How Hard it is to Love Yourself when you're Tackling Mental Health

I keep five different journals. FIVE. I have my weekly planner, my "worry diary", my Daily Greatness Journal, an art journal and another plain written journal I don't use as much. Why? Because I like to write, and to keep track of my progress and my wellbeing. I like to have a creative outlet. It's important to me to have some sort of outlet as a way of dealing with my mental health. It's difficult to keep on top of everything when you have five bloody journals, but it's also difficult when you feel like your mind is a mental representation of this. I know what you're thinking, just have ONE journal for gods sake, Emily. No. I tried this. And I didn't like it. I felt restricted. I need different journals for different methods of creation. If I wrote my anxieties in my weekly planner it would distract me from my schedule and if I started painting in my daily greatness journal it would mess up my daily greatness plan. I'm just not a one-journal-kinda-gal. 

It may sound like a lot of effort to people who don't battle with a mental illness but having a mental illness IS a lot of effort. Every small task feels like a huge hurdle that you've been forced to jump over. Although, daily tasks that feel like mountains are the easy part, the hard bit is then having to deal with a mind that tells you what you've achieved isn't good enough. How am I supposed to love myself when all of the necessary actions I'm taking to get myself there are being rejected by my very own being? It's oh-so-exhausting. 

I feel such intense pressure sometimes, but now I'm saying NO. No more feeling inadequate. It's debilitating to feel such disappointment in yourself when you're trying your hardest. To look at yourself in the mirror and see a person you don't want to be. A person you wish you weren't. 

Thankfully, recently, I've been allowing myself time to relax. Like really relax. I don't have to feel 'accomplished' everyday. I don't have to love myself all the time. I have five different bloody journals for a reason. Because my mind isn't one state of being. Humans are not one dimensional. We are not one emotion, or one behaviour. I know some days I will feel suffocated and defeated but whilst I feel that way it's important to remember the times I've felt the complete opposite, too. I've also been allowing myself to feel it. Rolling with it, I guess. After all, I know it's temporary. And I know it's okay and completely ~normal~ to feel contradictory emotions. 

After all, I doubt I'm alone in this. 

And if I could offer one piece of advice for everyone reading this, it would be; stop putting pressure on yourself to be great, you're fine as you are. 

no pressure, no stress-er

- peace and love, Emily -xo