Up until recently, I prided myself on being able to endure just about anything.
Throughout my past I’d experienced some of the hardest and most concrete lows of lows. There’s been tragedy, grief, pain and depression. I’ve had several failed relationships, betrayals, disappointments and numerous paths turn out to be cold dead ends.
Woven through all of that has also been many success; graduating college, moving to a new state, landing a writing job with zero experience, publishing my first book and traveling solo around the states.
Over time, I’ve proven to myself that I’m someone who can always pick themselves up and get back on track, no matter how long and impossible it seems (and sometimes it seemed never ending.) I knew, no matter what, I’d always make sure I crawled back to my positive & happy self.
Eventually, when new people, situations & problems popped up in my life that I could tell would cause me fall back into a low (sadness, self-sabotage, anger, distress, critical, negative, etc) I almost didn’t 100% mind because I knew I had this incredible strength to overcome anything thrown my way.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t looking for these things and during the worst of it, I wasn’t wiping away tears saying, “It’s totally fine, I got this. I’m gonna bounce right back!” with a smile on my face. Truthfully, sometimes it didn’t feel like I would come back after certain catastrophes.
During the aftermath or “healing phase”, instead of summoning that strength I’d come to know was inside of me, I’d always, always, always wound up wondering why in the hell I thought I could just bounce back. Why did I think it was gonna be so easy? Yes, picking up the pieces of myself was possible, but it was never, ever easy. I couldn’t help but wonder why I put myself in these situations to begin with.
The truthful, honest to God answer is because I was taking advantage of my own good nature and I’d tossed that bounce-back strength into the chaos to fight the flames.
Being able to rely on yourself means being able to trust yourself. For me, just because I knew I could endure, didn’t mean I had to put up with situations where I needed to.
Now, I don’t pride myself on being able to overcome and endure the worst of the worst. Instead, I pride myself on being able to keep myself OUT of those situations. This, I believe is the source to true self-reliance; self-love.
You Beautiful Life 