Wow, I feel like I am in this same place today, my friend. Truly. The way you put it, that you feel like every day you’re just constantly losing sight and trying to find your way back into the light. . . wow, that hits home. When every day feels like a desperate struggle just to get to where you want to be–that is such an exhausting way to live. Some days my favorite part of the day is just sleeping because for once I finally don’t have to worry about feeling inadequate or feeling like I’ve failed again. Yes, it feels like such a constant struggle, and I’m here with you on that.
I think this feeling that we have to “earn” our way back to something comes from deeper insecurities. Maybe we compare ourselves to others and even subconsciously, we feel like we can never get to that magical place of acceptance and value that they are in. Like no matter what we do, we’ll always just be desperately climbing toward that unachievable height that we can never grasp. That is so defeating.
But it’s also hard when sometimes there are things that we don’t like about ourselves that we do want to change. Because then we think that it’s okay to beat ourselves up, because hey, we’re really not where we want to be and we deserve to be upset with ourselves, right? We should sit in this shame spiral because we really aren’t good enough, right? I battle with this on a daily basis. But I think there’s very little hope for us to get better if all we do is think about how horrible we are. If we just sit in our shame, then why not keep messing up? After all, that shame and self-disappointment can begin to feel comfortable, and we think “I deserve the pain anyway, so what’s a little more gonna do?” You see how destructive that mindset can be? And then soon we’re exactly where we started, sitting in the burden of our mistakes as we just keep on messing up.
So what if there’s another way to think about it? For me, focusing on the true things about myself that ARE valuable and worthy of love has given me so much more strength to fight than the negative self-talk. Why would I want to fight for someone who is convinced they will just mess up again? And then we don’t want to care anymore, we want to give up and stop fighting for ourselves because we think we’re not worth fighting for. But what if we ARE worth fighting for? What if the mere fact that you want to change is evidence that you are better than you think you are? If you’re not happy with where you are at now, then that conviction to change is a sign that you are worth believing in. I believe that your openness and your desire to find your way back from the darkness is proof that you CAN believe in yourself to be better.
For today, for right now, I want you to know that you are stronger than you give yourself credit for, and you are worth fighting for exactly as you are. I am so thankful that you are willing to share, because sitting in that spiral of shame is hopeless and can never fulfill us. I believe in you, my friend. Thank you for being here, and I truly am proud of you for who you are and for who you want to be.