The second reason why I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated recently (see previous post) is that I’ve been struggling to take care of myself.
In the past months (years?) I’ve been working really hard to become the best version of myself, and I got to a point where I know what makes me feel good. Theoretically, I could be 100% all the time. I know what my body needs, how its needs change throughout the course of every month (a lot of my body fluctuations are period-related), and how to meet said needs. I also know how my head works (well, most of the time) and how to create a safe, calm and serene mental space.
But for some reason, it seems like I can never be bothered to listen to my body and mind’s needs.
For example, I know that simply drinking a glass of water and do some stretching first thing in the morning would make a huge difference to boost my mood for the day. Yet, I hardly ever do it. Or better, I seem to only be willing to do things that make me feel good when I’m already feeling good enough to do them.
Let me explain: if one morning I wake up feeling happy, relaxed and energised, I would feel more motivated to drink my water and spend some time on the yoga mat before starting my day. On the other hand, if I wake up feeling groggy, uninspired, with troubles on my mind, all I want to do is wrap myself in a burrito blanket and spend my day on the couch binge-watching #vanlife videos on YouTube. In other words, it’s very easy for me to dwell in self pity. If I don’t feel great, I feel like there’s no point in trying to feel better. I’ll just accept that it’s a bad day and roll with it.
This ends up being a vicious cycle, because I need to feel good to take care of myself, but I need to take care of myself to feel good. Plus, in a situation like the one I’m in now, where I’ve been stressed for months, you can see why this can get dangerous.
Luckily, the other day at yoga I had one of my revelations.
I’ve been going to hot yoga for the past couple of weeks (long story), and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit I have to say. Last Friday I forced myself to go to a 7am class, spurred by the desire to clear my mind after a post-basketball vexation and the prospective of the class being taught by a super hot instructor (which is the main reason why I’ve been going in the first place). However, the hottie wasn’t there, and I was knackered after the game the night before, so I sat in Sukhasana already predicting a bad practice.
Halfway through, we were doing some weird pose that I’d never done before and that required a lot of balance (which I don’t have), and I kept on wobbling and falling and was getting really annoyed. When we shifted to downward-facing dog to recover, I told myself, Fucking. STOP. This.
Stop being annoyed. Stop focusing on what you can’t do. (This was also basketball-related). What’s the point? Instead of getting frustrated because you can’t hold a pose, think about what your body is already doing for you, acknowledge it and accept it.
And so I did. I couldn’t do all the poses and I spent more time in child’s pose than most people, but by the end of the practice I felt relaxed, tired as fuck but at peace with myself. I walked home as the sun was rising, watched people going to work, smiling at the thought that it was only 8am and I’d already accomplished so much.
At home I sat back on my yoga mat and did some more breathing exercises. I can never do yoga for more than two weeks at a time because I always end up losing interest, however this time I’d really like to keep it up. I’ve learned that yoga shifts the focus from what your body looks like to what your body can do – and that’s pretty awesome.
Conclusions:
Dear readers,
I’d like for apologize for the inconsistency of my posting, and for the fact that recently I’ve been whining and complaining about personal stuff rather than posting constructive content. The truth is, a lot has been going on in my mind in the past month or so.
I haven’t really been stressed, but I’ve definitely been experience a certain level of frustration due to a couple of factors: my job situation, and my relationship with myself (which will be explored in a separate post).
I think I’ve mentioned that I have a job walking dogs which I love (when I tell people what I do, the most common response is, Wow, it must be your dream job – and it sure is). However most days when I get back home after work I feel like I’m 13 years old and I’m making pocket money by walking the neighbour’s dog after school. My employer has a long-term plan that sees me becoming a part of the business, being assigned my own area of the city, finding my own clients and making this a full-time occupation. This sounds good, however she made it very clear that it will take years before it happens, and in the meantime I’m making $100 a week that I have to decide if I want to spend on grocery or to pay our electricity bill.
Now, it’s not really about the money (although I do miss being financially independent), what I miss the most is stability.
I know what you’re thinking: What? Stability? You? The crazy head who moves to a different country every other year? The one whose ultimate dream is to live in a van?
Well, yes. I still want to live in every country in the world, but once I am in a country I do need stability. It stresses me out a lot not knowing when and where I’m going to work next, what hours I’m going to do, how much I’m going to get paid and when. As much as I love petting dogs, I don’t like having to call my employer every Sunday night to ask her for my schedule for the week. I never know what days I’m off, sometimes I plan my day and dogs get cancelled or added at the last minute, and on top of all this I don’t have a steady income.
I never thought I would say this, but I long for a routine. I’ve been carefree long enough. Now all I want is a fixed schedule, at least 30 hours of work a week, and decent money in my bank account.
Bottom line: I’M NEVER HAPPY. I know. And this would lead me to my second point – how I’m dealing with my messy self – but again this post would be too long. In the meantime I just wanted to throw some questions out there, which I’ve been mulling over for a while now, and I still haven’t found an answer to.
How the fuck do you deal with being constantly dissatisfied? Should you keep on hunting for more, or simply settle for what you have and accept that you don’t always get what you want in life? Is it ok to always feel like you could do better? I always thought that not feeling 100% fulfilled was a great prompt to push myself to look for more, but what if it means that I’m actually… Never happy?
Does any of this make any sense?
If anybody out there knows how to deal with all this, I’d very much appreciate some help. And thanks for bearing with me.
Giac and his bands Tal Vez played at Valhalla last night and they were awesome! Also thumbs up Eddie for the first time performing his own songs on stage!
Today I had one of the best conversations of my life. (I love keeping track of them. Remember this?)
This afternoon I met up with a friend who’s been away in Europe for the past six weeks or so, so we had a lot of catching up to do. In spite of being someone I met randomly through basketball not even that long ago, she’s one of the few people that I immediately felt 100% relaxed and confident to open up to. I feel a strong connection to her even though I realise I only know her on a superficial level – or better, I know one part of her very well, but I don’t really know much about other aspects of her life or her past before New Zealand.
Anyway. She’s been going through some tough times recently, and this is what we talk about the most. Since I’m also not having the best of times, it’s great to have someone who totally gets me to share my troubles with. Although the origin of our distress is not the same, we can still relate to each other in terms of stress, frustration, and how we deal with them.
What I love about my friend is how she processes things. I also constantly overanalyse myself, but she does it in a more methodical, structured way. When she’s dealing with a problem that seems overwhelming at first, she deconstructs it in smaller parts and copes with each of them individually, overcoming them one by one. (For the records, I have no idea if this is actually how her mind works, this is just what I get from our conversations.) But this is super helpful for me as well, as I’m learning to apply the same strategy to my own problems, which now seem so much more manageable and less insurmountable.
Every time I’m with her, I’m learning something new about myself. Also, she’s made me a much better listener.
I hope I’m somehow helping her too.
Today I told her about my unstable work situation and how stressed I’ve been feeling. In return, she shared some of her recent development on getting over a breakup (by the way, I’m SO proud of her for being so strong and getting to where she is now).
Over our flat whites, we came to the conclusion that life is always going to be crappy. There is always going to be something wrong with it, something we don’t like, something we want to fix – and we are always going to look at other people’s lives and think, I wish I had that. But guess what? They are probably thinking the same about our life. Nobody’s life is perfect, and shit is always going to happen. What we can do is find a way to be ok with it no matter what.
My life hasn’t exactly been a stroll in the park since moving here. Sure, I’ve been enjoying the crap out of it for the most part, but there have been times of discomfort and frustration (especially lately). Not having a stable job is being really difficult for me to handle. Before leaving for New Zealand, Giac and I both knew that it would have been easier for him to find a job than for me, but one thing is to know it, another is to experience it. I’m not gonna lie, I’m struggling with this worse than I’d expected. And because of how I am, the moment something goes slightly wrong, I immediately enlarge it to the extreme, until everything is wrong and I hate my life.
And my automatic reaction has been to blame it on New Zealand (see: my latest post. Lesson learned: never publish a blog post when you’re grumpy). But this has nothing to do with New Zealand. I had problems in London too. I had problems in Italy, in Edinburgh – I had different problems, but I still had them in every single place I’ve lived.
So I’m taking my friend’s piece of advice and detach my problems from this place, and delve into my own self instead. I’m focusing on the positives, on all the good things I have, on what I’ve achieved rather than on what I’m lacking.
I freaking love this country for so many reasons, which outweigh the reasons why I dislike it by far, and the last thing I want is to start associating New Zealand to bad, negative memories, to the point where I will start counting the days until I can leave. I know I will one day move somewhere else, but I want it to be because I’ve got to a point where I’m satisfied with my experience here, and not beacuse I am bloody miserable.
And as Giac says, we are in a position where the moment we are not happy we can leave, like, tomorrow. That’s quite a privilege. We can’t really complain about anything. (In fact, this post is becoming the epitome of what I hate: First World white girls whining about First World white girls’ problems). So I’ll cut it short and conclude by saying that I’m working on finding a safe space within myself where I can be ok no matter what.
(Also, I’m glad I got to write something to push my latest post further down the timeline as I’m applying for writing jobs and I can’t link my blog for reference if the first thing my potential employers are gonna see is a post where I say the world fuck fourteen times.)
Grass For Dinner 