The last few months I’ve become more introspective about what I need in my life.

After the breakdown I had in the new year, I really had to do what was best for me so I could recover. No ifs or buts, I needed to or it was back to square one.

I can be quite a restless person. I need something to do. I love what I do and thoroughly enjoy it. But the downside is that I can be a perfectionist and I put a lot of pressure on myself to do the best I can.

I’ve had to go easy on myself, take time out when I need to rest (which still is quite often)and it can be frustrating when you really want to push forward but have to hang fire. But I’ve had to remind myself it’s for the best. There’s no point running before I could walk when I was a complete wreck nine months ago.

One of things I’ve really had to get used to, which for someone who can put pressure on themselves is ridiculously more difficult than I thought, was being able to forgive myself.

When I say this, I don’t mean in some grandiose, self-centred spouting garbage. I didn’t want to be hardened by a breakdown and the early miscarriage that followed. I didn’t want to keep the insight I now had from experience kept under lock and key.

I wanted to be able to show kindness and smile and laugh. I didn’t want to lose my faith in the beauty of the world and the people in it. I like my wide eyed wonder at things and through traumatic experiences and other adversities, I lost that. I didn’t want to be like that anymore.

When you’re not well or experiences something traumatic, as many of you already know, we can react in some pretty crazy ways. Some of which we’re not proud of. Maybe we pushed those away who loved us or took to drink etc.

I really beat myself up over certain things. Namely, how could I let myself get to that point where I just couldn’t function properly anymore? I saw it in other people a mile off, why couldn’t I see it in myself?

It’s so easy to do this. We are our own worst critic. Even when we’ve hit one of our low points, we’re especially hard on ourselves. This was advice given to me by my wonderful mother. I’ve been fortunate in the way that with my family, I’ve been able to talk to them about pretty much anything.

And with my mother being a former psychiatric nurse, that included mental health without any fear of inadvertent stigma. She said to me, “You weren’t well. You have to forgive yourself so you can move forward. You did nothing wrong.”

Trust our mothers to put it so simply! That woman has been my rock these last few months (she always has been, as has the rest of my family) and I can honestly say if it were not for that piece of advice, I’d be a good ten steps back now. So a massive thanks to my family from the bottom of my heart. 💝

Also, a massive thank you to my friends on WordPress. Your support and kind words have deeply touched me and I really value your friendships. Honestly, you guys are awesome. 💝

Life in the slow lane can be little frustrating at times, but I look back and reflected on how far I’ve been able to come since then. It’s easy to say, “I should be further ahead. I should be doing this/that by now” yada yada yada, but getting back on one’s feet comes in the small victories right? I’ve needed to slow down this year otherwise I would just burn out and then it would have taken longer for me to realise that I needed to slow the hell down!

I do get a case of the ,”shoulds” like many of us do at times. But when I think about it, I could barely leave the house in the new year and now I’m about to release my first book and about to start a Master’s Degree! I don’t want to be tooting my own horn, but I’m bloody proud of that!

Anxiety has been flaring up considerably recently, which usually happens when I’m about to start something new. So I’ve really been trying to be more mindful of what I need and to practice self-care accordingly. It’s usually at times of change when I tend to get pretty reflective, and it’s all just come out in this post. So I might regret posting this later on!

So, while this period of heightened anxiety runs its course, I’ve just got to keep reminding myself, “This too shall pass.”

That and have a good cup of tea!

All my love,

Violet xx

*Picture – Pinterest