At the end of 2015, I had this random feeling that it was time to ultimately change my life from the direction it was going (and no it wasn't a new year mew me thing, it was just a feeling), which was virtually nowhere. I was STUCK. In a rut. Whatever you want to call it, I was there. I had gained 20 pounds, I wasn't eating as healthy as I wanted to be, I hadn't worked out for real in forever (and I love to run but my schedule has been all over the place it's been hard to find time to go out), and I wasn't saving money like I had planned. I also was putting off looking for references and working on my personal statements to apply to grad schools, and I hadn't worked my part-time business basically at all. I didn't like where I was but it seemed that no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't move forward. I couldn't find the energy,I couldn't get the negative thoughts out of my head, I couldn't see my past vision, I was literally in a dark place. And this place, that I had been fighting against for the past couple of years and seemed now to be losing had engulfed me. I almost felt like I had no fight left.
But on December 31st, I woke up and began to clean. I cleaned my apartment, and when I got to my room, I just started throwing things out. Things I knew I didn't need but had been holding onto for whatever reason, and it felt like a cleansing. Now I didn't get rid of all of the things I need to get rid of but I did get rid of most of them. While cleaning, I was listening to Bob Proctor from
The Secret, and one of the videos was talking about taking 90 days to change your mindset. It's plan was simple: visualize daily, say affirmations daily, listen to personal development daily. Now I said the plan was simple, not easy. We all know that sometimes when life hits you hard, it can be easy to sulk instead of choosing positivity. But something felt different this time. I couldn't explain it and I said if there's any fight left in me then I'll fight for it. But of course afterwards the negative thoughts started to pop back up, and the thing that calmed me was looking at the outfit that I came home from the hospital in.
See my grandmother, who passed away September 5th of 2014, was the rock of my family. We have a large family and she loved that family dearly as well as we loved her. But one thing many of grandchildren didn't know is that my grandmother kept all of the outfits her grandchildren came home from the hospital in. And for Christmas, my aunt who has currently taken my grandmother's house to continue the family estate, was cleaning up and decided to give us all of our outfits back for Christmas. I don't know what it was about that outfit but assured me that I was going get through this.
A week later, my boyfriend and I finally exchanged Christmas presents (being consumed by graduation and other having a stay-cation the weekend before graduation, we didn't get around to shopping for it). For Christmas, a couple of the things he had gotten me was a fruit infuser water bottle, and a magic bullet blender (both of which I had been saying I wanted for months). So now the journey had begun.I had already began working on visualizations and affirmations,and making it a daily habit, and my boyfriend and I had also begun the 52 week money saving challenge along with other money saving challenges. But now I could add eating healthier, along with the fact that my mom had gotten me a one second slicer for Christmas as well to kill prep time with cooking. .And even though I can't work out as much as I would like, I have added standing leg lifts and crunches while at work and brushing teeth in the morning, as well as taking advantage of walking to work sometimes, and doing short workouts when I can.
When it comes to just doing a little a day to be healthier I can see the small differences. My waistline has decreased, and my skin looks better, as well as I tend to have more energy. When it comes to visualization and affirmations I've seen differences as well. To better help with that, I have an audio recording of me saying some of my own personal affirmations that I aim to listen to twice daily. I also try to look at pictures and quotes as well to help. But one thing I was having trouble with was being completely consistent and with visualizations. In between work, class, running errands, dealing with an incident where I was being investigated by the police for counterfeit money (this was cleared up about a week and half ago), and every other daily pressure and obligation it was slightly challenging to force myself to do it sometimes. So if I miss a couple of days I binge for a day, but for the most part I don't miss too many days. But I say this to say that one day I was binging in between work and class, and I listened to a TEDX where a woman said to change her mindset and get out her rut she did guided visualization meditations. So I decided that I would do it that night no matter how tired as I was. Well I did, but I fell asleep on it. So the next morning (which was yesterday) I woke up to do it.
At one point that meditation had me visualize a room in a cave where the walls were completely covered with crystal quartz, and on the walls, everything I wanted in my future played out. At that moment I saw my vision restored. It had changed slightly (some things removed, other things added) but it was there and it felt awesome. The meditation then led m to another room where the walls were completely covered in amethyst. Now at this point I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing there, but whatever it was I was not doing it. What happened instead, I'm standing in this room and I see myself from probably the age of 2 or 3. I see her looking up at me with questioning eyes as if she's asking me how did I get to this point in my life. At that time I couldn't do anything, I couldn't do anything but grab my younger self, cradle and hold her, and apologize to her. I cried holding her saying I'm sorry. I'm sorry for allowing the world to make you become a broken shell of yourself. I'm sorry I didn't protect you better. I'm sorry that I allowed you to feel like something was wrong with you. That your uniqueness was a curse instead of a glorious blessing and gift. You have always been odd and different. Your family used to joke about how you seemed like an alien come to explore and observe the Earth. And while they praised it, the rest of the world condemned it, and I'm sorry that I allowed it to happen. I'm sorry that I stunted you creativity, your love, your infinite optimism, your absolute wonder and curiousity of the world. I am so sorry that I did this to you, and I promise from this day forward, that I will do better by you. I will do better to protect you, and I will make you whole again. I will bring you back to life and you will once again be your optimistic, happy, creative, loving, weird, and brilliant self that you were always meant to be with no regret, no guilt, no fear of what others think of you condemning you for being uniquely you. This is my mission in life to always allow you to live as purely you for all of your life.
I left her begrudgingly. I felt like there was more I needed to say to her, but she simply smiled at me with eyes as bright as stars with hope, love, and optimism for the future. And as I left the cave, I looked back at her, and all the things my future held waving back at me. And it was then that I knew, that this is a time for a transformation for me. Sometimes you can just feel it, and I knew that this time would be different somehow but I didn't know how until that moment.
In my business, they always say that in order to be successful you have to have a drive that motivates you; a why, and that you can only be driven by a vision that is bigger than you. And so I always tried to make my WHY (What's Hurting You) much bigger than me (which it ultimately is; I want to do a lot for other with my life), but somehow that still wouldn't motivate me in my dark times and the hard times. It would fizzle. But thinking of myself in this respect gives me a fire, a motivation like no other. At this point, I'm thinking of everything I am, and how I have been broken down and molded to a fragment of myself. And that is what makes me want to change most. I want to be free like a child. Living with little fear, high hopes, big dreams, endless possibilities, and interest in various different things that ultimately make me feel incandescent joy. That is what I want for myself, and I am daring to go create that feeling and reality, everyday of my life. Sometimes it is ok for your vision to be all about you, especially when you've given so much of yourself to appease others who do not hold your best interest at heart. Do not feel bad for being un-apologetically selfish as long as it affects your own happiness and does not take away from others.
