#hopediary

[lucia-in-the-arena]

[lucia-in-the-arena]

yes, falling back into your old ways is easy. there's nothing you can do about it because it has to do with homo sapiens physiology. what you have control over is how fast you bounce back, how fast you choose your 'new ways' again. and you know what helps with that? not wasting time beating yourself up about being human. that helps.

[lucia-in-the-arena]

[lucia-in-the-arena]

for a solid moment there I genuinely forgot that all the 'past versions' of me are present in this moment, within me. those are my memories. they're not scenes from movies I watched and got inspired. I'm that girl who accomplished something so big she couldn't even comprehend what happened afterwards. I'm that girl who felt so lost and disconnected that she stopped making memories for a whole winter. I'm that girl who had absolutely no idea what she got herself into, and managed to survive gracefully anyway. soon, today will be memory too. it will be something along the lines of "I'm that girl who has brave enough to... and succeeded"...

[lucia-in-the-arena]

so it's not about making it hurt less or making the pain bearable. turns out, as long as you do not add self-inflicted pain to the mix, you'll be fine. life is like sea water. it keeps you afloat if you let it.

[lucia-in-the-arena]

may and june sunsets are the most life-affirming things I know, mostly because I'm sitting in one right now but also because I know I survived last year thanks to them

[lucia-in-the-arena]

negative self-talk is just you parroting people who raised you. and they were talking to a toddler in such a manner because they were trying to 'train it' through inducing shame and well, psychological brute force. just as you're reading this, you're growing restless because you'd never treat a child that way, right? this is not the way you'd consciously choose to interact with a child. so don't. don't do this to yourself.

[lucia-in-the-arena]

when I move abroad for my work, I'm going to locate a linden tree as soon as possible, and its location will be my mental health checkpoint