'm not doing that anymore. I don't feel like I'm wasting my emotions on anything. I feel like all the time and energy I put into things are the things that deserve my time and energy. I still have a long way to go but I'm excited to see progress with myself in this way. A happier me, a more positive me, a healthier me- mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.