new year, new me? (Patreon)

Ha, I tricked you into clicking on this post with this cliché four word sentence that you would see buzzing around in about two months time. But I just really wanted to share some interesting observations since the start of the Pagan new year. 

I don't know about anyone else (feedback wanted) but ever since Samhain I very much feel like I've come out of a very, very long nightmare. I'm not sure what it is - I'm just not constantly miserable anymore. That's not to say that I don't stress out or can't feel negative emotion. I very much still do that. As of now, it's just no longer overpowering. And more importantly, I am actually capable of feeling positive emotion. I never realized just how much I shut down any trace of fun or enthusiasm that would ever so seldomly arise - you can likely already guess the reasoning behind that aswell. For those of us who grew up in oppressive family environments, which is most of us, it's literally dangerous to feel positive emotion. For those of us who were promised everything and given nothing, it seems pointless to get our hopes up. For those of us who were punished for feeling good, happiness became a bad thing that we since sought to avoid. This has been my entire life up to this point, even after I managed to break free from the parental prison, because I never knew anything different. 

The wheel of fortune has turned in my favor. My favorite thing ever is when I reach a point regarding certain struggles where it's easier to let them go than to maintain them. I believe this is a natural, slow process that requires consistent effort before you can reap any apparent benefits. By that I mean, you're not gonna get there by choosing to stay in a toxic place. The right (self-loving) choices need to be made, even while you're not feeling anything close to love for yourself. Good things need to be done for yourself before you can begin to let go of self-hate. It is not possible to just decide that you're going to love yourself and not cringe, any more than it is possible to just decide that you're going to love a neglected pet and have them jump up and down with excitement because "yay, you've changed!" ... I want to stress this because I can feel unreasonable expectations going around regarding how you should be feeling toward yourself. Your relationship with yourself, no matter how many of you there are, is exactly the same dynamic as your relationship with anyone outside of you. If you have been neglecting and/or abusing yourself and you want to turn that around, you gotta start making self-loving choices and you don't gotta expect to feel better at first. Things are not gonna seem to change at first, especially not in the way you would expect. That doesn't mean it's not working. Making a valid effort to reduce harm to you and making sure your needs are met is absolutely working. It just takes time and consistent effort for you to start feeling safe and ultimately heal. Do what you know is good for you. The improved feeling and quality of life will follow later. 

On that tangent, that time has come now for me. The time to reap my rewards for years of dealing with trauma, owning any emotion that comes up, clearing out my chakras and most importantly, fighting to get my needs met. It's finally starting to show results. I'm not sure what part Samhain played in this or whether it just coincides with this shift in my being or whether planetary alignments have caused this (don't judge but it very much feels like something greater than me is happening here) ... But I'm really feeling the effects. The biggest of which being this bizarre appreciation for my own life, however messy and chaotic and hellish it is. Let's face it - my living situation is not great, not at all conducive to being able to make relaxation videos, much less just have a bearably healthy lifestyle... And yet I am content knowing that this is my life and no one else's. Being more of myself has alleviated this imposturous feeling of walking among the living dead and sort of trying to pass as one of them when they all can see I'm fundamentally different - though no one ever tells me how. It has made way for a near-inexplicable feeling of confidence, in nothing in particular and maybe just in my own character. Even though it's not safe to express a lot of the things that define me, just knowing in my heart the various different truths of myself has instilled a form of peace throughout my whole being. The kind of peace you feel when you don't have to hide anything from yourself. With that, I now have a sense of purpose - and it's unlike anything I could have ever imagined would possibly give me this feeling. It's more of an intuitive thing defined by taking interest in my own life. 

I know in my heart that I'm not meant to be here, nor meant to go back to where I was born, as my mother would wish. I find it hard to express myself in any language other than English. Contrary to what people on the internet like to believe about non-native speakers making videos exclusively in English, it's not because I want to appeal to a wider audience or shit like that. It's because I am massively uncomfortable speaking any of the languages people expect me to. English has just stuck with me from the very beginning. English flows through me like a river from the mountain tops merging with the ocean. Every other language, though I may be fluent in it, is like pushing a noodle. Slow, awkward and frustrating. On another tangent, it's now also because the primarily German speaking audience makes me massively uncomfortable. I deleted my German videos last week and so far, a total of four people have noticed. I hope this way, people can stop pestering me to make more videos in German. I've been explaining that I'm not interested in making anything in German for years and I'm thoroughly fed up. And I have a strong feeling that my most popular video ever is gonna be next. God I hate that video. You know, THAT video. The only video many people seem to want to see of me that I despise because of who it was meant for. I feel sick seeing how people lap up my love for someone who never deserved my love. This is not who I belong with, this is not where I belong, this isn't even what I want - like, not even close. This society doesn't even want me. This society isn't intersted in my authentic self or what I have to offer and neither was she. They just want some cute eye candy with a normal job and normal hobbies. Just last night I've started to integrate my hate for this place and those people who reject me just for looking a little different. It was quite funny indeed. The single thing that triggered it was hearing the head gardener's voice - that loud and obnoxious instrument and that dialect that represent all things judgemental, narrow-minded and self-righteous. I'm home most of the time, I hear what comes out of that toxic gossiping mouth. Putting down people who don't have a stable job by 25 just for starters - they could have easily been talking about me. No willingness to consider or comprehend what circumstances would lead to someone not knowing what to do with their lives or being unable to hold down a job for extended periods of time. Please excuse any notions and rants about why society is a pile of trash and abundant use of the word sheeple that you may witness in the near future. This is part of my healing. Owning this hate and complaining about how wrong *they* are is a step forward from being made to feel wrong for merely existing. It's done wonders for my solar plexus already. I can breathe again without the knot in my stomach from swallowing obscene amounts of anger. This, too, is self-love.

 ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥  ⛥

Part 2

I think I hacked my whole entire life. 

A recent discovery has allowed me to make the necessary changes to not be miserable on a daily basis. Besides crawling up on the wheel of fortune to the turning point of healing, I've also located the source of a lot of my daily misery. You see, I've known for a while that day to day I'm both overwhelmed and understimulated. Everytime it was brought up in conversation, I usually got puzzled reactions from people who didn't understand how this was possible. And I never knew exactly why, either. I just felt bored and stressed at the same time. All the time. Obviously I'm stressed because of all the things, people and projects that require my attention, like, always. But bored? How can I be bored when I'm in no way shape or form lacking things to do? Well, I am bored because I end up not doing much - because I'm so overwhelmed and don't know where to start. I just freeze up and then I get stuck in a rut. Anyone else? Well, I just happened to notice how hyper my brain really is. While I force myself to sit in bed editing for hours on end, I just grow more and more frustrated, and not just because editing is such a motononous obnoxious activity - this is just an example by the way - but because my mind is starting to get distracted and I'm trying to force it to focus on one thing for too long. This doesn't just happen while editing of course. I can be watching YouTube, even playing the Sims for hours on end and be just as frustrated. 

You see, every brain can be compared to a dog breed. Some brains might be like Golden Retrievers - they're perfectly fine just chilling until something interesting happens. And some brains might be like Jack Russel Terriers - they destroy everything you know and love if not trained and entertained properly. Going with this comparison, my brain is more like an Australian Shepherd. "They need lots of activity and a sense of purpose to be content" - yes, I very much see myself in that, the more I observe what my brain does. I basically need to be doing something different at least every half hour. That's all I really needed to change. It helps so much to move with my quick mind, go along with distractions and change the subject frequently. I can't do anything I don't particularly feel like doing and I can't do anything for too long. If I force myself to sit through something beyond the "expiration date" of my attention, it feels like I'm going to explode. I can no longer focus, my brain feels full, I start to shake, my breathing speeds up, I fidget in lots of different ways, I start chewing at my fingers... For how little physical energy I have on a daily basis, I sure have a crap ton of mental energy. It's also easier for me to do things if I just live moment to moment than if I have a "big picture" or a goal in my head. And it's a lot easier to relax that way, too. 

And this is how I make the most out of my life. I know now that I've been asking all the wrong questions all along. I used to ask "where do I belong?", "where is my place in life?" when I should have been asking - what can I get out of life? How can I make my life so that it serves me? Move in with Jack would be a first step. Still waiting on the government. Creating feeling experiences for myself has been helpful. Opening in the windows and enjoying the autumn air, enjoying the gloomy and comforting atmosphere of the season that I tried to capture in the photo above, the candle lit room in which I quietly write letters to slowly catch up with orders and rewards - tucked into a fuzzy robe in my bed to keep warm in the cold nights... Doing all kinds of things to make life worth living for me. Trying to "toughen up" hasn't worked, all it did was make me miserable and demotivated. All it did was cause my health to decline more and more. I'm sure you think, well - that's obvious... But where I'm from that's what they tell you you should do. If you're sensitive, you need to suck it up, toughen up and accept that you'll never not be miserable. Cause that's life and you should be ok with suffering and you should want to wear yourself out to function in this robotic society anyway, cause, like, you're a selfish piece of shit if you don't. It does't work, guys. Being numb has not made me more functional. It's made me less functional. Trying to live a life that makes me feel good has been much more effective. I'm still working through the guilt associated with being happy but it's a start. 

I need to go run now before I pinch a nerve with how tense I am (from focusing too long - yes this has happened before). I have a lot of things to do before my appointment in the morning. Like, locate some super glue in this mess to finish some orders and re-record the last spa session because somehow it ended up sounding like complete and utter shit. I will write another post on the topic of recreation soon. I just have a lot to say ok... lol.

I hope you're having a lovely day and that the new year is treating you equally as well. 

//Ally