What makes your soul shine?...

When I first saw the term “Do what makes your soul shine” I loved it and it genuinely makes me think about the things and the people that influence me to feel the best that I can. What I surround myself with is so important as it effects the way I see things in life. It also gives me the opportunity to recognise the things and people in my life that bring me down or push me to feel less about life. Often it can be the people who are the closest to you or should be the ones to support you the most that can have the biggest impact on you. Over the years I’ve learnt the harsh reality of distrust and/or found the things I thought were making me happy to be the things that were bringing me down the most. I’ve discarded a few people because of this or changed my habits to try and surround myself with a happier environment and I don’t feel bad about it. If you notice the same individuals contributing or manipulating your happiness then loves..it’s time for them to go.

At the moment it’s hard as everyone around me is sad, depressed and/or drifting in and out of the motion of happiness. I’m going through this as well and therefore we are just in a vicious cycle of doubt, unfulfilled promises and aspirations to try become better mentally. Feeling like we will never see a normal life again has a big impact at the moment. When will it end? When will I hug my friends again? When will I be able to travel and see things that inspire me to carry on? When will I look at someone and trust them to ‘save me’ rather than trying to take on another broken mindset? We are all slightly broken right now and that’s just the way it will be for a long time.

I seem to have a few days where I feel on top of my game and I have the energy to support everyone. Convince myself everything is fine and is we become as positive as I am then the world will turn the right way around. But then i’ll wake up one morning the wrong way or someone will message me with bad news and I suddenly feel deflated, again struggling to see the bright side of life that day. The problem is we have too much time to be with our thoughts. The thoughts that are becoming more negative as we aren’t experiencing new things or filling our time with things we love to distract those thoughts. But we must remember this is a phase and a lack of distraction that we will have again in time. We have just become impatient with the idea that this pandemic won’t go away as quick as we want it and we will all be stuck at home or going to jobs that aren’t bringing us much happiness right now. How do we distract ourselves?

I put a lot of pressure on myself with every aspect of my life. Always have, always will regardless of what is going on in the world. Because I’m so focused on battling through my bad times at the moment I become even tougher with myself. If I wake up having a bad day I become very angry, to the point I’ll battle with myself and in my head be so harsh that I shock myself out of my self pity. Sometimes it works and I’ll change my attitude and go do something productive. Other times it makes me worse. But if I don’t try shame myself out of it then I’ll never learn or I’ll just be stuck feeling sorry for myself everyday. Recently I’ve learned I have a lot of shit in my head that needs to be spoken about before I can write my blog posts. When I finally start writing there’s a lot of things that come out that aren’t really ‘safe for work’ if you know what I mean. But even though I write a full post that can’t be posted so I feel like I’ve wasted my time, really I’ve helped and distracted myself. I’ve just sat and released something that’s been siting in my mind clearly for too long and I finally have it away from me. I’m almost giving myself therapy when I read them back but this is healthy as it makes space for positive thoughts in my head instead. You need something that is going to help you release those thoughts for yourself. Something to work on!

My blog has almost been my calling. Not many read it but I still enjoy sitting here and talking to myself. It distracts me and makes me feel accomplished when I analyse the situations I’m discussing. Find a project that you can work on, work towards in your own time, something that is purely for you and no one else needs to interfere with unless you want them to. For a while I thought that I needed someone to make me feel good about myself and often I still miss them and think I can’t be happy without them, but I’m wrong. If anything missing them makes me feel worse about myself as I still question what went wrong and what is wrong with myself. It’s nice to have intimacy and that feeling of being the person someone thinks about, but I can’t have that anymore and I need to let it go. It’s not good for me to dwell on and I can work on myself, become happy in order to attract someone who wants to be apart of my life again.

I’m surrounding myself with things I love now. Making my room my safe space, tidy, the right colours and filled with plants as looking at pretty things that I'm in control of is my thing. I'm trying to relax with my dog by my side as having him calms me and gives me something to love as he loves me back. I also carry on watching my Youtubers and streamers as that’s my way of escaping and I’m still trying to look forward to things that are far away but I can still see as good things. Such as the new formula one season this year and the possibility of maybe going to my favourite place in Greece to see my grandad. If it doesn’t happen I’ll be disappointed but I need to stay hopeful. These things are simple but in the climate that we live in its what is keeping my soul shining. Please appreciate the little things in life as much as you can and make the most of the little things we can do and can have right now. There’s always something worth your time and the feeling of not being creative enough or feeling like your soul is disappearing is normal but not forever! You can change it even now. Feel sorry for yourself, relax and take the day if you need to but also be harsh to yourself in the best way and tell yourself you can do better. You’ve done it before you can frickin’ do it again!

Times are hard but we will make them better! Sending love to the ones who feel like there’s no escape at the moment or feel alone. But it will not last and you can do this. You are not alone because you have you and you are worth everything trust me. If you need reminding of that or need to rant then I or someone else in your life is only a message away.

Have a good today and a better tomorrow!

Jade x