Feeling Lost

Lately, I have been floating and feeling lost. I have had a few life changes in the last year and right now I am living with what feels like unending pain. I feel like I have lost myself some where in the shuffle.

Do I love myself?

This feeling has made me question my love relationship and if I am with the correct person for me. But I had a friend pose a question upon me that has really made me think. The question is, “Do you love yourself?”

I find myself befuddled by the question and the fact that I didn’t have an answer.

In the last few months, I had lost myself and I was not sure if I liked who I was. I began to realize that my insecurities about myself were why I was questioning being with my boyfriend. I was wanting to break up with him, because I did not like myself.

Sure, you can break up with other people if you realize they are not for you, but you cannot break up with yourself. You cannot write yourself a “Dear John” letter and go find a better self and start over. You and yourself are stuck with each other.

“You can’t change others…”

I am sure that the most used statement dealing with personalities is, “you can’t change others, but you can change yourself.” It’s the cover all, answer all and the discussion is over statement. It makes me think about something a horse trainer wrote in his book, “Is it me or my horse?”

It’s all about switching your mindset from the problem being the other person to yourself. Mindset changes are not easy. They take time, meditation, reflection, and gobs of thinking about yourself.

I was raised to think that if you think about yourself, that you are selfish. I am beginning to think that is wrong. How is it selfish when you fix yourself so that your interpersonal relationships benefit? How is it selfish when you work on yourself and stop yourself from self-harm?

If bettering yourself means that you are going to be able to do or give more to the ones you love, then how is that selfish?

So there is a time, a place and a need for some selfishness, especially if you suffer with depression or anxiety. If you don’t take care of yourself, you are not doing any favors for those who are around you.

Step One – Admitting You Have a Problem

Oh look, it’s like alcoholics anonymous…

The first step in any shape or form of self improvement, generally, is admitting you have a problem.

When I first started dieting and trying to lose weight, I realized that I had problem. I am addicted to food. Why am I addicted to food? It makes me feel better. Why do I need to feel better? I hate myself and my life.

Oh dear…

Life is like an onion. You start peeling off the layers and peeling them off. You will start finding things that you did not realize were lurking out there. You might not like what you find, but that doesn’t mean you should stop when you start crying.

The best way to deal with trauma and PTSD is to process what is and/or has happened. Processing means asking touchy feely questions like, “how does that make me feel?” and “why does this make me feel like this?” When you start off and your looking at yourself, you loathe what you know the answers are. You don’t want to face the truth, but who really does?

The truth is, the truth hurts. Life is pain and pain is well, hurting. You have to process through all of the pain and face it. It’s not easy, but nothing in life is.

So, here I am standing before a mirror poking and prodding at myself. Realizing that all of these things that I dislike, really are what makes me who I am. Realizing that it’s all really not that bad, because people like me for who I am.