Highway To Happiness Recap!
What was the goal of your 14-day challenge?
The ultimate goal of my 14-day challenge was to find things that bring me joy, find new ways to deal with my stressors, find ways to relax, and try new things. I have felt extremely stagnant in my life lately, and I don’t really know what do do next or how to go about it. I needed this time to reflect on myself, my relationships, and my future.
What did you learn about yourself on this personal journey?
During this journey, I would say that I discovered new things about myself. I really don’t take much time for myself and this was the time to be able to do so. I live life on the daily in a ‘treat yo self’ way, but that is more just my way of telling myself, “oh I want it, I will get it”. Whether it means excessive shopping, excessive eating, etc. This was the time to be able to reflect on myself and take the time to listen to my body. I learned that I have a lot of regrets from my past that I have to amend with not only myself, but with the people I’ve hurt too. I also have realized that I am about four years behind in forgiving myself and coping with my own emotions that I have let them get the better of me and my relationships. I ruined one really amazing relationship because I was never able to move past the hurt from the one prior. I am slowing moving on in the best way. I also learned that I don’t let myself let go enough. I had always forced myself to grow up so fast because I was the baby in the family and I wanted to live life like my sister, who is 8 years my senior. I grew up too fast and never got to experience life - which is probably one of my biggest regrets - and one of the reasons I am in a very complicated predicament and feeling so stagnant.
I learned that I have to be the main source of my happiness. When I let others be my reason, I am left feeling alone at night. I live to please others, when I need to please myself too. I need to take care of this vessel before opening it to others and letting them drain me.
I also came to a lot of conclusions about myself. I know that I am a mess. The epitome of a hot mess. I am all over the place in my life that I don’t feel like I have the opportunity to get my shit together. But I do. I just need to make the time for myself and not let anyone else get in the way. I need to clean up my act, clean up my room, clean up my diet, clean up my body, and clean OUT my life. I hold on to things because of the possibility of future needs. However, it leaves me feeling trapped and anxious. I have no one to blame but myself, and I am the only one who can fix me.
Tell me about how whatever thing you wanted to tackle. Anxiety, depression, body weight etc.
I wanted to tackle a lot in these 14 days that I wish I had to make it 21 days instead. I know that I can do that on my own, but having the push really helped. I wanted to make myself happier with my own appearance, find ways to better myself mentally and physically, find things I’m interested in that I can do on my own, and learn more about myself. I didn’t get to fit in everything I wanted to do because of the short time, but I know I will work it into my everyday life now.
Identify your biggest stressors?
Starting the semester by biggest stressors were 1) worrying about my future, 2) Relationships, 3) Finances, 4) Physical Well-Being.
I would say these are still major stressors, but over all the shift is more:
1) Cleanliness... 2) Relationships / My Future.... 3) Physical Well-Being
These things are stressing my out to no end. I avoid my room as much as possible to avoid the mess, cleaning out my car really helped, but I still know that everything is a clusterfuck and it stresses me out.
My relationship has been causing my a lot of unwanted stress. From the one person who is supposed to support you and care for you unconditionally, I don’t feel that way. With a 12 year age difference, we are at different stages in our lives and that makes for a hard time coping with things. We see things differently, and it doesn’t help that I grew up too fast and don’t know what I am ready for or capable in the future. He says he doesn’t have much time left to figure out his life, but since I have more time, it is causing me emotional breakdowns when I think about what our futures may look like.
I have struggled with body image issues every since I can remember. In high school I was anorexic and lost a lot of weight. Everyone thought it was puberty, but they didn’t know that I was starving myself. My relationship with food is pretty horrendous. I don’t eat healthy and I carb-load like crazy. I have gained about 60 Lbs in the last 4 years and It makes me sick just looking at myself in the mirror. I want to change my body, and get into a healthy routine where I eat better and exercise. I want to take care of myself and not be disgusted by who and what I see in the mirror every morning.
What is your plan of action towards addressing these stressors?
Cleanliness: This will just take some time. During any free time that I have I need to be at home working through my things. I need to pitch things that have zero use or significance,I need to purge any clothes that I haven’t worn in 2 years, I need to minimal-ize my life. 55 gallon trash bags are my best friend here. I already filled 1.5 but I know that I can manage to get rid of a lot more! I need to purchase bins to help organize things better. If I stay living between 3 different places I need to manage my car, better. Getting bins for the back of my car will be a great start to help getting things organized. I will also look on amazon and the internet for ideas and organizational hacks.
Relationship: This one is hard. It will require hard conversations that I have yet to play in my head. I need to be sure what I am going to say and how I mean to say it. I need to figure my shit out first before I throw it into someone else’s life. I can’t be afraid for things to go wrong. I need to discover my own self worth and not let anyone or anything tell me otherwise. I need to tell myself I deserve better and I make sure that I am being treated as such. It just stems from the fear of losing people who mean the world to me and also not knowing if it is just my past relationships that are preventing me from this happiness.
Physical Well-Being: The 14-day challenge did help me get moving more than I did before. I am actively looking into doing yoga weekly ( I just need to figure out a regular schedule) and looking to start exercising to help lose weight. Even though I don’t eat fast food, I still don’t eat the best and I snack often. I am going to look into preparing more homemade foods with health benefits and even try talking to my sister’s friend who is a nutritionist to get me started. I know that I can eat better and treat my body better, I just need to make the conscious decision to make it happen.
If you can’t change all of the stressors in your life, how are you going to change your views on how to deal with them.
Most of my stressors I know that I can change and work on. At least right now in my life.
What is something in your life that always brings you happiness (e.g., pet, significant other, exercise)?
Sleep is the ultimate thing that brings me happiness that isn’t directly related to someone else, or having to spend money on. But even lately, my thoughts have been making their way into my dreams and making them hell.
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