How To Sit With Yourself by Joy Boka

BeBlended family! Happy New Year, I hope you are holding up excellently and keeping your spirits up during these trying times. 

With being quarantined and isolated, we are spending more of our time indoors. For some of you, being indoors looks like spending more time with family, roommates and pets. For a lot of you, it looks like spending even more time on your own. You might be finally picking up hobbies or projects that you normally wouldn’t have the time for, like playing an instrument, meditating, or journaling. You might just be using this opportunity to practise intentionality in every facet of your life. 

One thing is for certain, this quarantine has taught me how to sit and deal with myself. I’ve seen the power of my habits and how they can heavily influence and determine the course of my life. I have had to acknowledge my flaws that were very easy to hide when I was around other people. You know the ones that hiccup and rear their ugly head on occasion, but not often enough for them to be a red flag for us to address? Yes, those ones. 

I’ve had to learn how to sit with myself, to sit with my strengths and to not beat myself up for my shortcomings. No human being is perfect. I think some people aren’t self-aware and would rather keep it that way. Others may be self-aware but refuse to take the necessary measures to do better. I don't want to be like either group.

I’ve acknowledged that I am naturally kindhearted, but that I can also be a people pleaser. People pleases leaves me feeling empty, because I am pouring  from a place of wanting to be liked and that cannot be guaranteed, because I am not for everyone nor is everyone for me.  As a recovering people pleaser, I have to constantly check my reasoning behind my words, my gifts and my offers to help. Not everyone has to like me and that is perfectly okay.

I can celebrate the wealth of love that I have in my life, and this begins with giving love to myself first.

To sit with yourself is to acknowledge all of who you are, your strengths and flaws, your bad habits and past traumas. When you do acknowledge these things, it isn't to condemn yourself however it is to realize that becoming a better version of yourself does not happen by accident. It happens by acknowledging the good, the bad and the ugly and by setting a DAILY intention to work on the not-so-great things about yourself. Something simple that I’ve tried to incorporate in my routine is having a habit chart and writing down my intentions.

I love this quote:

“A dream written down with a date becomes a GOAL. A goal broken down into steps becomes a PLAN. A plan backed by ACTION makes your dreams come true.” - Greg Reid

Remember that your life is a journey and not a destination. Extend yourself a whole lot of self-compassion and choose to love the different versions of yourself as you progress. I’ll leave you with this:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill.

Go be great!

Love always,

Joy B.

About the Blogger: Joy Boka

This article was written by our Blog Contributor, Joy Boka. She runs a blog called www.joydelasoul.com. Some of her hobbies include theater, dancing , singing , and poetry. She is passionate about being part of - as well as creating - a community and safe spaces to bring healing to people’s lives. She strongly believes that life is not meant to be done alone. Instead she has learned that there is no dishonor in asking for help and that there is wealth, love and shared resources in being part of a community. She is happy that you are choosing to be a part of this one.

 

Leave a comment below and join the conversation! What does your #NewNormal look like?