impRAWvise 

One of the things that helps me the most when I feel like the ground is shaking beneath me or like I am just getting lost in the fog, is taking up space and time for myself. I don’t know exactly the mechanics behind doing this, but it does magic on my brain and on my body. It just works on a psychosomatic level and helps me not only clarify my mind, but also be able to shift my mindset and get a new, sometimes so so needed perspective on things, so that I can then focus on solutions and not get caught up in the process in and of itself. I absolutely love taking time for myself, and this is something that is getting more and more “accepted” over the years by the society / culture that we are being a part of, as we are all more focused on self care, self love and other self practices, but, there is something else that I did notice is a little bit harder for people to understand and integrate into their day to day lives.

As I have learned in therapy, and of course, not only, also by just simply living and breathing, its a normal part of life as well, if and only if we allow it to unfold, its ok to take up space for yourself, not only when you feel bad, but also, as a general part of your self care practices. What I love the most about this therapeutical concept and what is so powerful about it, is that it does not only refer to taking up physical space for yourself, but also mental space for yourself. This is, once again, the place where true magic ( as in a shift of perception, a new understanding, an opening for solutions to unfold ) happens. Of course, when dealing with challenges and various life events, its always ok to ask for help, but sometimes, you just need to turn back to the inside, to your inner guidance in order to find out what you might really need and what you are really looking for.

I remember a few years ago, I have just gotten my first dog ( as in first dog that I have raised by myself, and ended up adopting her, I had dogs before, but it was a different experience, as I was raising them either with someone, so it was definitely so much easier, or I was just , also with someone, fostering them ) – Maya, before things got better, so to speak, first they got really dark and complicated. Maya was about 5-6 months by the time I adopted her, I was sure that I wanted a dog, but I was for sure not ready to deal with all of it. It was very stressful, I was always watching her and would wake up at night to make sure she is ok, she was just a puppy, so nothing unusual about her behaviour as a puppy, but for me, it was just to much. As I started to loose sleep, my anxiety level have risen dramatically and I started to experience very high levels of anxiety and panic attacks. ( it was for sure, not Mayas fault, I am just trying to emphasise here, that high levels of stress also contribute to over all wellbeing and to mental health problems, especially if you have struggled before with those kinds of issues ).

I knew that for her (Maya), I have probably done more then enough ( by providing her a home, love and food, toys and everything else that a puppy needs to my best of all abilities ) but in my head I was definitely not doing enough and I was not good enough as an owner, for her under those given circumstances. This perfectionistic tendency put an even stronger burden on myself blocking me from actually enjoying this amazing experience of adopting a dog and just going with the flow. There were of course lots of joyful moments, but they were so short and passing, that I barely got to enjoy them before the next emotional anxiety storm got to hit me again. No matter what tools for managing my emotional fluctuations or anxiety levels have I tried and actually worked before, nothing worked anymore at this point. Therefore, I reached a point where I could not take it anymore and I turned to psychiatric support for medication and further guidance. This is not the burnout or some casual oh, I feel bad about myself. Depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are real and reaching out for medical support is at certain times the best thing that you can do for yourself, for your mental health and also for your overall health and wellbeing.

I remember something else that happened at that time and was also contributing to the rising levels of stress, in addition to my sinking levels of being able to regulate my emotions from a psychosomatic perspective, and that was related to someone else. Of course relationships, all kinds of relationships be them with family members, job related, friends or romantic encounters do have a huge potential to generate stress or contribute to already existing stress on a general basis, so nothing shocking about that, but the way a message is framed and the context it is placed within makes things go very very wrong at times. I remember we ( me and him ) got to a point where lets just say he put it like this: its him or the dog. Look, I know now that this is a very not so challenging situation for some people, for other a very big source of stress and then for the rest of people its somewhere in between.

First of all ( because since it happened to me, I’ve seen it happen to other people too ) no one should be ( put ) in this situation with these kind of choices. It’s just NO. Don’t do it, do not put someone in a room asking them these kinds of questions. Second of all, as I have also noticed that many people believe in compromise, no, there is no compromise, I personally do not believe in compromise in general, and I am sure that any one of us can name at least one life big choice moment where compromise was just not the answer. Last but not least, if you are close to someone and you already know they are experiencing a very stressful time in their lives, how do you think adding more stress to their situation is going to work? Not so good. That’s something that I can tell you, for sure. In therapy I’ve learned over the years many practices that have helped me navigate challenging times, like costs vs benefits, taking responsibility for my actions and decisions, and ultimately for myself, integrating painful experiences and making sense of what happened and so on and so forth.

If your been reading other posts from my blog, or even if you take a short look at the blog posts page, you already know what I have chosen here, but above all, I have chosen myself. It’s going back to what I was saying at the begging of this blog post: I have chosen to take time and space for myself, in order to get to be and feel like myself again. My mind was so confused at that time, because when I looked on the outside, nothing made sense, but then, as I turned inward, with the support of the medication and in the therapeutic environment, I started to feel the quiet and peace embrace me once again so that I was then able to make a conscious, informed and assumed choice for myself. It did not solve all of my problems but it definitely made me feel that idea of possibility once more. Bottom line here is, I guess, that sometimes we can and we do recruit amazing support from the outside ( be it medical support, therapeutic support ), but some other times, or even ( better ) in addition to that as they usually complement each other, we might still need to turn to ourselves and take time and space to heal and regroup.

I know, I know, this is turning into a really long post, but hey, thanks for reading it, if you got to this point then you are a blessing! You are a blessing to the world anyway, as we all are ( wink wink ), but in todays day and age where everything needs to be done as quickly as possible and as efficient as possible, which of course is a good thing under certain circumstances, we sometimes have to remind ourselves to be patient and to take time for ourselves in order to be there for ourselves, as some things, like healing and therapeutic processes of oneself need time in order to let the whole thing sink and then be able to create meaning and make sense out of the entire experience. And most of the times, with time, it all makes sense eventually.

One last thing that I wanted to share today is, also related to dogs, I now have two dogs, also I always wanted dogs, many dogs, just kidding but not kidding. Since I was little this is what I was dreaming of ( I honestly did not care about the Prince Charming or having kids thing, you know, like other little girls do, I also do not know why I was and am wired like this, but now I just love it, and this stuck with me for life so although I have had my struggles and doubts at times about this lets call it different way of looking at life values and stuff, I am now so grateful for my non-traditional family perspective as I know its the right one for me personally ), dogs and more dogs. But even though I wanted this and I made it happen in the last couple of years, and I absolutely love every single moment of this experience, it does not mean that it’s all rainbows and unicorns. It’s not. At All. Sometimes is very stressful and hard to deal with things dog related and not dog related, but I like to remind myself that this is my truth, this is what I have chosen for myself and how I have consciously chosen to live my day to day life, and then as I take back my accountability and responsibility for my choices, I start slowly but surely to just feel good again.