I am sitting in my cosy room with a new flavour of tea right in front of me and my favourite music playing in the background. I just did some Yoga and spend the morning outside with my dog and my boyfriend, breathing in fresh air, being amazed by the beauty of a frozen forest underneath a blue sky, writing poetry... My day has been amazing so far. It was a good day. Yesterday was a good day, too. And when I look at my journal I realise that I had a lot of good days this year.
But there were also bad days. Nights in which I stayed awake in my bed for hours, contemplating life, my future, the terrible person I saw myself as.
This should be a wrap-up post for November, already too late a few days, but I have decided to turn it into something else entirely. For two reasons: I yet have to reevaluate my Nano-experience, and today when I walked through that beautiful place with the two most important beings in my life I realised something: I am better.
I suffer from episodes of depression and bipolarity. I had one session with a therapist after my father died, but afterwards, I always tried to battle my own demons alone. I thought that if I accepted the fact that I could not handle these bad feelings alone I would also admit my own weakness in some way. That is wrong. I realise that now.
And why am I writing about all this now? Because in 2016 I had a special therapist at my side all along: My journal.
For the first time in my life I have kept a journal throughout the entire year. I did not abandon it in February after promising myself to keep it at New Year's Eve. I stayed with my journal (well, I had to pick up a second one after the first one had no empty pages left in early October) and it helped me so much, I cannot really put it into words.
I read a lot of articles online about the benefits of keeping a journal, about journaling yourself back to mental health. And as the year draws to a close I find myself agreeing with those articles. Writing my thoughts down, finding words for the confusing emotions inside my mind has helped me to understand them more. Looking back at my days, my weeks, my breakdowns, I was able to pin down what might have caused them and after some months I even began to realise patterns in my mental state that influenced my physical state, too.
So in short, writing has helped me survive this year and it gave me a better perspective on the year ahead of me. Because I now have the tools to understand myself, work on becoming a better person, and simply enjoy the ride.
That is another important thing I learned this year. How many times have you heard that old saying the journey is its own reward? Well no matter how cliche it might be, I found it to be very true. What is the meaning of striving to be better, of working out each day, writing a thousand words, reading an hour, doing all the things that bring you closer towards your goal, and not liking to do them at all? And all of it just because you think if you reach that goal, if you become that person you have in mind, your life will be happier.
Let me tell you the truth. Your life won't be happier just because you lost that certain amount of weight, just because you did something or reached something. Yes, you will feel good about your success at first, but what about the month after that?
The path to real happiness, as I now think of it, is quite the different journey, A journey that never ends. It is a journey of self-love and self-acceptance. And I have put myself on that path without really noticing the first step. I trotted along every day of this year, no matter if I found a reason to smile though I had a terrible day at work, no matter if it was that stranger on the bus that gave me his handkerchief when the tears refused to stop (I do think of him a lot, lately).
Every time I opened up my journal, every blank page was an invitation to work on understanding myself a little better and in the end to accept what I had learned about myself. I know now what makes me happy, I know now what makes me happy, I know what makes me unstable and I can work with that. I can face my demons because I know their faces now, I can lean back and be grateful for the wonderful time I have on this planet because my journal made me realise how many good days there were.
My psychology teacher once told me that the human brain is prone to remember the bad days but often forgets that there were days of smaller luck, too. It all blurs into one picture and if that breakdown had more power over you than all the small smiles in between then you will remember only that bad hour you spend curled up on the floor, crying. But if you look into your journal it reminds you of the small laughs you had the day before while meeting your friends on the train. It reminds you of the birds you watched on the way to school, the beautiful colour the sky had that evening two days ago... The list goes on and on. But we often forget it.
So I wrote it down. I wrote it all down. Sometimes I did not pick up my journal for days but only kept note of my mood through small smileys. During other weeks I could not stop writing, I could not stop thinking, I could not stop discovering,,,
My journey is far from being over. I have learned a lot this year, and I am determined to learn even more next year.
I will one day be able to accept my failures, to look upon my life with a smile on my face and today I realised, for the first time in forever, that this day might not be far away.
I shall keep on writing. What about you?
Accept who you are, love what you do.
M
Post Scriptum: This post was created in a blur. I just kept on writing the thoughts that spilt out of my mind, but during a conversation with my boyfriend earlier today, he told me that even he could see my change in handling things.
I have used different styles of journaling, of keeping an eye on my thoughts, and some have worked for me more than others. Bujo, Gratitude - Journal, Happy List, ... It goes on and on. Please be so kind and let me know if you would like a series of posts on these different kinds of journals and I shall go to work.
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