I am officially out of the goo stage ya’ll, all the things that used to make up my identity feel like a nice distant memory. They didn’t make it through the metaphorical goo. It’s a bit of a bummer because I really liked who I was, but at least I don’t feel like a directionless puddle anymore. I just feel very uncomfortable, and like i’m having intense growing pains. My mind is the only thing that doesn’t seem to be able to catch up. It’s like my brain doesn’t want to let go of the past. It has been repeating the old story, and my body has been yelling for another. My new routines and habits are very body-focused, and have been feeling exactly what I need to be doing. My energy is getting stronger and i’m feeling way more relaxed. But my brain is still in this weird limbo state of my old life and refusing to go into my next. I find myself second guessing my recent decisions, but each time I revisit the moment and weigh the options I make the same choice. Because I think my body is officially running the show now, not my head. I am not the same person I was when I made that decision. I know that with my current life I have to choose a different path. I have to make my body my first priority. I can’t keep living in a constant state of stress, when it has such an affect on me physically.

I have a lot of regrets on how I handled certain situations, but now I see that my body was exploding for attention. It was finally stepping up and saying stop. I’ve been having lots of situations this last summer where I just exploded over tiny things. States of sudden overwhelm where I start crying and yelling: a face-time call where i’m suddenly supposed to be on, I instantly freak out. I thought I had the bay to myself and then we have someone show up that I don’t have the energy to talk to, I instantly freak out. Any type of surprise unscheduled work, I instantly freak out. I now understand that that was the start of my body taking over. It was screaming for me to listen. “i’m not doing this anymore, I don’t have the capacity!”

When I look back and think about everything my mind chose to do in the last three years, almost every decision went directly against my bodies needs. For instance, I had a severe hip injury in 2020. A situation where I thought I had learned to listen to my body, but in 2024 I actually re-injured myself again. All because I didn’t listen to the warning signs, and pushed too hard at work. I let my mind say it’s okay, work is more important than your body.

My mind has such a wonderful way of making things seem okay: “pretend here”, “don’t look at that, only look for this”. The problem with living with rose colored glasses is that you’re not living in the truth. You’re choosing to see things that aren’t there to make things seem better than they are. It feels like my body finally reached up and took off the glasses. Because i't’s my body who has been dealing with the consequences of what my mind was choosing to see, and do.

I't’s also calling bullshit on my mental health. Creating delusions and pretending to be okay with things is just a coping mechanism. It can only hide the truth for so long before you need to confront the real problem. You can only do that by taking off those glasses, and looking head on at the situation. I’m grateful for my body to be strong enough to do that, and to speak up about what it needs. I now better understand what my mind has been hiding from. It’s still a very painful situation, but I know it’s for the best. So this is what i’m growing through a very uncomfortable place, a place where my mind is screaming to go back to people pleasing because those used to be values. It doesn’t want to change and accept the new ones. I’m hoping one day my mind and body will become a team again.