Hard times are inevitable in life. Whether it’s breakups, downfalls, failures or life unexpectedly changing its trajectory – it can take its toll on you and make you feel like the ground beneath you is quaking.
I’m someone who’s gone through my fair share of tumbles in this life. And recently it took a toll on me. It left me feeling weak, powerless and standing on a shaky pedestal of faith.
And it also left me in a mindset of feeling like “Great, another hit taking its toll… why can I never catch a break?”. Of course, this served as the perfect catalyst to a downward spiral of self loathing and feeling miserable. And then fuelled an influx of anxiety. Anyone else get this feeling? Where you start looking back at every time you looked like a complete idiot or where you blindly had faith in something and now you’re feeling like you’re Bobo the damn fool and want to crawl into a hole? This left me feeling a wave of crushing anxiety which washed away my self confidence and left me seeking solace under the covers alone with my thoughts, fuelling even more anxiety.
But then I realised this:
I have the power to control my own narrative, and this is not how I’m going to tell this story
I reached a point of “Okay, so I can’t control what has happened. Cool… annoying, but cool. But I’m going to make sure that I look back at this time in my life and be able to say “I had my own back no matter what”.
I also reached a point of “Fuck this, I’m done with this shit and doing my own thing” (I like to think my rebel with a cause/shut up and do it nature is more of blessing than a curse because despite it landing me in situations where I question why I decided to make wild decisions that make me look back and cringe, it actually fuels me to do extraordinary things”
So, I did it. I took a leap of faith and made a wild decision that allowed me to wholeheartedly choose my own happiness. Was it wise and calculated? No…. not entirely. But I figured it would serve as a great experience to force me to trust God… with the mentality “Well, God led me to do it so it’s up to Him to get me through it”.
My decision taught me an invaluable lesson about myself which didn’t change the current negative circumstances in my life. It revealed to me that despite the unfortunate waves of life, my resilient nature was something no one could take away for me.
No one and nothing can take away the power of choosing yourself
The most important thing to have in life is the ability to hone your resilience and the ability to trust that. Also, the understanding that you don’t have the power to control unfortunate circumstances but you do have the ability to control your resilient nature and that form of independence is dynamite.
Espire21 