I woke up anxious and depressed today, as happens so often these days. Grieving my divorce, tired of grief, embarrassed that I’m still complaining to my friends about the same problems after (what seems like) so long, tired of talking about it, not satisfied with where my life is currently. Impatient at the process. Sometimes I just wish I was a machine and could flip a switch and move past the grief, but that’s not how it works.

I’m bad at remembering the past, bad at remembering past triumphs, bad at seeing and being proud of how far I’ve come. All I can see is how far it is to my next numerical goal (weight loss, strength, etc), and the stupid non-moving needle. ADHD-induced time-blindness is not kind to a performance-based mind whose goals are mainly linear, because I forget past progress as quickly as I forget any other thing in the past. No matter how much I want it to be otherwise, bodies and life and emotions are not linear, and sometimes emotional processing just flat-out makes you too physically tired to go to the gym and sweat it out, and you have to have patience with the goddamn process or you’ll just be pissed at everything. I hate it when I do my best but my best seems sooooo small.

All of a sudden I remembered: meditation is a thing. A thing that I do daily.

During the meditation, I had a thought: “I need to love me.”

I need to love me because no one else will love me enough to fill the hole in my heart, the ultimate source of my ennui and my feeling that I’m not good enough, like I’m a stranger in this world. Goals and progress won’t fill it, there will always be another goal. If I don’t love myself now, what makes me think I’ll love myself 20, 30, 40 pounds lighter?

Friendships and relationships come and go. Everything that has a beginning has an end; relationships end in breakup, divorce, death. Nothing lasts forever, including me. The one constant in my life, before I kick the bucket, is me. I will be here for as long as I live. I might as well love myself. I might as well be my own best friend. Only I will be able to love myself with the strength required to make me feel better. Only I know my needs so well that I can fill them. Friendships/relationships with other people are the icing on the cake, but self-love IS the cake.

I’ve become so tired of processing grief because it seems like it never ends. There’s always more. This elephant I’m eating bite by bite is SOOOOO BIG and everyone seems like they’re farther ahead than me.

That’s okay.

It’s not a race.

I am enough.

It’s all okay.

It’s all good.

Love what is.

I am ENOUGH.

Accept what is, what you cannot change.

I. AM. ENOUGH.

So, I love me. Broken, fucked-up me. I’ve had this realization before, and I will have it many more times to come. This isn’t a new thought or realization. Repetition and progress often go hand-in-hand. It’s amazing how much better a simple ten-minute mindfulness meditation session can make me feel. What’s funny is I had just listened to this podcast episode last night, about enjoying the journey (https://secularbuddhism.com/the-journey-is-the-goal/) – and this morning it was exactly what I needed, but in the span of 12 hours I had forgotten about it completely.

May your day be full of inner peace.

Namaste.