“A mental health day is a personal day set aside to prioritize mental, emotional, and physical wellness. Whether that day is on a weekend or setting aside time during the week, a mental health day allows you to take a break from the strains of your daily responsibilities and work...”
Do you need a mental health day?
Check out the link below to see when a good time to take one.
What I’m Letting Go of Right Now:
What I’m Welcoming in From Now On:
With even the slightest belief that I am worthy of healing, I believe that I can overcome the deepest thoughts that I’ve learned to live with. I will become new in this discovery.
I am ready for this breakthrough.
It’s 3:53 in the morning and I can’t help but realize that I see myself in you.
We may see something inadequate, or something broken. We notice all that is wrong yet have no idea how to feel like we’re worth something spectacular.
That’s the thing, we can’t see how worthy we are of life sometimes. We define who we are by what we’ve done or how bad we’ve screwed up something. Over and over we may come to a place where we can’t see the value we possess.
Here is a message I tell myself daily and would like you to know too: You are of value no matter what you are doing or what you’ve done. You wake up with purpose and will always have purpose. Adequacy, worth, value, peace, joy, calmness, balance, and wholeness is all that is you already. You just have to believe it to be true. Believe in your healing. Believe in your recovery. I love you guys.
Find it on The Mighty here
Sparkly is a space where I not only write to inspire and motivate, but it’s also a space where I make tangible the obstacles I face in hopes of finding balance and understanding. With that being said, I’ve been experiencing an inner battle with myself (and often see it in others who I care about).
Finding love and acceptance is difficult in the 20 something ages. We often feel like we have to find love and begin the process of building bonds with anyone who comes our way and sparks even the simplest of interests. The issues in this process, however, especially those who are caring, sensitive, and good hearted is we let our guard down in hopes of making that interest work even if that person is not good for us.
As we fear being alone, rejected, neglected, abandoned, or even starting over, and in pursuits to “fix” the broken pieces of potential love, we often forget self-care, boundaries, and our worth. We convince ourselves that our “love” for that potential is what will somehow change and evolve the toxicity of the relationship that’s been built. We create this love with the small growth we see in something that we want so bad to work.
We care too much about the other and not enough about ourselves.
With even the most common of sense, or the conversations that we think will help the other understand us, not everyone has good intentions, not everyone is good for us, and not everyone can/wants to change. Some people see no issues in what they do.
Whether it’s built up trauma from childhood, their own defense mechanisms, or “just how they are,” we are not responsible for igniting growth or enduring pain and abuse from anyone. Just because we can see how much someone can grow does not mean we have to be the stepping stones to that growth, if that growth is even authentic.
While we ourselves are responsible for our own happiness, growth, and self-development, so are the ones that we take up that responsibility for. If they see that they are hurting someone and continue to hurt them, let them go. You are way too valuable. They need to grow on their own, without latching on to anyone to guide the way for them. Making them feel good or allowing their toxic behavior to persist without consequences will enable them to continue in their destructive nature.
In the slightest moment where you feel uncomfortable, or confused listen to your body signals to understanding what to do. Stop ignoring the signs of doing better for yourself.
I know we have so much love to give, and we want to be accepted in order to nurture another (as it may nutures us and our trauma/people pleasing tendencies) we have to find peace and acceptance within ourselves. We can attract those who are hurt and in your conflicting intentions and personalities create something unhealthy.
My Inner Child and Perfectionism
Growing up I was a perfectionist. And while I’m now able to regulate my impulses to go well past my emotional and mental limits, as a child my self-worth depended on overachieving to feel seen and heard. Whether it was a school assignment, cleaning my room, or comparing myself to everyone else, I found that my high expectations built an inner bully that still rests in the inner child inside me.
Depression, Connection, and Growing in Self-Awareness
The more I grow in self-awareness, the more I’m able to connect and identify the situations, experiences, self-talk, and thoughts that hurt my inner child. Much of my depression, I now realize, rest on the pain and experiences of that hurt little girl. I’ve learned that the more in-tune I am with soothing my inner child, the closer I get to understand the best ways to take care of myself through depressive episodes.
Connecting with my inner child is a bit painful, but it allows me to begin to let go and progress to a more workable and healthy relationship with myself. I want to love myself more in my recovery with depression. As I feel the pain resurface, I’m learning to let it go. I imagine speaking with my inner child while building trust and honesty with myself.
Soothing as a Process of Moving Forward
Workable self-talk and writing are two soothing tools I use when experiencing mental turmoil. Detaching my thoughts from my mind onto my phone or paper helps me to see what I’m going through using words. I’m able to soothe myself and create something positive as I switch negative thoughts into more positive ones.
The more I write, the more I can show my inner child that it’s okay to feel hurt. My worth is no longer connected to what I do but to who I am. In my journey of healing and recovery, I’m accepting all parts of myself without judgment. An increase in self-awareness is also an increase in self-love. Self-love means I will do what I can to be better and feel better.
Find it on The Mighty here
“Here is a simple letter. This letter thanks the person who wakes up every morning barely wanting to, but does anyway. This letter is to the survivor, the warrior, and the one who keeps pushing through. This letter is for you...”
Keep going despite the bad days. Love yourself through the moments that are hardest. Even if no one understands what you are experiencing, you do. Get to know yourself, and in that process become gentle and compassionate.
Thank you for existing and continuing to try even when you are struggling. Some experience a silent battle and don’t understand how strong they are.
If no one told you today, I love you. Whoever you are, whatever struggle you think no one sees, I see it and I’m immensely proud that you are constantly fighting. Your life is worth far more than you can imagine.
Check it out here on The Mighty.
What are your emotions revealing about you? How can you listen to your emotional responses without reacting irrationally or dramatically?
To build and utilize your emotions as a way to understand your trauma and triggers, allow yourself to feel, followed by methods of introspection. Ask yourself why. The more you become in tune with your responses, the more apparent your next steps will be.
Read more on building emotional strength here!
There are moments where I sit and write and whatever flows out becomes something of its own. I want to make a toast to everything that’s been good to me, that’s shown me who I am even in conflict and discomfort. This is me. A work in progress, a never-ending process.
Continuously work on yourself even if the reality is uncomfortable….
To acknowledge, reflect, visualize, create, and share goals, aspirations, next steps, and working points are the backbone of improvement and progress. “This is Me” opened up a space of opportunity to understand not only who you are, but also what you want. To be able to pick images, quotes, letters, words and symbols that reveal and mirror what it is you want to accomplish takes strength and dedication.
Before building our vision boards, I came up with a small diagram to get everyone to think of different angles to approach the “who am I?” question. While this is the most complex question to ask yourself, visualizing different parts of your identity can help to jump into ideas about goals, achievements, feelings, strengths, limiting beliefs, toxic tendencies, memories, things you’ve learned, and where you want to go.
It’s not only useful to think up goals and how you want to get there but also asking yourself critical questions of ways to improve allows for a grounded and holistic approach to becoming who you want to be. Vision boards allow you to see yourself in all that is you. They show you the space to see past, present, and future possibilities while influencing and reminding you how to get there by reflecting on yourself.
While we tend to focus on one part of our identity, it’s helpful to dig into ourselves and all of our dimensions to answer questions only one part may not be able to answer. Focusing on our career and professional goals can be supplemented by our mental and spiritual strengths to place ourselves in work environments that fit us. What do we actually want? How can we improve and become better versions of ourselves by tapping into all of who we are? We are a complete being, therefore we must look at everything that makes us a whole.
The more we looked at our identity’s focal points and where we were currently, the more we were able to grab images that mirrored how we wanted to approach our visions. I was excited to see how much work was put into visualizing the “who am I?” question. With only a limited amount of time, we were able to build and dive into ourselves to create works of art that symbolized us and what we wanted to accomplish next.
I’m extremely grateful for those who came out to “This is Me.” We answered big questions, reflected on who we wanted to be and where we want to go, while also being gentle and progressive with our progress.
As I become more and more of myself every day, I see and appreciate how far I’ve come. Understanding and witnessing others in their goals, feelings, and aspirations helped me to see myself in mine. While I will always be a work in progress, I must also look at how much progress I’ve made. With all that I want to accomplish I get stuck in how much I need to do instead of appreciating the process.
I’ve learned to love and see myself as so much bigger than ever imagined. I say “I can” more and I’m excited to see where I go next. “This is Me” showed me to appreciate everything about my identity even the things I need to improve. I am me in everything that I am and will continue to work toward becoming more of myself.
Stay tuned for more events and reflections.
