Our experiences of life are colored by our beliefs. What we think moments mean determines how we feel, react, and respond.
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play. Press play to listen to today’s podcast. FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Blessings!
Two people can go to a dolphin show. One person gets splashed with water and their day is ruined. Another gets splashed and the moment is epic. (And I guess we can add a third for one who’s appalled that the dolphins are in captivity.) Point is… same event, different experiences of it. And it’s all based on beliefs.
We all have various beliefs streaming in the background of our minds. For some of us, they are loud and intrusive, while for others they may be primarily inaudible. Volume aside, they exist.
These beliefs are like colored lenses between us and events. Our “lenses” are colored by life moments AND the meanings we place on those moments. For example, you’re a happy kid, enjoying your ice cream, town bully runs by, says, “Hey, Dork,” and smacks it out of your hand. Your response to this moment will depend on the meaning (the story you tell yourself about why what happened occurred) you place on this event. You may decide, “That guy is the real dork,” shake your head and go buy another one. Or you may decide, “I am not safe in this town,” and run home crying and refuse to leave ever again because, “People can do bad things to me at any time.” Or you may keep replaying the moment of bliss and wonder seconds before the event followed by the deep gut wrenching pain of the loss, causing you to say, “I will never enjoy ice cream again because someone can just take it away from me. I HATE ICE CREAM!”
As we go through life, we develop these “if then” statements. Using the example above, the first response could be based on the idea that “If someone is mean, then that’s on them. It has nothing to do with me.” The second way could be, “If one bad thing happens, then that means a million other bad things can happen.” And the third could be “If I don’t want to experience deep pain, then I should avoid things I love because I may lose them.”
On today’s podcast, I share a story about how I trained myself to stop claiming sickness each time I experienced symptoms. And how I am retraining myself to stop placing meanings on things unnecessarily. It’s possible to cough without having a cold. It’s possible to sneeze without having allergies. And it’s possible to have a bad experience, without concluding that bad things always happen to you. Get it?
Well, I explain it better on today’s podcast.
Check it out. I hope that it is helpful (or at least entertaining) for you.
I realized over the last few days that part of what’s been heavy for me is that I am trying to force what doesn’t fit. I’ve been holding on to relationships that no longer feel good. I’ve been viewing myself through the eyes of others and their priorities, rather than my own. I’ve been ignoring the tools I have that I know work for me, because they aren’t what “everybody else is doing.” A huge part of my heaviness is in going against what makes sense for me…. due to guilt and shame I’ve carried (that has been placed on me by others) about doing it my way.
I remember Jim Carey once said something about depression that resonates with me, now. “Depression only happens when you don’t accept what is and when you’re playing a character in life.”
Granted there are dietary reasons, and chemical imbalance reasons, and life circumstance challenges reasons for what’s been going on with me. But as I look at what the ruminating thoughts are—what’s been pissing me off and aching in my soul and making me cry the last few days/week(s), it’s essentially what he said…
I am not accepting what is, because it hurts. There are people in my life that I love, and I want them in my life. AND I realize that the only way to keep them in my life is to ignore the things about them that are no longer acceptable. And I can’t do it.
I am a person who sees the good in everybody…. until I don’t. I keep people around waaay too long, because I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. I say, “Yes,” to relationships because “who am I turn someone away?” And then I pay for it. I ignore my gut because I was trained…conditioned… to be nice.
I have tripped over my boundaries so many times trying to keep from hurting someone else’s feelings, while my feelings are being hurt by remaining in relationship with them. I have taken people back into my life—”because they need me”—when they have shown me over and over that they don’t deserve me. I have been hurt, betrayed, and abandoned by the same people over and over because I thought “this time will be different.” I have kept people around when I can clearly see that we are not aligned, because we have beautiful history and I don’t want to let that go.
What I realize is that he’s right. Not accepting what is…. that their time is up in my life…. is what’s bringing me the most pain in this season. I keep coming close to the “I think it’s over for us” and then I hear their words shaming me for letting my boundaries come between us.
Of course no one is saying, “You’re a bad person if you leave me.” It’s more like “I don’t have anybody. You’re the only one who checks on me. I need you.” OR “Only petty, immature people let politics come between family.” OR “I was there for you at your lowest,” which implies I’d be wrong to walk away when they are in a state that is unhealthy for me.
I’m sharing this in part because I use my blog to vent and heal myself 😆 and because maybe you need to hear this, too.
I’ve been thinking about what my theme for this year is. And as much as my mind wants to say, “Just get through it,” I’d rather it feel better than that. Honestly, I’ve dragged myself through the last… damn…. 6 years. (I thought it was gonna be like 4.) I was already just surviving in 2019 so the pandemic took me to below sea level.
But without going down that road…. I’m just saying that this year I want to enjoy my life. I want to smile more. I want to be lighter. I want to care less about things and people who don’t prioritize/contribute to my peace. I want to care less about how y’all do it and do it how I do it. I want to be more at peace with myself. I want to continue the work of loving myself, accepting myself, extending compassion to myself.
I want to get to the place of trusting myself….
It’s crazy because people have reached out to me (no you’re not the only one) about getting together and seeing each other in person. And I want that. AND I struggle with that. I deal with social anxiety. I have fears around acceptance and concerns around my ability to do things like meet for coffee, lunch, drinks. I have anxiety and trauma and it’s so much easier to blow those things off. But I’m tired of watching people leave this earth and I didn’t get to spend more time with them. So… I’ll be working on self-trust this year, in regard to things like this. Believing I am capable to do peopling in small doses and have it be a great experience. So if you’ve reached out please be patient with me and realize that I will not initiate or follow up. 😆 Just outing myself from now. If you want to see me, just know the showing up part is where my energy is going. 😅
Anyway… oh the other part of the quote. You know #ADHDbelike…
So this is the part I really want to focus on. I have made authenticity my focus for the last few years. It is work/effort for me because I was raised in a system of either be perfect or look like it. It is effort to be my true self and feel no guilt/shame about it.
Last year, I became very comfortable with showing up authentically in numerous ways. I began saying, “No,” unapologetically, toward the last quarter of the year. Super proud of myself for that. Unapologetically doesn’t mean I didn’t feel bad about it afterward. It just meant I didn’t change my stance (most of the time). I will keep working on that this year.
I want to be less of a character in my life…. Better yet, I want to stop placing my primary focusing on being a supporting character in everyone else’s story and step into my truth as the main “character” in my own. This will take some work, but I feel like this is a major part of what I need to focus on this year. Because when I am so focused on showing up as expected, I’m not showing up fully as myself or authentically.
I want to give more of me to me this year. I intend to stop living off the crumbs. That way women are conditioned to believe “I’m happy as long as I make you all happy.” Yeah f*ck that. I’ve done that my whole f*cking life. And I’m sooo over it.
This year my mantra is: “I’m happy as long as I make myself happy. Y’all are responsible for your own happiness.”
Thanks for reading all this. I hope this was helpful for you…. or provided some insight… or helped you to know I ain’t planning sh*t if you invite me to come out. 😆
I’m releasing who needs to be released. I’m focusing on who deserves my focus. I’m healing the parts of me that are still injured. I’m doing more of the things that I think about doing before I go off and do something for someone else.
This is my ME year. I plan to get good at being selfish…. and I plan to stop feeling that ugh in the pit of my stomach when I say it. Gonna create a new habit of caring how I feel about things, not just what others think and how they feel.
Gonna start giving people the access they deserve. Going to start giving people the effort they demonstrate. Going to give my energy where I get it back. Going to be better to me.
I hope you’ll choose to be better to you. And to recognize and not overplay your role in people’s lives this year. I hope you’ll have the courage to call people out/release people who think they’re getting over on you. I hope you’ll love yourself more, trust yourself more, and meet yourself with the same (or more) compassion that you freely give to everyone else.
I hope you’ll make this your YOU year and not feel bad about it.
It’s a complex emotional experience when you realize that everything you were criticized for, got in trouble for, were abandoned for, and have countless traumatic moments about… were are all traits of neurodivergence.
Let’s talk a little bit about neurodiversity. I want to share some things with you that I believe will either support you or support someone around you. Just go there with me for a sec….
There’s so much self-loathing that occurs when you spend a large part of your life apologizing for doing/not doing things that bother/hurt other people that are beyond your control. Being diagnosed in adulthood is such a gift to so many people who felt their whole lives that they just couldn’t get things right, couldn’t please anybody, couldn’t complete tasks on time only to find out it was not their fault.
I am one of those individuals who found self-acceptance when I received my ADHD diagnosis. I had no idea. ADHD didn’t look like ADHD in me. What I thought it was supposed to look like was not my life.
But then I began to learn about how it commonly presents differently in women and girls. And I began to learn, one post at a time, what that looked like. I began to see posts about neurodivergence that completely related to my experience. I began to put the puzzle pieces together. And then I was formally assessed.
I sat through hours and hours of interviews, question after question after question for 3 days. Then I did 100s of questions in two online assessments. All were undeniably conclusive. I have ADHD.
Even as I answered the questions, I began to put the puzzle pieces together and see that my experience of childhood, relationships, school, etc. was not as unique as I thought. A misfit in my family/household, but completely “normal” in terms of ADHD symptoms.
It was such a freeing thing. I finally had an answer to why my journey had been so uphill, so hard, so painful (by comparison to my peers). I finally understood why it took me so long to complete things, why I delayed starting big projects (even when I wanted to start early), why I forgot things and lost things and why 5 years could go by like 5 minutes.
I finally was beginning to feel whole. And I began to share my experience because that’s part of my calling (to share as I learn). It was hard to have well-meaning friends reach out to tell me they felt my diagnosis was bull, that the medical industry is trying to get everyone on meds and giving out the diagnoses willy nilly for that cause, that I’ve done too much and accomplished too much to have ADHD (wait til I get the autism diagnosis, they’ll really be lost), and worst of all that “aren’t we all a little ADHD/neurodivergent?”
I share these things, not to shame those who reached out, but to discourage you from doing these things and saying these things. To a person who is newly diagnosed, the diagnosis may be the hope they’ve waited for their whole lives. This may be the key to their self-acceptance. It may be the answer to the question that has been in their mind (and asked of them) their whole life…. “what’s wrong with me?” And the diagnosis may have finally answered that ache in their soul…. “Nothing’s wrong with you. Your brain just works differently.” To feel that you’re helping by telling someone their diagnosis is bullshit is hurtful, not helpful.
If they are crying about it, and devastated and think it’s complete bull, by all means, do your friend thing and tell them, “The doctors got it wrong. Go get a second opinion.” But if they have not expressed to you that this diagnosis feels bad for them, and it is actually making their life make sense, DON’T ASSUME THAT A DIAGNOSIS IS A BAD THING. For them, it might be the hope they’ve longed for their whole life.
TW (trigger warning): mention of suicidal ideation, suicide and death in blog and podcast episode. I had a point, but if it’s much for you check out one of my many other posts.
This year has been…. whoa. It’s been one “are you kidding me?” after another.
For many of us the end of this year has felt like a “death march.” I know it surely has for me. I spent most of November in a fog and December in a daze. I looked up and Christmas was here and I just wasn’t in the spirit.
Tap the play button to listen to today’s podcast. Tap & hold first if necessary, then tap play.Press play to listen to today’s podcast. FYI I cuss so wait ’til the kids and elders aren’t around. Blessings!
For many of us, the coming year looks like a bag of crap someone lit on fire and left on our porch. And for that, many of us aren’t seeing much to celebrate. I’m one of those people. AND I decided today that it’s gotta be more to it than this.
I was just watching the Watch Noon service that took place today at my church. In the Black church we often have a service late on New Year’s Eve that leads into the New Year’s Day. It’s called a “watch night” service. I just learned today that it is a historical thing that came from enslaved African Americans who were waiting and watching for the new year to begin because at midnight they would be free. Now, I understand why other cultures don’t do a watch night service.
Anywho in this service Pastor Sharpe talked about how they year didn’t take us out, and couldn’t take us out, because there are promises that have yet to be fulfilled that we are a part of. It made me think of the many moments in my lifetime, and in this year, that I thought could’ve taken me out.
A lot of people are more comfortable talking about mental health nowadays, and I’m grateful for it, but some things people still aren’t comfortable hearing (or saying). As a person who has dealt with depression for most of my life, and anxiety most of my life, and who has dealt with suicidal ideation in waves for most of my life (since I was about 12 years old), his message hit me a lil different.
I realize that every time the most random thing snapped me out of that defeated line of thinking, that it had to, because I have purpose. Now, I have my daughter, so that’s not even an option. No matter how bleak life becomes, I ain’t goin’ nowhere. I’m not letting her go through this life solo. She’ll have me here to help her make sense of it all.
But I digress. Point is I’m still here. So are you. SO we clearly still have purpose. It’s not over. Some would want us to believe that it is but it’s not.
One of the best tactics of manipulative people is to convince their opponents that they are defeated before the game is over. If you can get the goodhearted to forfeit, “evil” wins. The goodhearted follow the rules and when they lose while following the rules the tendency is to give up. The manipulative opponents don’t think that way. They will change the rules to ensure they win.
As far as I see, either we change the rules or we change the game entirely. We have to shift our focus off of what’s outside of our control and begin to remember what is within our control. We get to remember that if we are still here, we still have purpose.
It’s not over. This is just the beginning of a new chapter, a new season, a new series. Like back in the day when I’d watch Batman (the TV show). At the end of each episode the narrator would say something like, “Is this the end for our caped crusader?” And it would be so terrifying to see the predicament he was in, but somewhere in the back of our minds we knew it wasn’t really over. Somehow in the next episode he had to overcome what was going on, even though it looked impossible.
And that’s how I’m choosing to look at what’s before us. This sh*t looks like it’s gonna take us out, but I am choosing to hold out and see what’s possible. Some unexpected circumstances may be before us, some predictions may not come true, some of our worst fears may even occur, but that doesn’t mean it’s over.
New fed up leaders may rise up. New programs and services may spring up. New movements for change may arise. You may be led to create something new that is a solution. I may get the urge to create a new service. This pressure that many of us are feeling may be the thing that gives birth to our best selves.
Let’s shift our focus off of the angst, off the dread, off the “oh dear gawd what’s gonna happen now?” and choose to move forward with curiosity. Maybe this had to happen for us to take our power back. Maybe this is the pain the births our best version. Maybe beyond the bad there’s some good stuff on the horizon. Maybe it’s gonna come through you.
MDillon Designs & Publishing 