Happy April! It’s been a while since I’ve written. I’ve had a lot going on, both in illness and in life – in fact I still do – and I’ve been needing to recenter and refocus a bit. However, I saw the April Linkup Party Prompts from A Chronic Voice, and these always inspire me to post. This month’s prompts are:
I love each and every one of these, so I’ve decided to write on all five.
Tiring
Right now, a lot of things seem tiring. My schedule has been intense for the past few months, as it’s been unusually busy at work and yoga teacher training is coming down to the wire (spoiler alert – see educating for more on this). The lack of down time/free time has been tiring. Not in a bad way, per se, as it’s all towards a greater goal, but still, tiring. More so, my brain has been tiring. Because I live with a rapid mood cycling disorder, my brain is all over the place. It spent all of January and February berating me, telling me I’d never succeed, picking at every tiny vulnerability. I was a giant weeping mess for the first two months of the year. Enter March, and things started to feel better. Not sure why, but they did. I’d been doing a lot of work on myself, and though I know my condition won’t ever go away, I thought at least I was pulling through the darkest pieces, and that my intense work on myself was paying off. And then, April hit. Hit me like an emotional ton of bricks, that is. I’m back to gooey, weepy mess, low self-worth and self-esteem, struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel. And this back and forth, this two steps forward one step back, this constant internal struggle and emotional roller coaster, is incredibly emotionally and mentally tiring.
Educating
As mentioned above, I’ve been participating in 200-hour yoga teacher training since the end of September. I am due to teach my “first class” (basically practicum part of our final) on April 26th, and I have my written final exam April 28th. The past few months have been tons of learning and educating, in everything from philosophy to the physical movements of yoga and everything in between. I’ve been learning how to put yoga flows together, how to choose the right music, the business and ethics end of being a yoga instructor. We were educated on trauma informed yoga (the basics, it’s something I want to pursue further once I graduate). I’ve been steeped in education.
I’ve also been doing a lot of educating myself on myself – everything from working on my courage and learning how I self-sabotage out of fear, to recognizing my codependent tendencies, to learning how to rediscover myself (if you have any tips for this, I’ll take them, this is still a work in progress), to so much more. It’s been super eye opening, helpful, frustrating, and just about every other emotion possible.
Receiving
I’m working on learning how to receive compliments/praise/acknowledgement/basically anything positive, either from others or myself. Low self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence make me generally sure that everyone’s “just being nice”, and that I’m not worthy of anything positive actually said about or done for me.
I’m also working on not receiving other people’s negative energy, painful words and actions, judgements, lack of belief in me, or anything else that falls into this realm. To clarify, I’m realistic and value honesty. I don’t want everyone to walk on eggshells or be all fluffy kittens and rainbows with me. But I have often defined myself by other people’s opinions/thoughts/words/actions. They thought the way I did something was wrong? I must be wrong. They didn’t believe in me or doubted me? I stopped believing in or started doubting myself (note: I already do this enough on my own, I don’t need others’ help to do so). This is all part of the codependent tendencies mentioned earlier. It’s still a big issue for me. I”m working on separating my belief in myself and my self-worth, from the negative I receive from others, while still being open to genuine constructive suggestions, alternative ways of doing/seeing things, etc.
Giving
I’m a giver by nature. I give time, I give understanding, I give empathy, I give forgiveness, I lend an ear, I help if someone needs help. Sometimes, in fact, I’m too giving. I try to be everything to everyone, except for to myself. So right now, what I’m working on is more focused giving, both internally and externally. For instance, instead of offering to be everything to everyone, I’m working on specifically reaching out to individual people, checking on on them, saying hi, etc. Not like a quick Facebook comment or like, but sending a persona text or message, really reaching out. I’m working on cultivating close relationships, instead of trying to be everything to everyone. It doesn’t mean that I am not there for others. But I am protecting my own energy a little more. I’m also working on giving to myself. Giving myself the kind words, the encouragement, the belief in self that has often been missing. I’ll get a bit more into this in “Quieting”, below.
Quieting
I’ve been doing a lot of self-work, as I mentioned. Much of this has to do with quieting the negative thought patterns in my mind, as well as reigning my mind in when it tries to run amuck (often). I’ve also been working on spending more time in meditating, yoga of course, prayer, reflection, and body access exercises/body scanning, which all help me with quieting my external environment (I tend to do each of these best in a quieter setting), but also my internal one.
Thanks, as always, for these prompts! It’s good to be back to blogging here again. Don’t forget to go to Linkup Party link in the first paragraph to check out others’ posts for these prompts!
Spread Hope Project 
(Not sure if my earlier comment got through so rewriting!)
Thanks for joining us again Maya! Sounds like life’s busy for you, but in the good way! I’m impressed you can do the yoga teacher training course, and all the best with that! I too, need to do plenty of self-assessment, or rather, recenter myself to correct defective ways of thinking, which happens too often. Sending lots of hugs!
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I too suck at receiving compliments and praise. I think because I have such imposter syndrome that I cannot comprehend why someone would compliment me. I am getting better at it.
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Same here on the imposter syndrome!
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I hate imposter syndrome. Drives me nuts
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Same here!
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Congratulations on completing the course and beginning to teach Yoga. It’s wonderful that it’s beneficial for you. Training our mind to think positively about ourselves is an uphill battle for sure!
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Haven’t finished the training yet, but fingers crossed, end of April! Thank you! And I agree, an uphill battle indeed on thinking positively about ourselves.
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Hi Maya such a lovely read. Best of luck with your yoga finals I hope you get the results you want. I’m also interested in body trauma in the form of somatic yoga. I’ve been too I’ll to complete but look forward to it one day. You are doing so much work take a minute and be proud of all those achievements even though you struggle you’re so right it is often too steps forward and one back! I ordered a codependency workbook on Amazon it’s still a work in progress and I also subscribe to coda.org not sure if they’re any use to you x
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Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. I will check out coda. I have been meaning to check it out actually so I appreciate the reminder! I read a codependency book and I’d love to do more work with it. It’s literally an every day struggle, but I *hope* I’m getting a bit better.
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Hi Maya, really enjoyed your post. I really feel like I need to rediscover myself after going through a tough year so far. I have started doing yoga and relaxing more but would love some tips on re-discovery too! Your yoga sounds amazing though, best of luck with that 🙂 Louise X
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Thank you! Yoga is really amazing. I love it, and it’s helping me to really connect with myself, which is helping me in the rediscovering. As for tips, I wish that I was further along in this process and felt I had better ideas to share. One thing that I’ve been doing lately is really paying attention to how things feel to me (internally). If I’m about to do something a certain way, or put my focus somewhere, and it just doesn’t “feel right” somehow…. if it feels like “I know everyone thinks I should do this but it doesn’t feel like me” or I can’t remember why I do xyz this way in the first place because it doesn’t feel natural”, I take a step back. One of the things I’ve found is that I do A LOT of things because it’s what/how others said I should over the years. Which makes me realize I often don’t know how/what *I* really want/would do. I’m also really trying to tune into what livens me up, brings even tiny amounts of joy, and seeing where I can put my focus more there. For instance, I’m noticing anything with nature – a sunny day, feeling a warm breeze, hearing birds chirping as I walk my dog in the morning – makes me smile and brings me small moments of happiness. Not saying that it’s nature for everyone – it could anything that really sparks in you. It’s just the fact of noticing and seeing where you can reconnect with that, especially for someone like me who seemed to take a hiatus from noticing my own self while focusing on what made others happy. Finally, I’m working really hard, and it’s really a difficult process, to realize what I cannot control – namely, other people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. I put so much pressure on myself to “make everything right all the time”, but often, that would mean changing what others are doing/saying/thinking/etc, and I have zero control over that. So I’m trying to really focus on those things that I am able to control, notice how I can discover myself through them, and not focus so much on things I can’t. Which I realize sounds super cliche, but I realized I’ve been more or less living for others for quite a while, and it’s not good for either me or them! Sorry, that’s a *really* long-winded answer. 🙂
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Hey Maya,
It’s great to see you participating, it’s lovely seeing you back in the blogging world.
Congratulations on learning to teach yoga, that sounds so great and I hope that your exams go well. I am sure it will be something that is both beneficial for you and others you will be able to teach. I know it can be a great way to clear and focus the mind.
Best wishes for the rest of the month!
Rhiann x
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Thank you very much Rhiann!!
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