THANKS IN ADVANCE, NOVEMBER!
The past six months have been pretty heavy for me—emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It’s been a lot. I’ve actually had anxiety all day and I’ve been having a case of the bubble guts. It’s crazy. That may be TMI, but it’s honest. A full moon just passed and let me tell you, my full moon anxiety was on TEN! I experience it every single full moon. I really have to work on grounding myself more. But that’s neither here or there.
I’ve been taking a lot of time to myself. I feel a lot safer staying to myself but life does this thing where it forces you to go into the world and engage with what you didn't know you needed. Tragedy struck my family at the very beginning of this month with the death of my little cousin and it really shook things up. There are truly no words and I do not wish to dwell, but I will say that it was a big wake-up call. It created a domino effect of revealing people for who they are (family included). However, this has been happening the last six months—for everyone. Life forced me to take a second look at my family and the concept of it. I’ve stop talking to a lot of people within this short time and it’s all happened so fast. I’ve lost two people this year to the bitter, definite hands of death and it’s been a hard pill to swallow. I have to admit that I am still choking.
My energy has been reserved for those who I know care about the health of this family and myself. My energy is being poured into healing, recharging, recovering and reflecting.
Now is a time to honor ourselves in whatever way is important to us—no matter how it looks to others. As long as there is no malicious intent towards ourselves or others. No longer should we drain ourselves for others. We show up for people and circumstances that do not serve us—most of the time, knowingly. We must stop this. How we accomplish this is through healing, and to heal, we must recharge, recover and reflect. The best way to start this is by going into solitude.
For me, being alone is easy. I am calmer (for the most part). I am happier. I am most triumphant, as I would like to think. But please, do not let me convince you that solitude is the only proper way to healing, or being in general. There are many parts of us that cannot heal without help. We cannot do this life shit alone and I express that constantly.
Recharging is collecting all the energy I used—or wasted—on outside elements. I collect all of that spent energy by resting whenever I feel it is necessary, not speaking when not necessary and protecting my space in whatever way I believe I need to. If that means I have to ignore some phone calls and not engage with certain people then so be it. If that means I have to only talk to one person all week then so be it. If that means I have to say inside all day then so be it. However I choose to recharge is my business and my right. Just like it's your business and it's your right.
BUT do not use any of this as an excuse to be a piece of shit person. We are all grown and we know the difference. Intent is practically everything.
I spend a lot of time alone. Clearly. I do not mean to be repetitive, but it’s true. Most of the time, I am alone. But not just physically. I isolate myself emotionally and mentally as well. There people who think they know me because we spent physical time together, but I did not give away important pieces of me because I did not believe it would be appreciated. It’s like that thing people tweet a lot—“ever felt alone in a room full of people?” It’s like that a lot of the time. I keep to myself, I talk to myself, I cry to myself, I figure things out by myself. I am not bragging or boasting—because as I’ve grown older, I now know that I love having someone in my life that cares about me and wants to be there, genuinely—but it has been my life since I was about 11.
I have to be alone sometimes for the sake of my sanity and comfort. Although it is not ideal, I know that comfortable alone time is necessary for a lot of us.
Recovering is healing from any stress, trauma or challenge for the sake of my health and progression. I have many different methods of recovery. I do not equate my recovery to my healing, I just think recovering from incident after incident and trauma after trauma is how you get to healing entirely. Maybe I’m just being extra about it, but they, it works for me.
The situation can be recovered and the lesson is what comes from healing. Healing can happen way after you recover, sometimes it takes years. For instance, an upcoming YouTube video of mine will cover my experience as a “main/side chick.” I recovered from this around 2015, but I didn’t truly heal until this year because a shit load of triggers reemerged and the Universe showed me that I had not truly learned my lesson. Therefore, I did not truly heal. True healing is when you take that lesson and leave the pain behind. So much residual trauma was kicked up into the air this year, it was a lot. Many of you may have been feeling it.
Reflecting is examining yourself from top to bottom, from the inside to the outside—with love. Humans are creatures of habit. As a teenager, I used to do the most habitual, self-sabotaging shit then convinced myself that it was for a good reason. I hated myself. Truly. I didn’t want to be happy because I did not know how to do it.
But I learned because I was tired of throwing self-pity parties and crying about shit I could have fixed had I not been addicted to sabotaging my own peace and happiness. I finally took control of myself, real control.
I am always picking myself apart and examining my actions and words. I’ve learned to think before speaking. I’ve learned to think before acting. I’ve learned to breathe through my anxiety attacks and sit in one place without saying a word. I’ve learned to appreciate what and who I have. I’ve learned the process of forgiving, both myself and others. I am not a master of any of these things. They are simply skills I learned from repeating lessons because I didn’t know how to act.
Reflection is truly something we should all do. Sometimes we take the wrong lessons from trauma because of our ego. We convince ourselves that we learned a lesson because we’re ashamed of having to repeat it. Or because we don’t want to admit that we are wrong or we are hurting. It is so important to be honest with ourselves about everything, and reflection is what allows us to do just that. Once we can see ourselves for who we truly are, we can see others for who they are.
All year I’ve been examining myself and picking myself apart—with LOVE. I do this daily, I do this consciously. I become a newer, wiser, stronger person every single day and I never thought it was possible.
I am an advocate for growth and evolution and I am aware that it begins with us. I’ve been saying this for years. Every year I am forced to look at myself and reevaluate my life—including my thoughts, words, actions, opinions and beliefs. These reevaluations always lead to me taking a second look at the people and habits I allow into my space. Everything comes into full circle.
I value my solitude. I value every opportunity I get to recharge, recover and reflect in peace, by myself, without any outside influences.
This time alone allows me to edit and add on to myself, but also to remove anything and anyone outside of me. Everyone is not my friend, and not everything is meant for me. The power of discernment is constantly at our fingertips. Things are changing, especially in terms of family, romance and close friends.
I encourage everyone to take a step back to recharge, recover and reflect. It’s a time for healing, deep heeling. Old wounds you thought were taken care of are resurfacing in other ways this November. A theme I've noticed for myself and others is sexual trauma, sexual harassment, rape, molestation, etc. Now is time to stand still and be aware. We have to protect ourselves and we have to identify when this self-protection is just some type of projection of fear within ourselves. This is why we must reflect at the end of it all. We do not want to miss out on something beautiful because we did not release the ugly things we allowed to hold us hostage for so long. Furthermore, we do not want to allow fear to convince us that wearing our trauma and pain like a badge of honor is a good thing. We must release. We must recharge. We must recover. We must reflect. So, we can heal.
Thank you in advance, November.
PS, During hard times, we always see who is really for us and who is not. So many of us struggle with the ability to show up, but we must appreciate those who do their best, wholeheartedly. Be careful of those who only pop up when you are going through a rough time but were silent when shit was all sunshine, rainbows and unicorns. They didn’t give you any praise or congratulations.
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With Love,
From Britt
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