Tag: #mentalchoices

Mental health, Spirituality

Choosing love while I remain true to myself

MariaTeresa

It’s been an amazing six months of personal growth and accomplishments dear readers. I recently posted a poem of mine on my IG profile under the handle @emotionalmusings (I have reposted it here) that revealed a personal truth. I have purposely held myself back from success for the past 40 years. Why you may be wondering? For fear of failure, for fear of not being good enough and finally because I didn’t believe in myself. It has been a long and winding road for me. One that required lots of twists, turns and quiet self reflection. Ultimately it took losing everything, my sanity, my personal safety and my home for me to discover that in the end love for myself is the only superpower that I needed. Something that was inside me all along, I just wasn’t accessing it!

If someone had told me that being involved in an extremely difficult domestic violence relationship eight years ago would be one of the catalysts for my evolution, I would of never believed them. Getting punched in the face is quite jarring yet it showed me over time that I wasn’t as worthless as I believed myself to be. There are no magic pills, absolute directives or a master plan to figure out one’s purpose here on the journey. I’m among one of the people in life who had to learn these important things the hard way. Perhaps you can relate. Please put your own story in the comments below!

Perhaps it’s my hard headed Calabrese roots, my fierce independent nature or my insatiable curiosity for why things are the way they are that has led me down a more difficult path than most. A dear friend of mine recently stated to me that I always seem to have so much on my plate. That is definitely true. Juggling lots of “life balls” is all that I know and something I have had loads of practice with since I was quite young.

I follow my heart always and air on my emotional side most often over my intellectual understanding of any given situation. One may say I through caution to the wind. I pride myself on leading with my human foot when faced with adversity or confrontation. I love that about myself and the more I choose to follow my heart, the more confident and content I become. It has taken years to gain this inner peace and now that I have discovered it I desire more of it!

The self loathing, self doubt, feelings of inferiority, and uselessness seem light years away now. I have survived some dark years. I firmly believe that without those years I wouldn’t have found my path of enlightenment. I give thanks for that time, I don’t regret it. Important life lessons and poor life choices resulted in some truly brighter days.

I write and post a lot about the need for more of us to show empathy to one another. In my opinion we must become love warriors against hate and evil doers. It’s those people among us that are crying out, in a more negative way, for love and acceptance. Humanity’s fate is under attack. It’s ugly and it evokes fear. I feel it is the root cause for people to in turn act in an ugly way towards each other. Bottom line…..ugliness, fear and hate needs to be challenged. The only recipe for change is love. Love is the only answer my friends.

Love hard, whole heartedly and often. Hate is easy. It takes more courage and faith to choose love over hate. In a real and genuine way, I challenge you to try a little more love in your life. Especially with complete strangers. A bit more empathy will open your heart to more understanding of not only that stranger but for yourself.

Trust me. I am living proof. I have survived, now I am striving. This is what winning looks like😁

Mental health, Spirituality

A small tear in the microcosm

MariaTeresa

Today was definitely one of those days. I woke up knowing I was going to shed tears at some point. I woke up before my alarm which has been happening lately and is annoying because I feel cheated out of my much needed sleep. A strange feeling had taken over my body all morning while I was getting ready for work. I couldn’t quite grasp what was wrong, but something sure was.

I ended up getting very angry over something at work. So much so that I was shaking and my blood pressure was on the rise. My heart was beating so fast and I felt uncomfortable, my mind started flipping through thoughts faster than usual. I felt a bit dizzy and in a fog for more than a few minutes. I immediately started an inner dialogue in my head commanding myself to take mental breaths to calm down. All of these feelings trigger my C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) for fight or flight. Only my family gets me feeling to this intensity. I do a very thorough job of blocking out others with boundaries that I set up in my daily meditations. This whole situation threw me for a loop. I have never been comfortable with anger and I’m uneasy with expressing it. I went in the back room and cried it out.

As an empath staying safe, balanced and grounded is so crucial to my mental health. I have worked so hard at establishing healthy boundaries and protecting myself from toxic and negative energy from people over the last few years. I know I need to check in with myself often to assess my own feelings and to be mindful and present. The energies I can pick up from others can be so strong and overwhelming leaving me exhausted, sick to my stomach and even disoriented. It wasn’t until I was 35 that I learned of my gifts and how to preserve myself to ward off from outside forces. I always thought I was just plain crazy up until receiving this vital and life changing information. I have written about that time in my life in previous posts.

After it was all said and over and I had arrived back home, I sat down to do some soul searching. It was then that I realized I had neglected to get two light therapy sessions in. Last night and this morning’s were skipped leaving me more open to the energy vampires attacks because my level of anxiety is higher. In addition to missing those, I remembered I had not had enough alone quiet time yesterday. It was my day off from work and I had a lot of errands to run. Usually I like to have at least 45 minutes of quiet me time. This special time consists of no technology, no talking, eyes closed and laying under my weighted blanket. Afterwards I always feel rebalanced and peaceful. I visualize the weights in the blanket to be anchors that pull all the unnecessary thoughts, feelings and energies off of me. Laying under it allows me to feel safe and grounded again. Sometimes it feels like having C-PTSD is like being an exposed nerve that is constantly being bumped.

I wasn’t as vigilant with my own self care like I need to be and when I arrived at this conclusion it hit me. I have been getting too caught up and my mind was overflowing not allowing me any down time. The hours and days spill out so quickly and I just got carried away. It’s a good lesson finally (maybe) learned for me. I used to feel selfish about taking me time but then I realized that if I don’t recharge my own life force and energy I will burn out. Becoming no good for anybody but especially for myself.

I have since put in an hour long light therapy session, listened to an empath clearing meditation, rebalanced my chakras and wrote this post. Once again, writing helps me put everything into perspective so I can properly process my intense emotions. I’m so grateful for the reprieve and to be able to distance myself emotionally while putting every paragraph together. Returning to a more wise mind state of being. What happened today was empath overload. All my circuits got fried and I broke down. The important thing is that I’m ok. All my energy is right back at neutral now and I’m more aware of needing to step up my routines.

It’s all still a work in progress. The ebbs and flows,the ying and yang my dear readers. In end I must let it go…..

Mental health, Spirituality

The truth about secrets

MariaTeresa

Keeping secrets can be destructive to your mental and physical health. It can also be very stressful. Now I’m not talking about ALL secrets, some can be really great because they are meant to boost our loved ones life. This post is about holding in negative secrets and what that does over time to ourselves. Most importantly it’s about learning to truly listen to our bodies by tuning into our authentic selves.

As an empath, I am an extremely honest person and because of that I am a bad liar! I always wear my emotions on my face, sleeve and wherever else one can decern what I’m feeling from. Since studying and learning about human behavior I have also developed ways to decipher truth from fiction through body language. These clues go past my initial gut feelings that stem from being an empath. There have been plenty of times that I feel a situation in someone else’s life is about to go south and yet I must remain quiet until the person wants to admit what their truth is. It is a real struggle for me. I’m referring to a certain scenario happening right now and for confidence and trust reasons I can’t disclose too many details here yet I need to write about it for my own sanity.

I understand that each person I encounter must realize their own truth in their own time. I know what it’s like to live in denial, how that felt and how it feels now to live my truth. Denying who you are is thoroughly exhausting and counter to everything I believe in yet I had to learn from that mistake. It’s a very personal journey that I know I can’t intervene in. Even though I love this person with my whole heart and it hurts to see them in so much emotional pain, I must still observe and remain silent. Here’s where patience comes in because no matter how we advise others on their life choices because we feel we are trying to help them, it is ultimately their choice in the end. It is their lesson to learn and I need to detach myself with love and just listen. I’m sorry for being so vague but I am struggling right now with keeping someone else’s secret. I want to keep their business private and yet I want to scream it from the rooftops at the same time!! My role in life as an empath can feel like a curse at times like this. I wish I didn’t feel or have thoughts about this person’s future. At the same time I must trust the forces that be because I know my purpose is to heal others. It takes on different forms but that is what I am here in this world to do. Sometimes this comes at my own expense healthwise. I’m still learning and working on my boundaries. Granting myself permission to detach with love is a challenge because i cate so much about everything. Emotionally for me it feels like I am abandoning the person I love yet intellectually I know I’m preserving myself. For most of my life I chose to be the one who got hurt instead of the person I loved. I would gladly take on their emotions thinking that I was “saving” them from the pain. In truth I was just suffering and they remained unaware. It’s a work in process.

I have listened, advised, cared for and sacrificed for this person. I have willingly kept many dirty secrets for this person too. I keep reminding myself I can only control myself and my behavior yet the urge to “fix” this person can feel overwhelming at times. Sometimes too I have to remind myself not to expect others to respond the way I do when faced with a challenge. At first I am fearful but lately I have been trying to push myself past that feeling to implement positive change and growth. It is really scary yet I refuse to go backwards or remain locked in negative patterns that don’t serve me.

I know whatever the outcome I will be alright. I must trudge down my life’s path alone because at the end of the day each of us must live with ourselves alone. No amount of love can save anybody we love from themselves.

I wrote this poem a few days ago about what it feels like to be this person’s secrets holder. I entered it into a poetry contest and won honorable mention. It is amazingly humbling and I feel so honored to be recognized for my writing.

As always my friends, I am so happy to have this outlet to share my inner most thoughts. Let me know if you can relate to this one…..

Mental health, Spirituality

A new chapter and more life lessons

MariaTeresa

This week I have started a new and long awaited chapter in my life. I have a new job doing something I have always wanted to and finally the opportunity presented itself. For the very first time I am able to focus on myself and what I want to do career wise. I have struggled with that concept my entire life for many reasons. Mostly because the fear of failure has always plagued me. My natural instincts and caring for others has always been my main focus. These past two and a half years have taught me many lessons. My fiance was diagnosed with a challenging medical condition that has required so much of my support. He and I had our own business that ultimately failed due to his health issues. Our life went on pause mode while we worked to get him healthy.

If I had to choose one virtue that I relied upon during this time, it would be patience. There is no truer act of love than patience. The innumerable amount of unknowns he and I have encountered, all the wait and see periods involving new medications for him and how much his diagnosis has impacted my life were extremely challenging. Bearing witness to his journey of adjusting, learning to cope with his new “normal” and acceptance has been very inspiring. This process  has also proven to me my own strength and endurance for coping with so many difficult situations. During these years he gave me the nickname of, “Tephlon”. In truth we have both become incredibly strong mentally because we support each other with love. I have spent 99% of these past years never leaving his side. The trust he has gained in me has allowed us to grow closer emotionally which is so beautiful.

During this darkness I try to recognize the positive lessons I’m learning. I am a firm believer in everything that happens to me is for a reason. I’ve become acutely aware of how shifting my attachment can decrease my suffering. Within every troubling situation we encounter there is a choice to be made about how much or how little mental energy we should grant it. The impact on me, how much power am I willing to give it until I start to crumble under it’s pressure. I have learned it’s far better for my sanity to not allow a lot of negativity to hang around in my mind for too long. I achieve this by meditating and compartmentalizing. Looking for the silver lining. We create so much of our own suffering by the way we frame our thoughts. It’s one of the few things we do have control over in life. Many terrible things around us will happen all throughout our life’s journey but it’s up to us how we handle it.

My friends have ask me a lot, how do you deal with _______? It’s all in how I choose to attach myself to it. At times I can get bogged down in depressive episodes where I can’t make sense around any of what’s going on. My mind becomes so foggy and I get physically cold, all I want to do is lay under my blankets and hide from the world. I believe this too serves a purpose. I have learned to accept that my mind has been traumatized for so long by fear and sadness. In order for me to accept any challenge I must reflect upon who I am and what I have overcome. By giving myself time to explore within what has worked for me in the past, I am able to see the choice I should make. Most of all, I refuse to give up or quit because my will to evolve is so strong. These are all choices we must make when we can claim that power.

I am absolutely grateful for all of it. The good as well as the bad stuff. If everything was easy and nothing changed I wouldn’t have grown. I wouldn’t have acquired so many important skills. In a past blog post I wrote about how I have a hard time believing and trusting myself. If I didn’t choose to go through these hardships with a positive outlook, I wouldn’t have discovered that has now changed.

For the first time in awhile I think I’m gonna be ok.

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