Hi lovelies! How was your week? Mine has been eventful, to say the least. I’m currently working, and stressing, about this blog relaunch. Now before I came to the decision of redoing my whole…entire…blog. I had a great debate with myself. My indecisiveness truly irritates me at times. But long story short, my thought process went as such: The old blog, though amazing, and the result of a lot of hard work, just doesn’t represent me anymore. I just truly believe I’m in a completely different place, mindset, and lifestyle than I was in November. Now, don’t get me wrong, the message is still the same, we’re just going in a different direction with the vision. Before I reveal too much, let me get into today’s topic. Y’all… this letter started off with a completely different topic, but I just couldn’t do it. I don’t believe in speaking on a lesson that I’m not all the way through yet. I just wasn’t ready, and quite honestly I didn’t have the words for it. So! Today, we’re talking about growth. I’m writing this two days before my deadline (cringe) and I truly hope you get something out of this.
Okay so growth… I could say soooooo many things about this word! But let’s start with the definition. Growth: the act of gradual increase, development, the process of growing. When I was debating between relaunching and … not relaunching, this was one of the main things that just kept screaming out at me. My growth. Honestly, none of y’all know the amount of work I’ve put in for myself. From cutting off all different manner of toxic people, to dealing with my own toxicity, I’ve truly come along way. Sometime last week I was having a conversation with a friend about my journey. I’ll break this down for y’all: Being completely transparent, I started my self-love journey last October. I can honestly say, I’ve grown so much in the last 6 months. And I’m so very proud of myself. I didn’t do it for anyone, or on anyone else’s time. I did the work for me and only me. Don’t get it twisted though, this process ain’t been easy, and it for sure ain’t been pretty. But it’s definitely worth it.
I’m sure y’all like “okay Noelle we get it… so now how do I do it?” Oh I’m so glad you asked! Find a therapist. That’s all, thanks for reading!
Okay no seriously, find you a good therapist. That’s step one to literally every lesson so be prepared to read that a thousand and one times. But for the real step one, it took a lot of prayer. From me, my family, outside influences. Most of my personal prayers consisted of me just asking God to remove certain people from my life, even if I felt as though I wasn’t strong enough to handle their absence. I asked Him for strength constantly. Back in October I was battling extreme depression. My daily prayer was for God give me mental strength. I truly believe that my mind was weak, and it was. If you’re going to succeed on your journey, you have to be strong physically, emotionally and mentally. Take the time to strengthen your mind. Feed your mind the proper things it needs. Positivity and honesty go a long way when dealing with your own mind. You have to be kind and gentle with yourself. I’ve learned that in the beginning, and throughout your journey, you have to mother yourself, attend to yourself the way a mother would. At times tho, I was so unhealthy it felt like I was drowning. At times I wasn’t strong enough to ignore the depression, and sometimes I’d let it consume me. But through a lot of prayer, and love from my support system, I became stronger. Best believe God is a healer and if you knew me then, and when you see me now, it’s like night and day.
Step two is acknowledging that you have areas that need work. Also known as, say it with me class, “self-reflection!” Yes, you knew it was coming. I’m not going to drag this out but you really can’t grow if you aren’t self-aware. Which means you realize that sometimes, you’re the problem, and that’s okay, but we’re going to take some time and fix this. As well as being able to admit your wrongs, you have to be emotionally intelligent. A lot of people, me included, react before we think. That’s because we react off of emotion, or impulse. Y’all, our emotions can make us very impulsive if we don’t know how to control them. This is where emotional intelligence comes in, and I’m diligently working to master this skill. The realization that you can’t control anything in life but yourself and your emotions is the beginning of becoming emotionally intelligent. Y’all, just because someone says something slick, doesn’t mean you even have to respond to them. Now I’m going to be honest, I’m not one to take any slick talk. But, I’ve also learned that my peace is more important than me acknowledging nonsense. Everything does not require a response. We call that *growth*. But the decision to grow comes after self-reflection, not before. Don’t confuse the process, because eventually you’ll be growing backwards. But just making the decision to do all these things isn’t enough. You’ve really gotta be prepared to put some work in because no one else is going to do it for you.
Lastly sis, it’s time to put that work in. It’s very simple. My father constantly says “this generation don’t wanna work for nothin! They just want instant gratification.” I used to get so irritated when he said that but as I got older, I realized that it’s a fact. Technology gives us everything we need at the touch of a finger. We never have to wait, or really work for anything. Everyone isn’t like that, but baby if you are, please hear me when I say, this is not one of those things that you can obtain at the touch of a finger. The self-love journey is something that you will constantly have to work on. I believe that we are similar to plants in the way that they exist. Plants are constantly growing. The trees outside know when it’s time to shed their leaves, and when it’s time to extend their branches to the sun. We should be the same. Constantly growing, and knowing what we need at all times. That is something I’m working toward, constant growth. If you came here thinking that you could put a little bit of work in and then just stop, baby, you can’t. This journey never ends, and your growth should never stop. If you aren’t increasing then what are you doing? Decreasing. Or stagnant, which is just as bad. I’ve had first hand experience with both of these, unfortunately. About 3 months ago, I had realized how much I was growing, and how well I was doing, and for some reason, I got scared. I recall in one of my therapy sessions, I told him that I was afraid of my growth. I wasn’t sure if I would like the person I was becoming and it caused me to regress. The advice that I received was this: “how do you know if you’ll like this ‘new you,’ if you don’t even get the chance to meet her?” That resonated with me because… well… duh. If I never meet her I’ll never even know if I want to like her, so what am I afraid of? It was almost like I was afraid of becoming a better me. It didn’t make any sense y’all but it happened, and apparently it’s common. When you’re used to chaos, like I was, I somehow found comfort in that chaos. So when I began transitioning to peace, it was unfamiliar. And unfamiliarity scares us. But I realized that this foreign territory was good for me. Most of the time, our blessings come from us stepping out of our comfort zone, and that’s exactly what I had to do. I’d have never gotten the chance to see what huge blessing was waiting for me on the other side if I hadn’t left unhealthy familiar territory. Continuing to grow through that, even though I fell off for a little bit, was the best decision I could’ve made. Where would I be if I hadn’t concluded that I have to keep moving forward? I don’t even want to know. Doing the hard work first will benefit you immensely. Getting rid of your own garbage, getting rid of a few toxic people, surrounding yourself with positivity and peace, and saying no to all things involving chaos, are just a few things on your growth to-do list. This list will start to get lengthy, and it may cause you to question your decision, but don’t. Eliminate the stressful thoughts from your mind and remember to take one step at a time. It’s okay. You don’t need to rush, this journey is not a race, it’s a marathon. The marathon will always continue! If you’re just starting out, just take things slow. Be patient with yourself, remember to practice constant kindness with yourself. You deserve good, patient, peaceful love, so give it to yourself.
Now, I honestly didn’t think this letter was going to be completed. Oh but God! Won’t He do it. I really hope this letter helped somebody, and I hope I was making sense. Thanks so much for reading I really appreciate it as always. I will be relaunching The Self-Love Blog on the 23rd of May! I am workin so hard for this y’all and I’m super excited. I believe this new blog will really represent me and my vision. I hope y’all are as excited as I am! It’s going to be great. Again, thanks for reading. Have a lovely week.
W. Love,
Noelle
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