I’m perfectly fine, thank you very much. If the title alarmed you, I’ll assure you that there’s nothing to worry about at all. But I do have a reason for using the particular phrase in the title because on some days, it’s not about being physically wounded. It’s about the sheer number of plans and responsibilities that completely drain us out, almost as though we’ve been beaten black and blue. Every muscle in your body wants to take a break, but for some reason, a lot of us ignore those signs and keep going because, well, the pressure!
And of course, there’s the other unopened box of reasons. Toxic people in our lives, toxic habits that we all need to work on— just toxicity in general because we fail to see how much all of that is actually taking away from us and how much it is going to continue to take away from us if we don’t recognize the signs and put an end to it. The problem is that we’ve always been told things like ‘tough love is more effective’, or ‘you’re only as successful as the number of hours you put into your work’. That’s not how things work.
What’s worse is that we’ve been conditioned to that kind of “motivation” so much, we convince ourselves that unless and until we wear ourselves out to the point of exhaustion, for anything in life, we aren’t really going to make it. A fact that I know happens to be complete rubbish because we’re no good to anybody if we’re not mentally, emotionally or physically sound enough to take on the task that we have been assigned. For some reason, we just let the rest of the world push us around into exhausting ourselves and then wonder why we feel like we’ve been drained out all the time!
The signs are so, so simple to spot. If something makes you unhappy and leaves no room for a safe space in your life, you’d best get rid of it because it isn’t doing you any good. Feel unappreciated at a job and you feel like you deserve better? Take up a job that makes you happy instead. I promise you that it’s not the ‘cowardly’ thing to do. Working on yourself is never a cowardly or selfish thing to do. Always remember that. If your gut tells you that this isn’t something you want any more, listen to your gut because gut feelings are always right. You’ll be surprised at how often that happens.
And now I come to the touchy subject: toxic people. Toxic people are so difficult to read because they’ll disguise their toxicity as some kind of ‘love’ or affection for you. And trust me, the red flags do not look like red flags when you’re wearing rose-coloured glasses; meaning that as long as you continue to convince yourself that certain people in your life haven’t messed you up completely, you’re not going to see it. You cannot ‘fix’ people! You’re not a therapist! That’s not how it works.
The only person that you can work towards fixing is yourself and you’re going to remain covered in black and blue bruises all over if you keep denying that you need to start treating yourself better. Or at the very least, admit to yourself that the toxic people in your life need to go. There was this beautiful paragraph I read somewhere about how we’ve all got a little bit of an instinct to save the Universe because we’ve all got a little bit of the Universe in us. And for that same reason, it is completely alright if the one person we chose to save was ourselves.
Makes an awful lot of sense if you ask me! I know you want to be a warrior out on the battlefield. But breathe! Take a break. Tend to your wounds, both physical and emotional, first. You can fight your way to victory any damn time because it’s never really too late until we decide that it is.
Now take care of the bit of the Universe inside of you, would you?
Cheerio! Xx
Hey guys! I hope you liked this post. Let me know in the comments below or share with someone you might wanna show this to! You can also reach out to me and say ‘Hi’ on Twitter and Instagram. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.
Yours truly,
The Shubhster.
Featured Image by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
The Shubhster Diaries 
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