I cried in the shower this morning. When I say cry, I mean full blown blubbering in-between washing my hair, face and body. I can laugh now thinking about how ridiculous I must’ve looked - wash, cry, scrub, cry, rinse, cry. There were even moments when I was washing and crying at the same time (I know, truly impressing).
In the midst of family hardship, contemplating my romantic relationship, hardly fitting into my jeans, and having the day-after-Christmas blues, I’ve also been accompanied by my lower self. She tells me, “you are alone”, “you weigh the most you’ve ever weighed”, “you’re a terrible and selfish daughter”, “you’re not important”, and my all time favorite - “you don’t deserve to be happy”.
It’s hard to be happy when you feel unworthy of it. This is a reoccurring experience that I endure regularly in sobriety/recovery, and I always hold onto the same reoccurring conclusion that this too shall pass. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but (thankfully) I am always right. It passes as quickly as it came. Even when I am fully convinced that “this time is different, it really is”.... It’s not, it’s really not.
There was a time I didn’t believe in God anymore, and even then when I had lost faith in God I had not lost the faith that God was bigger than my doubtfulness in Him. And what do you know... it passed.
What brings me happiness today and everyday is having the faith that God is alive. God is alive in you, in me, in my circumstances, in the results, in my relationships, in the hardship, in the doubtfulness, in the mundane moments and in the extraordinary ones, in the times I’m washing my face with my tears mixed in with my face wash, and especially in-between the words my lower self tries to convince me of.
Thank God for God.
4 comments
What a beautiful reminder. Thank you for sharing, Mads!
2020 has been one hell of a year. It has been important for me to really focus on the positives rather than dwelling on the moments of adversity (which there were many). I got to see my family for every major holiday, everyone is healthy, I got a puppy and really got to focus on myself and my recovery. I maintain my happiness from self care. Constantly thinking about ways to lower my anxiety and feel more fulfilled. I am thankful today
Thanks for sharing friends. More ppl have these negative self doubting thoughts (especially nowadays due to the perception social media gives us of other ppl having the best most perfect life) (gag) (Instagram isn’t real) but thx to ig i found these posts*** anyway more ppl have these thoughts than we think it’s rare that ppl share them and can connect over them. Share with each other and learn from each other and open up to each other!!!! Sometimes all it takes is a friend. I am always a friend. I often often feel down on myself bc im not where i want to be in life but I can almost always cheer myself back up and give thanks. And use that as fuel to my fire to push myself harder!!!! It’s normal to feel these ups and downs. Life is a roller coaster. Perspective is key. Keep pushing on!!!! Do things that make YOU happy. Take care of urself. That’s the only way u can ever take care of anyone else ❤️ Happy 2021 may it fill everyone with health, wealth, kind hearts & positive minds ✨✨✨
When asked to write this post I was in the midst of a weeklong emotional breakdown. I can be very dramatic a lot of the time, but this was different. I thought “I am not happy right now, there is no way I can write about happiness”. After being reminded for the third time to write this (thank you for bugging me Jordan) I sat there and thought about it, I realized I was wrong. There is no better time for me to write about happiness.
This year has changed my life when in ways I never saw coming. Me being a recovering alcoholic, I HATE change. I was okay at first, it gave me an excuse isolate and I loved it. After a few months and being forced to cancel multiple trips to see family, working from home, spending the holidays without family and my social life being almost nonexistent, I started to feel very lonely. I was not happy at where my life was in the moment, it was not where I “expected” it to be. The expectations of having the perfect career, the right amount of money, the crazy exciting social life and a significant other were no where in sight and did not feel tangible.
After some time of keeping these feelings to myself, it all came out. Hence this emotional breakdown I was in. I opened up to people around me and I realized I was not the only one feeling this way and that I should be proud of where my life is today. Yes, my life has changed, but it didn’t change for the worse.
As I rang in the new year, I started thinking about what I was grateful for and what brought me happiness this year.
• I celebrated 8 years of sobriety
• I am 100% self-supporting (My #1 goal when I first got sober)
• I paid off my car
• I got my own apartment
• I have an AMAZING job
• Everyone in my life has stayed healthy
• I got to travel and experience things I would have never done before COVID
• I spent some amazing quality time with close friends
• I spent more time than I ever have facetiming with my family
• I can say today that I truly love myself
• I can spend time being alone, which I could never spend more than an hour alone in the past
• I have an amazing, cute, corky French Bulldog that makes me so happy
• I have so many genuine relationships
2020 truly has been a year of blessings that I was blinded by because of this “expectation” of where my life should be. I do not have the blueprint to the way my life will play out and that is okay. I know that my god, higher power or whatever you want to call it gives me only what I can handle, even when I feel like I can’t. The biggest thing I learned this year is that my happiness needs to come from within and my perspective is everything. I have everything I need and everything I could ask for, but if my thinking is skewed, I will not be happy.