be brave

Having to be even slightly self-reliant in travel helps this. If you’re poor and have to make due with what you get, it makes it even more possible. I hated being outside my comfort bubble, but it does toughen you up. You learn to deal and make due and carry on. I’m trying to maintain that cleaner, no-nonsense inner simplicity now that I’m back in a real bed with better food. Now all I have to do is stand up to people who don’t treat me well.

I went to the monastery by myself, for myself. I did it on my own, and it seems that when you do things on your own, just for you, you walk alone a bit, letting you meet yourself and take a look at the real you (or at least part of the real you). It’s interesting watching yourself walk on your own, and adds to the revolution of it all.

From dumping a bucket of cold water on my head on a hot day to standing on the low rail of a dock to swimming and diving from a dock, lots of things still scare me. It’s fear unconnected to me, really, but it comes up to make me question and be anxious. How can you get heart palpitations from deciding whether or not to dump a bucket on your head? Jesus Christ.

I travelled alone, I decided alone, and I assess the risk before I do something. But that anxiety still comes up, robbing my breath. WTF? I don’t even understand it. I think I’ve just spent so much time shying away from doing ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that now I can’t do anything. Christ.

When I stop addressing things that are going on or I shy away from things that need doing, I get this terrible feeling. I think it’s guilt or self-deprecation. I wake up feeling like I’m neglecting something and someone is disusted with me. That’s just not right. There’s no one hovering over me, but this feeling is frm childhood, because my parents were the people who would get angry and yell and abuse me for not automatically knowing what needed to be done and doing it. It almost drives you mad when you have people abusing you for not reading their minds.

Fuck, I want to get rid of this feeling.

I stood up to my mate even though he was terrible to me. Being able to keep standing when tragedies fall around you is a type of bravery, I think.

Well, I stood up to my fear of relatives. It’s still there for parts of it, but I did do something. And I alleviated more anxiety I had about visiting my mother and my father. I’m not a bad daughter, and I do what I can, but I am how I am and they know that, and there are very good reasons for the way I interact with them. I found I was looking at my past behaviour with guilt, because i didn’t think of the reasoning I used. It’s typical, how I was indoctrinated to always think the worst of myself. But I really did make conscious decisions based on how I felt with reason, so I could have done a few small things differently, but other than that I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. I feel much much less anxious about how I deal with my parents because every time could be the last. But I’ve already told them the things I want them to know, so what I say now is ok, if it really does turn out to be the last time, I’ve said what was needed.

This also include being more assertive and facing my fears. Just dealing with the concept of facing my fears takes bravery.