unWINEd

I learned not to care, and my world got a little brighter

With every year circling the sun, there are things I can no longer feel guilty about. A huge part of growing up is forgiving your younger self and lightening the burdens you used to carry. For me, letting go of guilt that had no relevance anymore was the greatest thing I could have done for myself. It made my mood a little lighter, my head a little higher, and my days a little brighter.

Loving the wrong men was a guilt I carried for far too long. Every time I reflected on failed relationships and the energy I gave to men who didn’t care about me, I would be more upset with myself than with the men who hurt me. I would go over and over on how stupid I was for not seeing the signs and letting them continue to treat me the way they did. I would relive the times where the men made it so obvious they truly didn’t care about me, but I kept going back. I would only blame myself for the heartbreak. How incredibly unfair that was to me. If you hand someone a glass and they throw it on the ground, you don’t blame yourself for handing it to them. You blame them for throwing it on the ground.

I cannot emphasize enough that I was never wrong for loving people who did not love me. I gave undeserving people real love, and they are truly lucky to have experienced it. I like to think of it as charity work. Rehabilitation work. Everyone has pieces of themselves that they choose to keep to themselves. I firmly believe that the love I gave those men is what they needed to heal a part of themselves that they didn’t share with anyone. You might think I am just making excuses, and that is exactly what I am doing. I don’t want to move forward with my life hating the men that hurt me, so the conclusions I came to on my own are the facts that I am leaving myself with. Who cares if they are true or false? At the end of the day, I will never speak to those men again. My truth is the only truth I will have, and this is what brings me the most internal peace. It is completely okay to only care about your truths if it isn’t causing harm to others.

I think the saying goes, “comparison is the thief of joy.” If it’s not, don’t tell me. One thing I still struggle with from time to time is comparing my life to those around me. I’m not married, I don’t have a family, I don’t have a career in my field, and I still feel rocky financially. I feel behind in everything, but I am not. You cannot be behind when there is no correct place to be. Facebook, Instagram, and all other social media platforms are fake. Everyone posts the good things, but rarely shares the bad. So why do we pour so much feeling into comparing our entire lives to a fraction of others?

I set limits for all of my social media apps. I give myself a total of 2 hours a day to use social media before my phone locks me out. It has been extremely beneficial to me. I am conscious of how much time I am spending on social media, and I use it significantly less. Avoidance may not be the most effective way of dealing with comparison guilt, but it works nonetheless. When that isn’t working, Sex and the City always helps. A show about single 30-something women living their lives unapologetically in NYC. I know it is fake, but so many people admire these characters. Samantha is forever my girl; I love her endlessly. Sometimes, you have to shift your comparisons, because I know I cannot stop comparing my life to others.

Body image is something that most girls and women struggle with throughout their entire lives. Someone always has something to say about how a woman looks, and I am a huge critic of myself. When I was young, I hated how my body lacked any curve. Now, I hate how my stomach sticks out. I used to think my legs were too skinny; now they feel too fat. Every day I look in the mirror and see another flaw. This is a struggle I feel I will have to constantly work on. I don’t think there is a way to fully get over this. However, I have found ways to better cope with the constant body dysmorphia.

People say the gym cures negative self-image, but that is not true for everyone. I have been an avid gym-goer for quite a few years now, and it has not helped me feel any better about what I look like. Since starting the gym, I stopped weighing myself. I check my weight once or twice a year at most. This helped me more than anything. If I don’t know what I weigh, I cannot micromanage where on my body I am holding unnecessary weight. Additionally, I have found that every time I weigh myself, I am heavier. Muscle weighs more than fat, and that will never register in my mind as truth. I don’t really have any good advice for a positive self-image. It is something that I currently struggle with, and I do not know how to make it any better. When I figure out the trick, I will make sure to let you all know!

Guilt is a crazy thing. We spend day after day feeling some type of way for what reason? We may never know the true reason why we end up feeling guilty over things that do not matter. The one thing I can always recommend is to always acknowledge your feelings. If you do not acknowledge how you feel, you won’t be able to move past those feelings and grow. The sky is the limit babe, so don’t let the guilt of the past keep you down. You all deserve the world. Don’t ever forget that

❤ Tootie