aliciaxcurlz

musings..

  • Vulnerability

    No one has asked me how I am actually doing lately:

    I am doing pretty well, although I say a lot less now because it feels like it falls on deaf ears. I just came out of a weird season in my life, like a midlife crisis. I don’t know everything, but I tend to accept things for what they are. I think that some things were so hard to accept in my life at that time, that I would create stories around relationships, around myself, just so that the truth was more digestible for me. It created a cycle that I was not fully conscious of in order to protect my ego.

    I put out into the universe that I wanted to experience an ego death without drugs; I actually did end up shrooming several times, though. But, either way, that was exactly what I received. One big, long, ego death. No one, not even big, bad Virgo over here (moi), is bigger than the program. If you are bypassing the work, it will take longer than necessary. In the last season I was in, I tried to rush my own growth. I just wanted to get to the good part without being vulnerable, but vulnerability brought growth.

  • Searching….

    At some point in my life, I wondered why I am the way I am. If this is really how I want to live my life, who am I? What is the reason for the issues I have? I fought depression for most of my life until the day I started searching. I did not even know what I was searching for until recently, when I realized that I was searching for me.

    What I realized through this whole finding myself thing is that my depression and other mental health issues were caused by feeling as though I could not be myself. Throughout my life, some people did not like who I was. They did not like me being me. They made fun of me, pointed out my flaws, and unfortunately, caused me to be insecure and riddled with self-doubt. The more self-doubt I had, the more I stuffed down who I really was, and by doing that, it created a depression I couldn’t shake on my own. Not only that, but I thought the problem was outside myself, but you cannot control anything outside yourself, essentially. So, I wasted my time trying to control the things outside of me to fix my depression instead of going inward. The more I began to go inward and release the things I could not control, the less of a hold depression had.

    As I began to release control, the real Alicia began to emerge. I see myself; I began to love what I saw, what I felt, what I heard, and what I had to offer the world. The values I held as a young girl were made so much clearer. My likes and dislikes, my determination, my love for authenticity, and not perfection. When people see you being unapologetically yourself, they want to stop you! Most times, unintentionally. Their dislike for themselves is projected onto you because they were made to feel like they couldn’t be themselves, so why should you? Thus, the vicious cycle of depression continues. It is not easy, but the journey to a life without depression is completely realistic. It is doable, and I am a walking testimony of that. To put it plain and simple, return to self and release control.

  • Baby Steps

    I think that we underestimate the power of baby steps. In todays culture of hustle and bustle, we prioritize big actions. When you are like me and struggle with your mental health, baby steps should be your bestie. When you take a small step towards wellness and you reap a small reward of results, it boosts your confidence and trust in yourself. Chances are, because of past mistakes, you probably don’t have a whole lot of trust in yourself to get better. The thing is, if you are trying to build Rome in a day, then you will not be able to keep that type of momentum up and when you are not your self-trust will take a hit.

    Consider starting small, with one thing a day towards recovery. In example, when I am especially depressed, brushing my teeth and doing my hair are two things that I have a really hard time with. So, if I know I am having a hard time, I will tell myself as long as I brush my teeth, today is a huge win. As hard as my body and mind resist it, I will brush my teeth because I know its just one thing! It is one thing I can do to win the day. The snowball effect towards trusting myself and beginning to love myself into recovery is crazy! I promise it works. Choose one thing, doesn’t matter how small, and win the day with that one thing. If that was too hard, do not beat yourself up over it, pick something easier. After all, we cannot hate ourselves into loving ourselves.