Tag Archives: Mindfulness

Changing, Discovery, Doubt, Dreaming, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness, Writing

A Mixed Bag

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I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for as long as I have. I guess I’ve just been going through some things mentally. No reason to worry though, as my emotional state is good—I’m happy and stable. But something still feels off. Lately, I’ve found that I’m not as excited or enthusiastic about my writing journey as I was previously. I wouldn’t quite call it burnout or writer’s block, since I am still writing daily, even if I’m not doing it on here. But in truth, I don’t really know what I would call it. 

Unfortunately, it’s been a year full of disappointments, which affected me more than I was willing to admit. I’m not really the type of person to complain about things though. If I’m upset about a circumstance I’ll either suck it up and deal with it, or try to find a way to improve it. I pride myself on my problem solving and adaptability, which normally help me come out on top. However, that was not the case this time around. It seems that none of what I tried this year ended up working. While it wasn’t a terrible year per se, nothing ever really swung my way. It’s been more of a mixed bag than anything, so it’s not like the year was a complete disaster—there are still some small blessings to be grateful for. Here’s to hoping that 2025 will be better. 

For the longest time now, my therapist has started each session with the same question, “How are you doing, Justin?” For a while, my answer used to fluctuate greatly from not good to triumphant and everything in between. No surprise there considering my emotional state back then. I wasn’t even-keeled like I am now. I didn’t have the self-awareness that I have now. I didn’t show myself grace or acceptance like I do now. I let bad moods linger and snowball. I allowed my stress level to build and build and build. I didn’t know how to control my anger or sadness all that well. I went through high highs and low lows. My life was a whole rollercoaster of emotions, without a real centerline to return to. I was either elated in the moment but without any lasting joy. Or I was upset and disappointed, with nothing in between. 

That much has since changed. I’ve learned how to accept and process my emotions for what they are, positive or negative. I’ve learned how to regulate them better. Be the one in control of them, rather than letting them control me. Happiness, sadness, anger, are all inevitable parts of life—every emotion is. You can’t just avoid your sadness or anger because you don’t like how they make you feel. Ignoring them or pretending like they don’t exist will only make you ill-prepared for the next time you feel that way. Like many things, I learned this the hard way. Each time I felt anger bubble up I would feel ashamed of it. Every time I felt sad I would beat myself up for it, and end up feeling worse. My life for two and a half decades was riddled with guilt. I had conditioned myself to believe that both of these emotions needed to be avoided at all times. I believed that even the smallest inkling of them was a sign of weakness.

It wasn’t until a few months into therapy that I realized the wrongness of my approach. For the first six months or so, my therapist spent the first fifteen minutes of every session going over one specific emotion in an objective and unbiased manner, in hopes of separating me from my misconceptions. She started out with giving me the definition of the word, which led into thought exercises such as word associations, talking about proper and improper ways to react to said emotion, and other things. Her goal was to get me to accept and embrace all of my emotions, regardless of if I had a positive or negative perception of them. And it worked! But it took some time for me to get there.

Finding my way back to a healthy mindset was a multistep process that took a lot of time and energy. It wasn’t instantaneous like a lightbulb turning on or off. It took a lot of understanding, a lot of breaking down and building up, a lot of self-acceptance to get me to where I am today. But most importantly, it took years of therapy to uncondition myself from my old mindset, and recondition myself into my new one. If you compared who I am today with who I was ten years ago it would be like comparing night and day. You would find two vastly different individuals. But I didn’t change overnight. I didn’t transform from a naive, depressed, twenty-three year old straight to a confident, knowledgable, and calm thirty-three year old. I got from here to there in small increments. I took a few steps forward, a few steps back. I made a few mistakes, I learned a few lessons. But most critical of all, I showed myself grace regardless of the outcome.

I started to accept all parts of me rather than hiding certain things. I stopped trying to suppress interests that I thought clashed with the image I was trying to portray. When it came down to it, the most important bit wasn’t other’s perception of me, but rather, who I actually was. Was I staying true to myself? Was the image of me a genuine portrayal of who I was? Was I proud of the person I had become? For the longest time, the answer to all of these questions was, ‘no.’ I realized through therapy that I was spending way too much time on maintaining the facade. I was wasting energy on this pretense when it would’ve been more productively spent on bettering myself and improving my situation. This led me to a second realization: that the biggest disservice was to myself. The person I hurt the most with these lies was me.

The truth of the matter was that a large part of me was afraid of what life would look like without the facade. For many years, it was part of a safety mechanism that I’d put in place to protect myself. It was a way for me to cover up my biggest sensitivities. To prevent myself from becoming too vulnerable in a relationship—as a shy kid who had a hard time making friends, losing a friendship was one of my biggest fears, so I kept my distance and built up walls (little did I know that it often backfired, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy). It allowed me to minimize the “target” on my back by suppressing my nerdier tendencies. It helped me mask my lack of self-confidence. I was able to live in a bubble, pretending like things were fine when they weren’t. It allowed me to continue ignoring my problems, to shove them into a deep corner of my mind where I didn’t have to deal with them.

But as I’ve stated several times before, “out of sight, out of mind” ends up doing more harm than good. By ignoring your issues and shoving them off to the side, you give them room to fester and grow, outside of your purview. Pretending like problems don’t exist doesn’t fix them or make them go away. The problem is still there whether or not you want to acknowledge it. The only way to fix a weakness or a flaw is to face it head on, to address it directly, to admit that it’s actually there. Once I accepted this, I was finally able to move on with my life. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step is admitting that you have a problem—something that’s relevant to life in general. 

Once you make this first admission, everything else starts to come into focus. I was able to admit that I didn’t have all the answers and that I needed help. I was able to come to grips with who I was and accept me as I was. And with that acceptance came confidence that I’d never known before. Rather than letting my circumstance dictate the way my life unfolded I finally felt in control for the first time. I was able to rely more on my strengths, and work on my weaknesses. All of this helped me mature into an adult. And I couldn’t have done it without therapy. 

I owe my life to therapy. It rescued me from the darkness inside my soul. It saved me from an untimely death. It liberated me from a life of mediocrity. It gave me purpose again. It gave me courage to face the gloom that clouded my mind. It gave me the strength to face my fears. But most importantly, it taught me self-awareness. It taught me how to be confident. It taught me how to rediscover my passion. Without therapy my life would’ve turned out differently. Without it I wouldn’t be adequately prepared to face what life has to throw at me. So even though 2024 was full of disappointments I can still move on. I can continue chasing my dream. The dream doesn’t change, but how I get there might. So all I have to do is keep an open mind. Be adaptable like I’ve always been. It’ll all come together eventually. 

Discovery, Growth, Mindfulness, Poetry, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness, Writing

Meet Me Halfway

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One day son it’ll be made clear
That you can’t always get what you want
Try as you may
There will come a time when you realize
That to get the most out of life requires compromise
It requires sacrifice
And it means that you’ll have to meet people halfway
You won’t always get your way
And that’s perfectly okay

That’s how life goes
You win some and you lose some
That’s always been the way (that it is)
It just depends on how the wind blows
Some days it’ll be favorable, some days it won’t
You’ll have to learn to accept that
And roll with the punches
You’ll have a hard time in life if you don’t

There comes a time in your life
When you’ll have to compromise
When you’ll have to make sacrifices
It’s a sign of maturity, a part of growing up
One day you’ll wake up and find
That you’ll have to meet someone halfway
In order to build a life
You’ll both have to sacrifice
You can’t have a symbiotic relationship any other way

That’s how it is with most things
The sooner you realize the more that you’ll thrive
The sooner you accept compromise the more you’ll be prepared
For whatever life throws your way
You’re going to have to meet me halfway
Neither of us can do all the work
That’s neither fair nor just

The name of the game is to be a meaningful part of society
You can’t really be that if you’re always trying to get your way
Sometimes you have to accept that it won’t tilt your way
You’ll have to meet them halfway
Accept that you might have to compromise
Accept that you’ll have to sacrifice
It’s an inevitable part of life

Discovery, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Poetry, Self-Care, Self-Love

A Moment of Clarity

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I looked up to find that I was at a crossroads
Didn’t know that it was coming
Didn’t think that it was near
I had been wandering on my own for so long
Lost without a compass
A nomad without a home
No one to guide me
Or to teach me right from wrong
Somehow, some way I’d gotten here on my own
Arrived at the crossroads with no direction in mind
Uncertain about which way to go
I could take the road more traveled
Or go my own way, off on my own
I waited and waited for a guiding light
Hoping that someone would come to show me the way
I waited there a day and a night… a day and a night…
But my salvation never came
There was no saving grace, no blinding light
But little did I know that there was an epiphany on its way
A moment of clarity mixed in with the darkness
A moment of sanity in this crazy thing called life
I didn’t need to rely on anyone else
I could do this on my own
I just needed to believe in myself
Have an ounce of faith
Some way, somehow I would find my way
I would find what I was looking for some day
A moment of clarity was all that I needed
A moment of clarity was what I needed to light my way

Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Writing

Hermit Mode

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I’ve often heard that being an aspiring author is a solitary profession. Maybe you’re still learning how to write or you have a work in progress or you’re struggling to find an agent or perhaps you’re going the self-publishing route and need to learn marketing skills. Whatever the case may be, you find yourself stuck in limbo. You haven’t broken into the industry yet, but writing isn’t just a hobby for you anymore. It’s become a habit, a passion, a lifestyle. Your day doesn’t quite feel complete if you haven’t spent time honing your craft. I know that feeling full well, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t be here on my soapbox. 

I knew going into this that it would be a reclusive endeavor, but I guess I just didn’t know to what extent. I’ve always been rather solitary (not necessarily by choice)—feeling like I was on the outside looking in, like I was out of place, like an outcast. I’ve always been rather misunderstood. None of these feelings are new to me, but I didn’t realize that these feelings could, in fact, deepen. I didn’t know that I could be more misunderstood than before. More alone in my pursuit. But knowing what I know now, this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. Without a “finished” product, very little is understood of what it is I’m trying to do. Until I transition from merely a writer to an author, no one is going to know who I am or care about what I do. That’s a hard truth that I’ve had to learn, and am still learning.

That fact is more clear to me now than ever. No one cares about what I have to say until I have a story to sell (and even then there’s no guarantee of interest). It’s been tough to reconcile that, but I think I’m finally starting to get over it. The reconciliation, however, is a cyclical process. Unfortunately for me, I keep falling for the same trap. I approach each new endeavor with optimism and enthusiasm, only to be met with disappointment when things fail to live up to expectations. For a while, I thought my mistake was setting my expectations too high, so I lowered them each subsequent time. Sure, this probably had something to do with it, but it wasn’t the root of the issue. My original mistake was setting any expectations to begin with. By doing so, I was constantly setting myself up for major letdown if things didn’t play out the way I envisioned. And boy, have things played out much differently (so far). 

As I mentioned last post, I’ve been met with a steadily increasing amount of apathy and indifference. Which honestly, is a creative’s worst nightmare. We want to feel like our artistry matters. That we’re making an impact. We want feedback good or bad. We want engagement. We want to feel like our art is being seen and/or heard. Of course, I don’t write for recognition or accolades or what have you. I write because it’s good for me. I write because it’s what I do, and what I want to do. I write because I can’t not write. But still… I want a little something more. I want to be thrown the occasional bone for the effort and work I’ve put in—even if it’s something as small as a fishbone. 

But this is where we begin to drift into dangerous territory. Where do I draw the line between believing that my hard work will pay off, and expecting to be rewarded for what I’ve done? When does this stop being an ideal and start looking like entitlement? I’ve said before that meritocracy is a key component of my ethos and world view. I operate under the assumption that positive energy and action gets reflected back, in turn. Your hard work and consistency will pay off. Your effort will be rewarded. While I don’t know any of this for certain, it’s what I believe and it’s what I choose to believe. I’ve learned the hard way that my optimistic outlook isn’t necessarily the most realistic, but it certainly beats the alternative, which I’ve been through before as well. 

The truth of the matter is that we don’t live in a perfect world. Many things work in theory, but not in practice. More often than not, ideals are unattainable. For example, some of us strive for perfection, even with the knowledge that this is not something that we can reach. That however, will not prevent the perfectionist within from trying to reach towards flawlessness. I could write faster if I didn’t tinker/edit/nitpick/re-read as much as I do. But I just can’t help myself—sometimes my perfectionism gets in the way of my artistry. I wouldn’t want it any other way though; I take pride in my work, and as such, I hold myself to an incredibly high standard. I can’t half ass anything, or post content that I think is shoddy. My conscience won’t let me do it. There’s a baseline quality level that every artistic endeavor of mine has to reach. Maybe this is another way that I set myself up for failure. Maybe setting such a high standard contributes to making unreasonable expectations. 

That’s not something I know for certain either. But I do know this: it keeps me motivated. If I wasn’t constantly striving to write to the best of my ability, I’d remain stagnant, and never get to where I needed to go. Each day I’m getting better at my craft, little by little. Each day I’m learning, improving, and growing. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, because I don’t have all the answers. Instead, I’m figuring things out as I progress further in my writing journey. Sometimes I’ll have to ask for help, sometimes I’ll have to look stuff up, sometimes I’ll have to try new things. All of this requires me to step out of my comfort zone, which of course is easier said than done.

If you know me, then you know that I’m rather reserved. I’m your textbook introvert—I don’t do well in larger crowds, I spend a lot of time alone or in my head, I’m not super active on social media, I tend to clam up in conversations with larger groups, I might come off as aloof or standoffish. It might not seem like I care, but I actually care a lot. I care more than you know. That’s partially why the indifference hurts me so much. It’s a massive step for me to even put myself out there in the first place. Which makes it that much more devastating when all I hear are crickets. But as I said earlier, I’m learning how to cope with it. People will react the way that they react. That doesn’t change my approach or my process. At the end of the day, it’s all about what I can control—my effort, energy, and consistency namely. I just have to keep doing what I’m doing. Good things will come to me eventually. I still have faith.

When it comes down to it, I am my own brand. Everything that I do artistically—my fiction, my poetry, my essays/blog posts, my social media content—goes towards it. I need to do whatever it takes to continue to build it up. I can’t afford not to. If I don’t do this for myself then who’s going to do it for me? There are so many things I’ve learned in the past three years or so about writing, mental health, life. I have a lot that I can share. A lot that I want to share. I just need the platform. 

It will take time and energy for me to cultivate a following. I understand that. I also understand that at the end of the day this might not even be within my control. There’s a possibility that my dreams will never become a reality. That’s just how the math goes. It’s a harsh truth that I have to accept. But it doesn’t mean that I give up on my dream. It doesn’t mean that I put in less effort. I can’t focus on that—it’s putting the cart before the horse. I’ve done that before, worrying about the future rather than focusing on the present. I know how that story goes. It never leads to anything good, just inaction and undue stress. I need to control what I can control, and let it play out on it’s own. I don’t know the future, but I can tell you this much: if I fail it won’t be due to a lack of effort on my part. I will do everything in my power to try to get to where I want to go. If I put in the work but I still can’t get there, I can live with that—at least I tried. 

That being said, it’s back to the lab for me. Back to my den of seclusion, so that I can crank out quality work. No man is an island. We weren’t meant to live in isolation, but I think that’s what’s next for me. While the pandemic may have ended a few years ago, social distancing still continued for me, in some ways. For the most part it was through circumstance rather than by choice, but perhaps it’s time for that to change. It’s time for me to go into Hermit Mode. To put my head down and get to work. To put on the blinders. To tune out the noise. Focus on the quality of my work and mastering my craft, rather than sit around waiting for a warm reception or any sort of reaction. Maybe when I pop my head out next, the reception will be warmer. Maybe it won’t. But I won’t hold my breath either way. I’m just going to keep on keeping on, and worry about that.

Discovery, Doubt, Greatness, Growth, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness, Writing

I Still Believe

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I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of being patient. When will my time come? I knew going into this that I wasn’t going to get immediate results. I knew that it would take time, effort, and patience. So, I did what I needed to do: I put my head down and got to work. It was meant to be a two-pronged approach that kept me focused in the interim. It allowed me to perfect my storytelling craft in quiet, while still having something to show for it on this platform. But I can’t help but feel like I haven’t really gotten any closer to where I wanna go. It’s gotten increasingly harder for me to maintain my focus.

At first, it was easy for me to ignore all the distractions. I knew that my quality of writing needed to improve drastically if I wanted to make this work. It wasn’t particularly difficult to keep my head down then, since in my mind it was a tangible goal to reach for—even if the line between not good enough and where I need to be was rather blurry. But now that I’ve leveled up to a place that I feel good about, I feel like I’d like something more. I’ve spent enough time toiling in the workshop, I want to show the world what I’ve learned and how much I’ve improved. I feel like I have a lot to offer to the people around me. Unfortunately, I continue to learn time and time again that what I want isn’t necessarily what the universe is willing to provide. In fact, it seems that more often than not the two don’t align at all.

It seems that love, support, and appreciation is hard to come by these days. It just feels like no matter what I do or how hard I try I just can’t get the backing that I’m looking for. I understand that people don’t care about the same things that I care about. Most people aren’t going to prioritize mental health or writing or poetry the way that I do. That’s just the honest truth. I’m not so naive that I’ll believe otherwise. And I’m not so arrogant or entitled to believe that I’m owed anything from anyone. However, I feel like I should at least get what I deserve—I should get as much out of it as I put into it. That’s only fair, right? Unfortunately, I continue to learn the hard way that life isn’t fair either. The scale isn’t balanced. And perhaps karma is just a fallacy. A concept that’s better in theory than it is in practice. Merely an ideal and not reality. 

You have no idea how much it pains me to say that. While I’m not going to go so far as to proclaim that, “karma is a lie,” I have to accept that there’s a possibility that it isn’t a law of the universe like I want to believe. I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but for some time now, a large component of my ethos has been the concept of meritocracy. You get what you give. You’re rewarded according to your skill and what you’re able to provide. If you work hard and do good, blessings will come to you. If you insert positive energy into the world, you’ll receive positive energy in turn. Good ideals to have, but I’ve started to wonder as well, whether or not this is rooted in truth.

For the last four years or so, I was so confident that I had the right of it. All I had to do was put in the time, effort and energy, and things would come together for me. While I still want to believe that, and will continue to operate like it’s true, I’m just not so sure anymore. My hard work hasn’t paid off yet. Again, I understand that it takes time, but I guess I just thought things would play out differently. I thought what I had to offer the world would be well-received. That’s not how things have gone, to say the least. While I haven’t received outright hate or negativity (at least, not in a long time), I’ve received quite a bit of apathy and indifference, which frankly, I’m getting rather tired of. Of course, I was expecting such a reception—it’s the life of a starving artist after all (name me a group of people more misunderstood than creatives, I’ll wait)—but I had thought it’d be to a lesser degree. 

I almost feel like I prefer the former rather than the latter. Hate and negativity is easier to tune out, especially if you’re confident and know your worth. You know what you’re capable of. If you’ve been busting your ass at something you’re passionate about, you will improve—that’s just a fact of life. At some point, you will reach a baseline competency in the quality of your product and your skillset. Your haters and doubters won’t have a leg to stand on. Anything they say will come off as petty jealousy or spite. Easy to ignore because you know that what they have to say is neither meaningful nor true. There’s nothing that needs to be read into further, because how they feel about you is out in the open.

Not so when it comes to indifference. When it comes to indifference nothing is overt or straightforward. It’s a cloak and dagger operation rife with obfuscation, projection, and misunderstanding/misinterpretation. How exactly are you supposed to read into the lack of action? Do they not care? If so, why not? Does what you have to say not matter to them? Do you not matter to them? Or do they simply not understand what it is you’re trying to do? How exactly are you supposed to know without confronting them? Finding out the truth will likely lead to uncomfortable situations, however. Easier then to decide to just leave things as they are—keep the truth hidden somewhere in the dark. But that’s never sat well with me. It feels too much like a game of chicken. One party is too afraid to ask the other how they truly feel, and the other party isn’t willing to commit, for whatever reason. Which leaves us at an impasse which will never be resolved unless someone budges.

I dunno about you, but I’m too old to be playing such games. If you’re on my side then prove it. Actions speak louder than words. Don’t just tell me you want to see me succeed, show it to me. I don’t think I’m asking for much here. If you care about me (or cared about me once) then you should care about the work that I do. It’s as simple as that. No fakery or hidden meanings. Do I matter to you? Yes or no? That’s a question for you to ponder, and one that I’m going to condition myself to ignore. Easier said than done, of course—like most things. But something I have to keep reminding myself of, because at the end of the day, what you think about my work doesn’t actually matter. I’m not saying that your opinion doesn’t matter, to be clear. I’m saying that your opinion about what I’m doing is irrelevant to my goal(s). 

Throughout life there will be people who support you and people that will doubt you. You will have lovers and you will have haters. People will praise you and people will shit on you. These are facts of life. You can’t please everybody because everybody is different. Some worldviews align with each other, and some clash. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you’ll realize that all feedback is noise, good or bad. Criticism, constructive or otherwise, either helps you improve or it gets in your way. You take what’s beneficial, and you throw out the rest. 

That being said, I’m not going to beg. I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for support to come from the indifferent—that’s never going to happen. I’m not going to throw a pity party and say, “woe is me…” I already did enough of that in my youth. Instead, I will focus on me and what I can do. How can I be a better writer? How can I be a better mental health advocate? How can I be a better storyteller, poet, editor or what have you? How can I live the life that I think I deserve? I can only control what I can control. And it starts with my effort and my consistency. I can’t let up for a second. I can’t afford to lose my focus. I can’t let anything get in the way of my goal. Some day I’ll get to where I wanna go, but only if I keep following through. There’s no such thing as failure, only lessons. The only way I fail is if I give up. And I’ll tell you this much: that ain’t happening, as long as the passion is there. You might not believe in me, but I believe in me. And that’s all that matters.