Inspiration & Ownership

When we start our lives, we are all about surviving. It is not even something we learn. It is an instinct embedded into us. The thing is: as we grow and surviving really happens passively, we are at risk of starting to drift. Since our survival is ensured, there really is no reason to improve. There is no reason to struggle hard and we simply drift through life.

There is nothing wrong with taking a break and enjoying one’s life for a bit. Everyone needs that. But if we stop having a vision, a goal to work towards, we will slowly but surely end up loosing our purpose. And when there is no purpose why would we get out of bed in the morning? Why would we leave this perfectly cuddly world that is so kind to us? It makes me feel depressed. And I end up feeling more dead than alive. When we are at this point is it high time we do something about our lethargy.

The first step is to find inspiration. It is about what we enjoy. It is about listening to podcasts, reading books and watching You Tube videos to figure out what it is we want. Or at least in what direction we want to go. We need to figure out, what makes us happy. We need to envision the life, we would love to live. The kind of life, that would have us be excited to get out of bed at 8am rather than at noon.

But inspiration is not enough. It is very nice to know what we want and then just go off and drift in the comfort of our lives some more. There are many reasons for this. Fear of failure, laziness and a sense of pointlessness to name just a few. Overcoming these is very difficult and every human being struggles. But there is no point in giving in to those obstacles. Because every day that we spend sleeping until 11am has us feeling a little bit worse about ourselves and makes it more difficult for us to actually be able to achieve our goals.

Truth is: we need to take ownership. When we get inspired, we are all motivated and want to go get whatever is the cause of our inspiration, but that only applies while we are in some sort of fantasy about our own lives. The moment we come back to reality, we fall back into our comfort. And this is where we need to be doing some work. We need to take ownership of our lives. We are the only ones living our lives. Which means we are the only one’s in charge. No one will ever do anything to improve our lives for us. No one can. There is this very powerful realization, that we are alone. No one cares. Yes, this can be incredibly devastating. If no one cares, why would I get out of bed? It doesn’t matter. Well… no one cares except us. It doesn’t matter except to ourselves. Yes, if we don’t get to achieve what we wanted to achieve, no one will care, but us. And this is powerful. It means that the relationship we have to ourselves and our lives is crucial. It means that the only person who we ever have to ask forgiveness of is ourselves.

And there is another big misunderstanding: to achieve our goals and take ownership, we need to get out of bed and off our butts. But other than that there does not need to be grand changes. Changing and adjusting our routines little by little will have a major positive impact on our lives. It is mostly the mindset that needs to be changed fundamentally. We need to adjust our mindset to be focused on owning our lives. We need to monitor our thinking. And this is important. The things we think is like talking to ourselves and if we say something often enough we will end up believing it. That can be very powerful if we control the way we talk to ourselves.

More often than not however we are blissfully unaware of what we are thinking at any given moment. There are a few things that can help. One of them is having a conversation with ourselves about what we think and how we feel. No one needs to know other than us. We need to be brutally honest with ourselves. And if we feel like a complete failure, maybe we can redirect our attention to the things that we haven’t failed, or even better find a way to improve. One more very effective way to monitor what we think is journalling. This can be in the form of regular check-ins with ourselves, or just random journalling about anything that is on our minds.

We need to ban negativity from our minds, that often comes in the form of perfectionism or realism and it causes a lot of stress which in turn costs us a lot of energy and has as drift into lethargy which is not what we want. We want to be inspired and take ownership. Never forget that we need regular boosts of inspiration, otherwise we might forget, why we are striving to build a certain life every day. Ownership of our thoughts, our mindset, our habits our daily actions. Ownership of our lives. Living and surviving are two different things. One is inspired and full of deliberation and happiness. The other is purposeless. It is up to us to choose. Only us.

Confidence not Arrogance

Everyone knows the importance of confidence. And yet so many people struggle with it. Why? Why is it so darn difficult to build confidence? The simple answer is: because it is work. The slightly more elaborate answer is: because it requires constant hard work and honesty. I believe that when people hear that they should become more confident, they end up becoming more arrogant, which is counterproductive.

Both confidence and arrogance start with someone not feeling good about themselves. The problem with arrogance is, that it is what happens when we try to make ourselves feel better, without being willing to acknowledge our problems. We try to make other people believe, how great we are, because we cannot believe ourselves, when we say “I am awesome.”. We hope that when other people believe, that we are great, we can believe it ourselves and find a way to be at peace with ourselves. In other words we are trying to put up a show. The show that we are awesome. The show that we enjoy our lives and that we are in control.

Another very characteristic thing that is an indicator for arrogance is, when we feel the need to be acknowledged and approved by others, but most importantly: when we always want to be better than others. We constantly need to measure up against other people and be better than them, in order to be able to feel good about ourselves. This sometimes goes as far as we feel the need to put other people down. We feel the need to be seen. We feel the need to brag. We feel threatened when someone is better than us.

And while we keep all this up we end up being exhausted and still not at peace. The reason for this is simple: we lack honesty. Everything we do is nothing but a show. We know exactly that we are not as great, as we want to make other people believe. And we end up never being able to fool ourselves. Because we are not stupid.

Confidence is knowing that who we are is good enough. And that knowledge needs to be based on facts. If we are not confident, we need to consider the possibility, that there are some things we need to work on. Gaining confidence starts with honesty. It starts with figuring out, who we are. What are the things we like about ourselves and what are the things we do not like? For me some things that I did not like were and still are that I do not study enough and how much I tend to complain. Often these things are the very things standing in between us and our happiness.

We do not need to despair. Confidence is not only when we have eliminated all our flaws. Confidence is, when we know we are working towards it. We are improving. Because we started being confidence by being honest, we are still being honest with ourselves. And we get to tell ourselves that we are handled our flaw brilliantly today. Or even just that we improved compared to yesterday. Or that we kept going, even though we did not feel like it. But we can say this without lying to ourselves.

Confidence is not about what other people think about us. Confidence is what we think about us. Confidence allows us to be at ease and gives us peace because we do not have to fear our own thoughts. Of course there will be days where it is more difficult than on other days. And that is where discipline comes in. Confidence is more than just a nice feeling. I said confidence required hard work. And it does so, because it is not always easy to improve ourselves. And sometimes we just want to give in and stay in bed. We all know the feeling. But confidence is what we gain from getting up nevertheless.

We cannot be happy without being confident. And we cannot gain confidence without honesty and self-discipline. We need both. We can acknowledge our flaws and do little to nothing about them. That is just immature, maybe even cowardly behavior. It showcases a lack of self-discipline. And while it is true that some naturally have more than others and some build it easier than others, I do not believe that anyone should allow themselves to use that an excuse to not be confident. If we are self-disciplined, but not honest about our flaws, we are wasting our energy, or maybe we are not as disciplined, as we thought we were to begin with.

I get it. I am struggling with discipline myself. It’s tough. And being honest with ourselves is a bench. But the reality is that we all want to be happy. And being honest with ourselves only hurts us, if it means, we have to work on ourselves. Why would we try to deceive ourselves? Arrogance is, when we try to deceive others in the hopes that at some point we end up believing it ourselves. We need to understand that it is our own decision. No one is making us build confidence. No one is making us be honest with ourselves. But I will rather be honest with myself and put in some work in order to gain peace and happiness. In order to be able to live with myself.

The people who are constantly stating we need to be more confident conveniently forget to mention how much work it is, because they are aware, that if they admit that, some people will choose to not start this journey. But I think, that we need to understand the choice that we have. And it is no good to us, if we think we are confident and still feel so insecure. That insecurity is most likely coming from some flaw within us, that we have not addressed yet.

While it is true, that confidence is not about how other people see is, rather than about us being please about us, we also have to understand that we are humans, which means, we have emotion and rationality. What I have described tackles the topic of self-confidence from a rational perspective. But sometimes there is no rational reason for us to feel insecure. Sometimes we are truly confident rather than arrogant, and still feel insecure. This is a mere emotion, and we really know, we are good enough. In such situations it can help to approach the problem from an emotional side, because the problem is purely emotional to begin with.

Let me illustrate this with an example: I have been very insecure about my appearance and my body since I was a little girl, even though there was no reason for that. When I got into uni and felt insecure, I imagined what I would think about me, if I saw myself. Since what I thought was never really negative, I have been able to tremendously improve my body image. Because what I felt was perfectly irrational. This would not have worked, if I had not been taken care of. Which is, why I advise to take a rational approach to confidence. We naturally try to deal with our insecurities emotionally. But we can do that so much better, if there are actually facts to back up our positive self-talk.

It is also important to understand the difference between being arrogant vs. being confident and competitive. Both types of people may feel threatened when they come across someone who is better than them. But the arrogant person may try to talk them down or talk themselves up, maybe even do some improvement to keep up the facade. The confident but competitive person will take this encounter as a motivation to improve further. That is a good thing as long as we don’t try to improve, just to be better than that person. A confident person does not care if someone else is better at something, they don’t care for. They acknowledge and praise the achievement. But they will not go out of their way to be better than the other person.

Say we meet someone who runs faster than us. Us trying to beat that person is not a bad thing. It may benefit our health and mental state. But it becomes problematic, as soon as we endanger ourselves, or when it makes us feel threatened even though running that fast was never our goal to begin with.

This illustrates beautifully not only what it means to be confident, but also why it is so “in” to not care about what other people think, because if we are confident, it does not matter, what people think, because we know our flaws and we also know we are working on them. In summary confidence is about knowing ourselves. Knowing who we are today. And knowing who we want to be. It is about working towards that in order to not lie to ourselves when we say “I love who I am.”.

Why Looks Matter.

Growing up many of us have been told that looks are not the most important thing in the world. We have been trained to ignore them as much as possible. The whole thing was designed to prevent us from becoming arrogant and shallow. If looks do not matter, why do companies have dress codes, even though only few of them are for safety? Why do lawyers and bankers show up in suits? It is true: looks are not the most important thing. But they do matter.

Looks are a form of communication. And they say so much more than just what my favorite color is, or that I like cats. Lawyers and bankers wear suits to tell their clients that they are competent. Doctors want to see their mental health patients before sending them over to a specialist of mental health, to assess how badly they are. But Clothes are not just a way to communicate to the world around us that we are competent, or that we know we are attractive.

It is also a way to communicate to ourselves. Taking the time to put on some jewelry or using some mascara, tells us, that we respect and value ourselves and our bodies. And that is something that we most definitely want to focus on, especially if we do have a history of self-harm. Dressing appropriately and nice is also a way to respect the people around us. Because they are the ones looking at us, all day.

But there is one more benefit in taking the time to create a nice outfit and that may be the most crucial one: It allows us, to check in on ourselves. It allows us, to figure out how we are feeling. Even if it is just how we are feeling about a certain piece of clothing. It is a first step to checking in on our actual mental state. And it tells us, how we want to feel. Our personal style reflects who we are. Are we playful? Are we serious and focused on achievements?

When it comes to clothes, many of us have intuitively chosen a style at some point in our lives. And some of us may have chosen clothes based on our body-type and skin color. We have tried to rationalize what looks best on us based on scientific evidence. I see one problem with both approaches: The first does not even acknowledge the power of clothes and dressing well, the second looses all mystery. The second focuses very much on what will look good based on scientific evidence and may easily forget that we only look good, if we feel good. Of course often times we intuitively choose what we should choose according to science. But just because our color season says we should wear green, does not mean, we have to wear green, even if we hate the color.

Clothes have more purpose other than being a form of communication. They should also empower us. Clothes empower us, not only by making us feel good. But they empower us, by reflecting who we choose to be. If you have not done so within the last 12 months I highly encourage you to adjust your wardrobe. Envision who you want to be. Maybe even write it down or make a Pinterest board. Then go into your closet and ask yourself for every single piece that you own not only Marie Kondo’s question “Does this spark joy?” But also: “Is this in line with who I want to be?”.

Why is this so important? What is around us, reflects who we are. Clothes are not just around us. They are on us. They are not only serving us, they are covering our bodies. Surrounding our bodies. Thinking clothes would be a minor detail in a human’s life is a fatal mistake. Because they are what we see when we look at ourselves. They make us feel a certain way. And we need to learn to use that to our advantage. We need to figure out, how we want clothes to make us feel. And then we cannot rest until we find those clothes, that make us feel powerful.

Having high standards when it comes to clothes may be an indicator for being spoiled. But it may also mean, that we know what we want. That we know what we need. It is wonderful, if we are able express our needs. It is so incredibly powerful to be able to choose what we need rather than just take whatever comes our way first. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is actually a skill that is so valuable and important and applies to so many areas in life. Clothes just being a very good way to acquire that very skill.

Do not make the mistake in thinking, that wearing the newest trend will empower you. I am sorry to bust your bubble, it will not. Trends are there for people who do not know who they want to be. Trends are there for people who need the mass’ approval of who they are. But if we wear what other’s want us to wear, we are not utilizing the power that clothes have. Maybe we are even working against ourselves, because we are wearing clothes, that embody values, that are the exact opposite of our own values.

Never adjust your values to what you are wearing. Adjust what you are wearing to who you are.

There is nothing wrong with trying a trend, but there is everything wrong with wearing a trend that is not in line with who we are, just because it is a trend. If we need external approval to that extent, we are very insecure. Insecure to an unhealthy extent.

Clothes are a tool. They can empower us to an incredible extent, if we know how to do it. And learning how to handle clothes properly, finding out what makes us comfortable and empowered. Is more than just finding a style that suits us, that looks good on us. It is about finding who we want to be. It is about respecting who we want to be and it is about learning to understand and communicate what we need. And this goes beyond clothing.

This is what real confidence is. Knowing yourself well enough that you are not pleased with something that is not right for you, just because it is trending right now. Confidence means not wearing a trend unless it suits you. It means not needing the external approval that comes with wearing something trendy. It means feeling comfortable and empowered wearing something that represents your values, regardless of what anyone else says. Because you are wearing what is right for you.

Not in a way that you walk around in inappropriate clothes. But that for any occasion there is something in your closet that is appropriate and the right thing for you. And when you wear it to that occasion you will not feel out of place and you will not feel like you are betraying yourself. This is confidence.

Anxious because Lazy

Sometimes all we do is focus on ourselves. We focus on our body image. And we focus on our goals. And we focus on our mindset. We focus on setting up the perfect life. And when everything seems in perfect order we check back in with ourselves and wonder:

“My Life is perfect, why am I not feeling good?”

Of course this can have a multitude of reasons. But one possibility is, that we are lazy. We know what we would have to do, but we are not doing it. And we may even use our mental instability as an excuse for it. We put off the work we should be doing in favor of creating our mindset, or exercising more, or whatever that may be. With me this would go so far, that I would engage in self-harm, just to have a bigger problem to focus on. Of course not everyone who self-harms does it for that reason, I would even go as far as to say most people do not. But I did. I am also not stating, that anyone with a mental issue, is simply lazy. That would be outspokenly ignorant. But what I am saying is: If our lives are perfect and we still feel anxious, it may be because we are lazy and I think it is absolutely worth checking up on that.

How does our laziness affect our emotional state? We may long for someone telling us, that we are doing well enough. We may long for external approval, because deep inside us we know, that we could be doing better. We end up being anxious, because we do not approve of what we do. We do not approve of ourselves. This can lead to a wrong self-diagnosis. We think, we are attention-seeking, have mental issues and don’t love ourselves the way we should. While this may true as well, the real reason is laziness.

I do not believe, that lying to ourselves, and telling ourselves that everything is fine when it isn’t but can be made alright is a smart move. Sure, there are things we cannot change, like our past. But it does not mean, that we should accept that we are lazy and just decide to roll with it, when it really is something that bothers us. We have control over this. And why would we find ways to cope with laziness, if we can just eliminate that very laziness and make our lives better this way?

How do we know, if we are lazy. We all are aware that emotional state fluctuates and maybe we are not equally lazy all the time. There is a simple way to assess this. We need to have a look at our commitments. All of them. School, work, family life, hobbies, you name it. Once we know what our commitments are, we need to determine, how committed we really are to them. When was the last time, we worked on that project we claim to be close to our heart? Do we only do the minimum of what is expected of us? And if so, why? Could we do more? How much TV and alcohol do we consume? As sad as it is, that last one is a good indicator, because when watching TV we feel, like we are doing something productive, but we can end up doing it for hours, without really doing anything.

How can we fight our own laziness? This is difficult. And I have just started struggling with this, myself. However there are three main steps, we have to take: We have to first acknowledge that we are lazy and in what regards we are.
Then we have to choose not to be lazy. We have to remember, why we made that commitment. Without a good reason to do something we should not be doing it. Everyone whines about how they do not have enough time, but they could not tell you, why they made half of their commitments. So let’s get our why.
And finally we need to strategize. We need to find out, what actions we can take, to not be lazy anymore. We can either increase the effort we put into something, or the time we put into something. We can run faster, or we can run for longer. We can finish a task well or we can work on it for longer. To spend more time on our commitments, I recommend Calendar Blocking. Using a calendar and assign tasks to time slots. Because this way we have full control over our time.
We should not try to force ourselves to doing more than a little more. This is a journey. We need to improve step by step rather than setting up a schedule that we cannot keep to for longer than a day.
Once we have our time slots, and we are working on that task, there is one thought, that I find helpful:

“I am spending time on this. I might as well do it well.

This is great, because it allows you to gradually not only increase the time spent on our commitments but also improve the work we do during that time.

One final tip: Try to quantify. Not everything can be quantified. But some things can. How much time we spent, how fast we wrote something. How long it took us to accomplish the same task as last week. Because even though this sounds very competitive it is true: Success is measurable. And if we only think we are good, with no recent measure to back that up, we are probably not that great and we have most certainly stopped improving, because improvement is change and change is visible, at least to ourselves. We deserve success stories, we are working on improving ourselves after all.

So finding ways to measure the improvement is crucial for our motivation, but also to battle that anxiety, that comes with laziness. Because when we see, how we improved, we know we are not lazy. We are not just telling ourselves, we aren’t to make us feel a little better. We are not lying to ourselves, we are telling the truth and with that, the anxiety will disappear. (Unless there was another source for it, in which case, we are now not to lazy anymore to deal with that as well.) In any case making sure we are not lazy. Making sure, we are improving is equal to being the best version of ourselves. And I kid you not: the best version of ourselves tomorrow is a little better than the best version of myself today. Working on fighting laziness will improve everything. Us as a person, our lives our relationships with ourselves, the world around us and the people around us, but especially the relationship with the people we love.

The Formula to Changing Mindsets

I promised to do a post on how to improve one’s mindset, with the goal to have a mindset, that allows us to improve ourselves, out of a habit. And for that to happen, we first need to do the most difficult shift: We need leave our passive mindset behind and start forming an active one.

Let me first clarify one thing: A mindset can actively be changed, but it is like changing a habit. Changing the way you think, requires time and patience and a lot of work. But the nice thing is, that the moment we take action, we do something, that is not typical to our current mindset, so we already took the first step to an active mindset.

Goals

To avoid, changing our mindset into something that is not better than what we are entertaining now, it is advisable to first define a goal. Often that is something that emerged from our dreams and is some sort of a soft version of them. It is something that makes us truly happy. Our goal is (usually) basically happiness. If we don’t know what that is, it helps, to make a list. Not only a list of things that we do enjoy, but maybe also of the things, that we do like. For me one of the most striking ways to know that I truly enjoy doing something, is when I do not feel the need to check my phone. These things will definitely end up on the list of things that I do enjoy.

The Plan

We cannot achieve our goals from one day to another. That is, why up until now, our goals were merely dreams rather than something we could take action on. In order to achieve our goals we need to divide it into smaller goals. And maybe we need to have different smaller goals in different aspects of our lives.

We need to add dates to these smaller goals and then, we need to figure out, what steps we can take today, to achieve those goals. We need at least weekly when not daily goals, little steps we take towards our big goal, in order to be able to move forward. A goal that is only set for a month is too big for us to oversee. We don’t know where to start, which is, why we need to break it down.

We need to implement some sort of accountability system. That can be a to do list, a project list with dates, a habit tracker, you name it. But the important thing is, that it makes sure, that we do take action and start achieving our goals. We are way more likely to fail, if we do not write it down and are not accountable.

But with accountability comes the instance that we do achieve our weekly goals. It is important, that we acknowledge those small victories, because without them we would never reach the final goal. Yes, our success is, the sum of a million little, daily actions that got us one step closer to were we wanted to be, but that is exactly, why we need to celebrate those little things. They are the stepping stones. They are the foundation to who we want to become.

The Mindset itself

The mindset is the set of attitudes. Therefore, in this step we have a look at our intentions. It is about who we want to be on less obvious level. It is about taking control of our mind. Do we want to hate the world and everything and everyone in it? Or do we choose to give people the benefit of the doubt. Do we choose to complain about, or do we choose to fix the things that bother us? What kind of aura do we want to have? Do we want to be the person that doesn’t really care about politics, or do we have a refined opinion on it? How do we choose to treat others? How do we choose to treat ourselves?

There are big trendy attitudes like minimalism and the “cool ones”, who just do not care about anyone and anything. But we don’t need to adapt to one of those. We can create our own mindset according to the person we strive to be. Finding who we want to be is a very personal things, but usually our goals give us a good starting point, to think about who we want to be, but sometimes we also need to adjust our goals to our intentions. It is a back and forth, a journey to find balance between our intentions and our actions.

Implementing a new mindset is however tricky. It starts with awareness. We need to keep questioning, whether what we are doing matches our intentions. The next thing is to adjust the space around us. It is to take care of the exterior. That includes the space we live in, but also our desk at work, our cars, our appearance. All those things reflect back onto us and help us to become the person we want to be. A certain space reinforces certain thought patterns and the thought patterns are exactly what we want to take care of.

Then we also need to implement habits, that reinforce our mindset. We want to respect ourselves? How about we start respecting our time and stop doing things, that don’t bring us closer to our goal or that we don’t really enjoy. We could also take care of our health and start going for a run once a week. Or focus more on nutrition. Maybe we want to respect our hobbies. Maybe we want to give more importance to other people than to ourselves, so we could spend more quality time with friends and family. Maybe we want to lead a productive life, so we focus on working productively without distractions for an hour straight, every day.

The last step is to find out, why we want to become that person. Why we have chosen this particular mindset. And to envision the person we want to become. And set up reminders of that throughout our space. Find inspiration. On YouTube, Pinterest, or wherever you find your inspiration. But do not scroll mindlessly. Go on a quest for inspiration and don’t just consume, but try to bring that inspiration into your life, by putting up notes or pictures on your mirror, at your desk, your screen safer, you phone background. Because you can have chosen to become a certain person all you want, we are humans and we do have emotions. That inspiration and the why are what makes our emotions cooperate. It is what helps us not just make the decision, but enables us, to follow through. It will be what makes sure, tough times are not the usual state.

Remember that this is a journey. Our mindset does not change within a week. And maybe it turns out, that we found a mindset and tried to implement it, but it didn’t suit us. Then we have to reassess and adapt. And try again. And that is okay. We do not need to have it all figured out instantly. It will happen. But it will take some time. It has to grow first.

What we want to vs. what we have to do

There is no such thing as “I have to do this.” But the alternative is to deal with the consequences.

Last week was exhausting. I had a midterm on Friday and the whole week I kept thinking: “I am so exhausted. I don’t want anything but sleep, but I have to keep going. I need to study.” But when the midterm was over and I had some time to make new to do lists and think about my whole situation I noticed a few things.

My real problem was my mindset
I wanted to study. I did not want to be sleeping or binging TV
But I couldn’t, because I was so tired
I’m not tired because of the workload, I am tired because of my mindset and the season

The more we force ourselves to do stuff, we don’t feel like wanting to do, the more tired we get mentally and the less energy we have. Often we just need to remember, why we want to do something. And remember, that we really don’t have to do it, if we don’t want to. This is a very empowering shift in mindset. It allows us to get back in control.

The other problem is the season. There are really nice aspects to it: it is cuddly weather and we get to wear the comfy clothes and drink tea and hot coco all Sunday long. It is perfectly acceptable to just stay in bed and do nothing for a little. We get chestnuts and gingerbread, chocolates and cookies. We light the scented candles and start listening to all the beautiful winter songs again. On the other hand there is the darkness and the cold. We get a Vitamin D deficiency. We dial back our physical activity. And this is what makes us so tired. For me there really just is one thing: more working out and a better sleep schedule. It gives a sense of control and it battles the exhaustion.

And again: we do not have to work out. But I want to. Because I want to study. And I want to be confident. And I want to have energy. And I know that regular work-outs will provide all those things.

Disrespect.

I think I may have finally found the reason I cut. Or at least a mayor corner piece of that puzzle. I do not claim that it is the same for everyone. In fact I am pretty sure it is not. But I know that my core-issue is an issue many have and even though not all of us may develop self-harm as symptom working on it leads to a happier life.

When I got into therapy my goal was to find out, why I cut. Find out, what was “wrong with me”. I think my therapist was actually on to it. She said “there were just so many forces” driving me to do things which lead to me not knowing what I should do. I think the forces around me, the field of tension I was in however only brought out, what was really the issue. A lack of respect for myself. I actually realized that talking to a friend.

As long as we are not under pressure. As long as we are not tested, we just live our lives. But when we are put to the test and we need to do the right thing there are two key steps to success. First we need to know what we want. And usually that is not the thing that feels right. It is the vision we have for ourselves. A vision, that we created, while we were not in that field of tension. And then we need the courage and the strength to respect ourselves enough to act upon that vision.

And that is where I failed in the past. I did not respect myself. I was faced with decisions, I did not want to make. And I did not have the strength to make the right choice. So I turned against myself. I did not cut, because I hated myself. I cut, because I was trying to find an exit in a disorder. I was trying to escape accountability for my choices. And the fact that I did that, makes me be ashamed of myself, which is truly not helpful in building respect.

And I still get the triggers, when faced with though decisions. Which is exactly why I need to practice to respect myself. Respect my feelings, my emotions, my limits. My priorities. My vision. My values.

But I think this can be learned. When we are aware that we do not respect ourselves, we can do something about it. And I find that it is mostly recognizing, that we are more than good enough. Because trying every day to come one step closer to our vision is the very best anyone including ourselves could ever ask of us. The version of us, who is trying to become the best version of us is the best version of us. I have said that before: we cannot expect us to be perfect, when we wake up tomorrow. But we can make tomorrow the day we become a little better.

And if we hit a wall which we inevitably will, we can remember to respect that limit of ours and try again later. We do not loose at life, because we fail at something. We loose, the moment we stop trying. We are right on track even if we just try to try.

And the best thing about respecting ourselves, and acknowledging how we feel and respecting those feelings is that it makes us more confident. And it will lead to us being respected by others. Because when we respect ourselves, when we feel comfortable with ourselves, and every part of us, we will automatically demand respect.

I am not saying that we should not take responsibility for our actions, because we feel bad. I think sometimes all we need to do is try to feel a little better, try to get through a though patch, because we cannot improve ourselves, as long as we feel like the world is ending.

The journey to peace (roll credits *ding*) is not a simple one. And doesn’t end after a few weeks. And sometimes even if we think we are at peace, if we are not careful we might loose that peace. But the journey is one that we are all on. Everyone. Not just someone who is suffering from a mental disease. We all have to choose whether or not to take one more step towards peace hundreds of times every single day. We can all respect ourselves a little more.

I am so very glad I figured this one out. Because I can finally stop blaming my issue on other people. I can finally take responsibility for my cutting. Because its source is my own doing. But that also means that I can change it. And knowing this is so empowering. It is like the torch in the darkness.

I want to focus on what I want more, than I focus on what I don’t want. For one simple reason: if I focus on what I want, I focus on my vision, I focus on respecting that vision. Respecting myself in that way. Because I have known who I want to be for a long time. I just failed to become that person most of the time. Which is alright. But that will change. One step at a time.

Self-respect is not egoism. It is taking care of ourselves, and becoming the best version of ourselves, such that we can be there for others. Because we cannot do that if all we can think about is the blade. This is why self-respect is important for everyone: We are part of this world. And when we become better, the world does with us.

The vision of who we shall be

I got lucky enough to know that my fear had a deadline. To know that at some point I would have an answer. And I got lucky enough to get the answer I had been hoping for and not the answer I had been so afraid of.

But now what? When we are lucky enough to get the chance to leave our fear behind. What do we do next? When our entire life had been evolving around that fear. (It does not have to be fear. It can really be anything you have been evolving around and now stopped.) How can we move on?

I think there are two crucial parts: One is looking back and figuring out what went wrong. And what went well. This is important, but I think it is quite self-explanatory. It allows us to deal with the emotions and not bury them inside us. But we do not want to live in the past. We shall not be devoured by regret. (In fact this could be the topic for a whole separate blog post.)

The other part is looking into the future. And sometimes, when we have been so caught up in something we need to actively create a vision of ourselves. But why would that be helpful? A vision allows us to measure our actions by. If something makes us more like the person we are in that vision, it is a productive action. But why do we need that?

Because we need a direction. Until this point we have been evolving around whatever it is we are leaving behind. Now it is time to evolve around something positive. Around the person we want to be. In my vision I never say: “I am not a self-harmer.” I say things like: “I am a strong, independent woman.” Such a positive vision, a vision of what we want to be rather than what we do not want to be, is very powerful, because it motivates us to go on. And it gives us somewhere to go. Somewhere we want to go. And every time we are able to take a step towards our vision, we will be able to love ourselves a bit more. Because we did something that made us better.

In the self-harm and self-hate context this is so important. Because we tend to be trapped in all that negativity. And I know I could not even have written this post last week. I think us hating ourselves… as sad as it is: It is part of who we are. And yes, we do have to fight it. But we cannot fight negativity with more negativity. We cannot fight the fact that we hate ourselves, by hating that we hate. That’s… recursive. So instead we need to find something about us, that we can love. And that is why we need a vision: because we want to be like the vision. And every time we get a little closer to who we want to be, we are allowed to be proud of ourselves. Love ourselves a bit more. Trust ourselves a bit more. Experience that we are actually not as much of a failure as we always like to make ourselves believe. And that I call taking control of our lives. Actively fueling our self-confidence instead of letting negativity destroy us.

But how can we create a vision? What inspires such a vision? There are many sources for that: People we admire. Ideologies. Quotes. And more mundane: Books, movies, series, music, pictures. I usually work with 4 categories:

Me and university
Me and my hobbies
Me and myself
Me and others

In each of these categories I determine what is important to me. I write it down and that is how my vision is born. Then I take one or two points in each category and figure out a way to actively improve that point. I make a plan. And most importantly: I try to ask myself on a regular basis: “Is this how the person in my vision would act?” or “Is this bringing me closer to the person I want to be?”. This is not entirely about accounting for the progress we make in becoming the vision, it is mostly about remembering that positive vision. Getting into the mindset of that vision. Because we can so easily forget, what we want to fight for. So reminding ourselves of it is always a good idea.

The 2nd Step: when to see a therapist

Before I went into therapy I gathered opinions. Many of them. The thought that I might need therapy had occured to me after the second time I had cut. But at that point, I found, that I had it under control, at least that was one of the reasons I told myself and to be honest, it was true and for months I did not cut again.

When I started cutting again, a very close friend of mine told me, that I needed help. He kept pushing and pushing. At some point he declared that he did not want to hear anything about my self-harm until I was seeing someone. Today I think that was mostly a mechanism to protect himself from my pain. And though it did make me quite angry, I think I always understood, why he did that.

So I asked the people around me for their opinions. And I got them. Some said, it would be a good idea. Others said, I had to decide that on my own. And I think that is very true. Therapy will not do you any good, if you do not want to get better.

When we realize that you are sick, we need to want to get better and find a way to make that happen. We are not alone. And we can get the help, we need. But we are allowed to find our very own healing process. Maybe it includes a therapist, maybe it does not. In the end that is entirely up to us. We just need to be able to say: “I am working on getting better.” And as long as we can say that without lying, we are good.

But what is the point, where we do need professional help? I think it is the point where the quality of our life is significantly decreased and we are not in a position to change that. That may be, because we cut ourselves, or because we have panic attacks, or we black out, or we cannot contain our anger. And unless we have an actionable plan to get better, seeing a therapist to help you find that actinable plan is a good idea. But again: In the end everyone has to decide that for themselves.

Hating ourselves

Self-hate is a problem. For some it is a reason to self-harm. For some it is a contributor. And for some it is just something they bury deep inside them. It devours them. And comes to the surface every time they feel that they failed.

Let’s take a step back. Where does self-hate come from? Why do we hate ourselves? Why? I think there are a variety of reasons. But a prerequisite to hate ourselves is that we believe that we are in control. Because if we have no control, we do not get to hate ourselves. Because if we cannot do anything, we cannot be guilty. And if we aren’t guilty, why hate ourselves?

That’s good news, isn’t it? We are in control. Which means that there is something about us, that we do not like. And we can change that. But what if we make the same mistake over and over and over again? What if we fall day after day? And we reach that point where we feel like it has no point. We do not want to get back up. We want to give in. We just want to hate ourselves for falling.

Again. Why? Why do we keep failing? We do we seem to be resistant to learning? There is no simple answer here. There are a few points that can be intertwined with each other. There are however a two major ones:

We do say it is a mistake, but we do not actually believe so.
We have not found the right way to avoid the mistake.

The first one is pretty much equal to lying to ourselves. It means that we are doing something that we like, but for some reason we think that it is wrong. Our believes collide with what we want. Well… sadly this has happened to me before. Several times. This can happen and sometimes we do not even know it is happening. We are not trying to lie to ourselves. But I think there is one crucial step we have to take, once we notice what is going on: Either we need to adjust our believes, to match our actions. Or we have to adjust our actions to match our believes.

And this is the second point: We might just have not found the right way to make sure we do not fall back into the same old traps. We need to develop strategies and techniques to trick ourselves into not making the same mistakes over and over. And it is fine to not find the right way immediatly. We all have to go our own ways. We are indviduals. We need to figure out what works for us. And often times that is a trial and error process. And that’s alright, as long as we keep going.

Now coming from someone who did self-harm and who has slipped down into the addiction of self-harm before that might sound very hypocritical. And yes. I have struggled with self-hate. Of course. I hate myself for cutting. And I hate myself, if I don’t. So yes. I might always be disgusted with myself, no matter what I do. But I also know that I do not have to hate. No one does.

Again: Failing is part of living. Falling is part of living. But Life is not about our failures. It is about how we got back up again. It is about how we grew from our failures. How we managed to go another day without cutting. How we lived our lives smiling a little bit more every day.

We do not have a reason to hate ourselves, for our mistakes. Not as long as we honestly fight them. Not as long as we try to become better. To not make them. Make plans to avoid them. Take action. Know that we are the ones forging our future. Or choose to make those mistakes. And then deal with the consequences. The choice really is ours.

But no matter what we do: There is no reason to hate ourselves. Because hate is only destructive.