New Year Energy

I prefer to see the Spring Equinox as the beginning of the new year but I still want to make use of the winter season and the new year energy. Everyone seems to be making plans and setting goals. My YouTube feed is full of planner setups and goal setting for 2024. I want to use this energy in a way that works for me. When I think about the seasons, I see spring as the time to plant new seeds, summer is the time to nurture them, autumn as the time to harvest them, and winter as the time to reflect and prepare for spring. I love the gardening metaphors. I struggle with winter and want to change that this year.

My last post shows me realizing that no matter how many weeds I pull, they will always come back because I have created an environment for them to thrive. I know that my theme of the year next year will be about addressing that. So in the meantime, I want to spend the winter preparing myself for that, whatever that is going to look like and start building habits or systems that will help me progress.

Thinking about things that have worked for me in the past, I have decided to start using a planner again. I haven't used a planner in a number of years because I was spending too much time setting it up and was then not able to use it effectively. I have ADHD and my ability to focus is very limited, so by the time I set it up I didn't have the focus to use it. I found a way to simplify my planner set up so I have been relearning how to actually use it. I want to use it to focus on achieving my goals and creating better habits.

I am also working on addressing my finances. I struggle with impulse buying and object permanence so I forget about upcoming bills when they aren't in my face. Also, some of the changes I want to make involve redoing my apartment and my wardrobe which is going to cost big money no matter how much I try to keep costs down. I also had some major car repairs and a large unexpected vet bill that pretty much emptied my emergency fund. I'm taking the opportunity to rethink my finances. I make enough money, I just need to get organized and find a system that works for me.

Finally, I really need to think about my next steps in life. It took me a long time to get to this point in life where I feel fairly stable and secure, so I’ve been sitting here for a while. I needed the time to sit still. But I think it’s time to start moving forward. During the sales, I bought a couple of Udemy courses. I am going to use them to explore a couple of things I am interested in learning and potentially pursuing. I have been thinking about potentially making a career shift and it is time to really explore that.

I want this year to be about making moves to improve myself and my life so preparing for spring is going to be trying to map out these things and seeing where it takes me.

The Soil Itself Is Toxic

When I started this theme of the year of clearing the weeds, I really had it in my head that I was going to be purging. Clearing out my apartment was my main focus. I thought that I was holding on to bad energy (weeds) and by cleaning up and getting rid of things, I would let go of that energy and make room for better. Well, I was not entirely wrong but what I am really starting to understand is that it goes deeper than I expected. The soil that I have cultivated is the perfect environment for these invasive and toxic plants and I planted the seeds. The way that I learned to cope with certain things and how to navigate the situations I was in created this. It again,  reminds me of the poem I wrote years ago, My Prison. I cultivated this soil and planted these seeds to protect myself only for it to turn around and harm me. So this leads to the big question. How do I go about cultivating new soil? I did it once on an unconscious level. How do I now do it consciously?

I don't have a real answer but since this all started with me trying to protect myself, I decided to put my focus in to creating a new sense of safety and security for myself. I'm starting with my apartment. I am working on creating a sanctuary for myself. I have done a lot of purging but I do not have much in the way of organization or furniture. I want to have all of the things I want in my apartment but I want everything to have a place. Clutter has really been getting to me lately. 

I also want to fix my finances. I have ADHD and I struggle with things like impulse buying and forgetting about upcoming bills. Something common for people with ADHD is "out of sight, out of mind" issues. Anything that is not right in my face gets forgotten about. I've tried putting everything on my calendar but it has not been helpful. This has created quite a but of stress and caused me to put too many bill payments on my credit card. This kind of stress and insecurity seems to trigger a lot of bad habits in me. Plus, furniture and organization systems are expensive. I won't be able to create my sanctuary without a solid financial plan.

I'm not sure exactly what this looks like yet but I already have a couple of things in motion and it feels good.

Strange Weeds I'm Finding

 I've discovered something weird about myself lately. I seem to be afraid to go out and try new things or explore new places. I am especially afraid to go alone. I'm also afraid to meet new people. I don't even want to talk to people online like I used to. This is a new thing. This hasn't been an issue since I was in middle school. I have spent so many hours alone in coffee and tea shops, taking walks or reading in parks alone, going to bookstores and the library alone, etc. I used to go to seminars and classes alone. I have not been afraid to be alone in public for my entire adult life, even during my deepest depressive times. In middle school I had low self esteem and was not at all comfortable in my own skin. That kept me from feeling comfortable with meeting new people and going to new places. I think the same thing is happening now.

After getting out of my last relationship, I did not recognize myself. I literally would look in the mirror and not recognize the reflection. Frankly, I still don't recognize it two years later, but it is getting better. Still, I do not feel like myself and don't feel comfortable outside of my spaces. Actually, I don't feel completely comfortable in my spaces either. I have an idea of how to get to that spot where I am comfortable in my space and am working towards it. I have less of an idea of how to get to the spot where I am comfortable outside of it.

Money

 I watched this podcast recently about money and healing the masculine and feminine and I started to think about my relationship with money. This is definitely coming up as one of the toxic trees that I am trying to clear out. Growing up, my parents never had enough money and I often went without, even only having one pair of pants at a time. I did get lunch money so I stopped eating lunch so that I could save up for more clothes, starting with another pair of pants. They also took away from me to give to my brother. Now as an adult, that lack I had as a child has been showing up in how I spend. I collect things, I have bought a large amount of clothes and shoes, I buy whatever comes to mind because I don't ever want to feel that lack again. But I also am constantly thinking about money because, even though I make what should be good money, this world is more expensive than ever and I do still live paycheck to paycheck. Obviously, this is a fine line to walk.

As an adult, I now know that my parents did have enough money, they did not have much financial literacy and did have have their priorities in line. That knowledge kind of messes with my head even more. Them not having me as high on their priority list as other things makes me want to prioritize myself even more. The problem is that I don't know how to do that in a healthy way. So that brings me back to looking at my relationship with money. How do I prioritize myself but build a healthy relationship?

I've spent most of my adult life viewing money as a tool. In the podcast, Sorelle said that she views money as energy that just wants to be loved. That made me pause. It's a viewpoint that I had never heard. Money is abused in so many ways by people who view it as either a tool or something to hoard or something evil. What would happen if more people viewed money as a beautiful energy that wants to be loved? What would change in me, if I viewed money that way?

Honestly, I don't know what that looks like. I operate from a wounded fear of lack and the idea of money being a tool. Viewing money as energy means viewing it as abundant. It means that there is no lack, which is very hard for me to wrap my head around.

Clearing the Thorns

 My goodness. Clearing the thorns has been a really tough process. I haven't even made a dent. On some level I knew it was going to be hard. In a lot of ways, I've been working on this for years. I mean, it's quite literally the purpose of this blog. However, I had no real idea how strong these thorns were or how deep the roots are. They are basically trees but toxic. I seem to have been hacking away at leaves and vines, which is progress, and have finally gotten to trunks. I don't know what plants have thorns, vines, and trunks and are the size of trees so I'm imagining some mythological plant I guess.

Did you ever watch the show "Avatar: The Last Airbender"? It has been years since I saw it but I remember there being a scene that talks about the roots of the trees being connected across the world and communicating with each other. That's how I feel but in a bad way about these invasive and toxic trees in my inner world. They are connected and have taken over.

I realize that these kinds of deeply rooted issues can't just be cut away. I have to figure out how to stop feeding these trees so that they die and are replaced by something better for me. This is the problem I always have with changing my habits though. I know what needs to go but that can only happen if I replace it with something and I never have a good idea of what to replace the habit with. I wish this was discussed more when people talk about breaking habits. On a physical level, you cannot just get rid of a groove in your brain, which is essentially what a habit is. You have to make a new groove and I don't know what my new groove should be.

Quote: Frida Kahlo

“Don’t build a wall around your suffering. It may devour you from the inside.” 

– Frida Kahlo

This quote reminds me of a lesson I learned the hard way and the poem I wrote titled My Prison about how my own protection systems almost destroyed me.

I Need to Heal Old Coping Mechanisms

 Something that has become blatantly obvious to me in the past few months is that I have a big coping mechanism that I need to finally address.  I have become too comfortable in clutter and chaos. When I was young, my space was regularly violated. I am the type of person who very much needs my own space that is completely private and have been that way for as long as I can remember. It is very harmful to me when my space is violated. As a child, that space was my bedroom. However, that space was often violated. My brother would steal from me and my parents would do nothing about it. They would also kick me out of it whenever they wanted to host guests. I loved my room. I had a queen size bed but I got rid of it for a tiny day bed because no one would listen to my need to not have my space violated. This stopped the guests but not the theft. Over time, my solution to the theft became to make it impossible for anyone but me to find things by filling the room with clutter. It mostly worked. Everyone stayed out. However, it forced me to learn how to function normally in chaos. Now here I am in my 30s and I never managed to leave that coping mechanism behind. It isn't a coping mechanism anymore, it's actually incredibly stressful. 

So, how does one move on from a harmful coping mechanism that has become the only way a person knows how to function? I have absolutely no idea. I moved a month ago and still have so much unpacking and organizing to do. I live in this weird dichotomy where it stresses me to look at the clutter but I feel no urge to address it because it is what I am used to.

I think this is going to be a big part of my "clearing the weeds" year. I have a lot of bad habits that directly relate to coping mechanisms. They have been keeping me stuck and it is time to address them if I ever want to move forward.

Theme of the Year

This year has been hard on me emotionally. My theme of the year was "tending the garden" and it took me out. I felt like the second I started trying, I got hopelessly tangled up in the mass of thorns. It always amazes me what kind of mess I am left with when I come out of a depressive time. It always shows up in all aspects of my life, mentally, emotionally, and physically and this time it was made so much worse by a bad relationship where he just had no regard. It feels like all that is left in thorns and kudzu. I have been very overwhelmed. It feels like much of my progress that I have made since I started this blog is gone. I know that isn't true but I still have major feelings of resentment and failure. There's also a deep feeling of shame.

So obviously my new theme for the year needs to be:

Clearing the Weeds

For sure, this will include continuing to declutter and reorganize my apartment. I have been depression nesting for a couple of years now and I've been ready to clear it out. I started clearing things out back in December and the recent move really helped me clear some things out. I will be carefully going through everything I still own and deciding if I want to keep it or if it is time to move it on. I still feel like the energy needs cleared in a way that music, frequencies, tingsha bells, and sage just can't accomplish. 

This is also going to include detoxing my body. I still have damage from being on birth control for so many years. I was on birth control for PCOS and now that I stopped taking it, the PCOS has been making itself known. I also have not been eating very well. My skin looks dull, I've gained a lot of weight, and I have so little energy. I am going to learn about lymphatic drainage massage and I am looking into cleanses. I am working on changing my diet so that it doesn't take too much energy to make food but is still healthy. I've started taking some supplements as well. I know that supplements aren't the best but I think they will help as I rebuild my health and get my diet to a good place.

This is going to be a long process and not simple, so I am focusing on these two aspects and not thinking beyond it. The reality is that it will likely take the majority of the year or more to feel like I've made any progress.

Spring

Season of sex and creativity

Planting seeds to tend this year

Rested & rejuvenated, ready to create something new

Invigorated by the earth's renewal

New life begins to come forth

Grand celebrations abound

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Moving

 I am overwhelmed. For two months now I have been dealing with the roof of my apartment leaking badly. I have had to empty 5 gallon buckets full of putrid roof water multiple times. I have had 4 major leaking incidents with 5 separate spots in my ceiling leaking each time. It has soaked in to the carpets and floorboards and it has leaked in the walls as well. Most of my towels are ruined from mopping up the water. I am not able to get the smell out anymore. The property manager has been aware of the issue and maintenance has been in my apartment multiple times. It has been an exhausting experience and I might actually be a bit traumatized. Everything sounds like dripping water to me. The normal creaks of the apartment, my dogs licking themselves or drinking water, actual dripping outside freaks me out. I have woken up in a panic so many times, thinking I heard dripping water.

I finally lost it after coming home from a long day at work (this is the busy season) and finding my bathroom floor covered in water yet again. I left a very long message with the main office accusing them of exposing me to a major health hazard and demanding to know when they were going to fix the roof. Instead they let me know that there was going to be an apartment available that I could move into. Although it is not an ideal apartment as it is not on the second floor, it is a solution that works for me. Of course, they aren't going to help me move like they should, so that means that once the apartment is available, I will be spending every night moving myself until I can get people to help me on the weekend.

I had already started going through my things to try and get rid of stuff I don't want or need anymore but I was trying to be very mindful about it, only doing it when I am in the right headspace and trying to donate whatever I can so it has been a very slow process. Now, I am going to have to finish that up as I move and won't be able to be as mindful. I know that I have way too much stuff from depression nesting for a couple of years. I know that I will feel so much better once I get rid of a lot of it. But I am so overwhelmed thinking about this process and what it is going to take to get it done.