Category: Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges

Dear Younger Self…

Posted on by Grayson
Write a letter to your younger self, thank them for any wise decisions that led you to where you are today. If you’re not pleased with where your decisions have led you, thank your younger self for being brave enough to take chances, even if they didn’t pan out as you’d hoped they would.
 
How did you feel about yourself and your life after writing this?
Dear Lil K,
There is so much that I wish I could tell you. Even though some of that might help you avoid shitty situations, they might lead you down a road where I am not ‘me.’
Oh, it’s super cool to use curse words like shit. Do it a lot.
Thank you for pushing, for making it through so much so far. I hate to tell you that there is still more coming but know that you will make it through.
Thank you for doing what you had to in order to survive, even though some of it makes you feel like an awful human being because you were complacent and even took part in abuse.
Thank you for staying true to yourself when you could, though, and speaking up about how people did unspeakable things.
Thank you for writing, for using the skills that you have to talk as loud as you can. It doesn’t usually pay (yet), but it helps change minds and support others.
Thank you for moving to Wisconsin. I know you weren’t enthused about it, BUT SNOW. Also, this leads to you meeting a dude you marry and that’s pretty badass. Don’t give up on him, even if you feel like you’re not worthy.
You are.
 
Thank you for sticking by your sister. It is the best decision you have ever made. I’m sure some of this will defy the rules of time-travel/self-communication, but she has two kids and they are amazing. They think the world of you, just like their momma.
These four people? They need you.
Thank you for being brave. At first, it might only be for them, but soon it becomes for you.
Thank you for staying, for pushing away that idea that you could end your pain.
Thank you for fighting. It’s something that comes to you naturally, but it becomes even more vital than I can explain to you right now.

 

Are Our Flaws Really Negative?

Posted on by Grayson

 

Identify one to three of your biggest flaws and write below all the ways these have served you well to help you foster greater self-acceptance, in spite of your imperfection.

For example, your impatience may help you be persistent, enabling you to do well in your career; and your sensitivity may contribute to your power as a performer.

Did this help you feel any differently about your flaws? How might it affect your actions if you remembered these things going forward?

I will be the first to say that I have a lot of flaws… but I will also be the first to admit how important these flaws can be to my health and life.
I help people maybe a little bit too much.
I tend to be the first to be swindled out of money by people needing it – I used to be the person everyone borrowed money (or things) from and then they’d conveniently forget to pay me back. Because of that, I tend to only give money to people due to illness issues now. On the positive, this helps me to help others which I love doing. I also know that it really does make an impact to those I help.
I am stubborn.
Stubbornness is often seen as a flaw, but I also believe that it is a gift. It has helped me to protect myself from abusers, practice self-care, and get the right treatments and diagnoses.
I take no shit.
This could probably be a part, really, of being stubborn. I tend to give people only a few chances. If they are dismissive or negative to me about my illnesses or life, I drop them. While this means that I’ve lost friends – and, in turn, lost out on being able to participate in some cool events due to refusing to interact with certain people – it also means I’m being more true to myself. This helps me embrace myself more in addition to having other awesome people appreciate my truthiness and badassery.
 
What are some of your flaws? What are some positive things they’ve done in your life?
PS: Today we’re leaving for the JA Conference East in Philly. I will be slower to respond to things until Tuesday-ish. T is coming with me so we’re taking an extra few days to visit friends and family in the area – and celebrate our wedding-versary.

 

Love Your Body

Posted on by Grayson

As an act of kindness to your body, write below one thing you appreciate about each part you usually criticize. (If you feel inclined, you can take it one step further and say these things to your body while looking in a mirror.)

You might not love your legs, but they get you from point A to B; you might wish you had thinner arms, but they allow you to hug the people you love and hold your baby.

Do you feel better able to treat your body with kindness after doing this?

I love my shoulders and neck – their ability to handle pain but still function is impressive and admirable.
I love my legs that work so hard to support me, even when they feel like death.
I love my arms and the freckles they display.
I love my swollen and painful hands because they allow me to cook, write, design, snuggle, and interact with the world around me.
I love my big butt because it’s cute.
It wasn’t super easy to start this but, once I did, I started to think about more and more things than I had anticipated. I’ve never really hated my arms, but never really embraced them either.
The irony!
Have you done this exercise? What did you discover about yourself?

 

Change

Posted on by Grayson

Be honest with yourself about what you most want to change in your life and why you haven’t done this yet. Then identify one thing you can do to work toward this today, and do it.

How have you been protecting yourself by lying to yourself? How has lying to yourself in this way actually hurt you?

What would your ninety-year-old self tell your current self about making a change, starting now?

What did you learn about yourself, and what did you do to begin creating change?

This is definitely a fitting question for someone at the beginning of a big journey.
I am nervous as fuck, but I also know that I’ve let that stop me in the past from doing things that I would have enjoyed and excelled at.
That’s why I’m taking this leap now.
After September, we’ll see if Chronic Sex goes anywhere further than jut a chat and podcast. Even if it was only that and it brought in no money, it would be worth this time off to develop it and to focus on my health.
This week, I aim to finish up my business plan and work on securing some more guest posts for the CS site. I’ll also work on getting the podcast in motion – if you’d like to help, check out our Patreon page.
By taking this leap, I know that I will have little regrets about this growing older.
I’m just really excited to fully dive in.

 

Honesty

Posted on by Grayson

Be honest with yourself about how you feel right now and embrace the feeling, without trying to make it go away. After a short while, reflect on what this feeling is trying to teach you, and if possible, act on what you’ve learned.

Try to peel back the layers of your emotions. There may be loneliness underneath anger, or there may be a feeling of inadequacy underneath jealousy.

Do you find it difficult to identify what you’re really feeling? If so, why do you think that is?

Do you allow yourself to fully feel your emotions, or do you usually try to make them go away as quickly as possible? If you chose the latter, why do you think you do this, and how does this negatively affect you?

It has been over a week since I left my job. I am struggling.
As I consider why I’m struggling, it has to do with a few things. The biggest is that I realize that I’ve been overdoing it for far too long.
Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of spending time with some of my old classmates at my alma mater with my favorite professors and discussing a religious studies book we’d picked to read together. This is the fifth time they’ve done this but the first time I could go due to other events, conferences, etc.
My friends and professors in the group are incredibly supportive. When I told them that I needed to create a schedule, I was thinking about needing to do so in order to get anything done. The three people I talked to instead all jumped to me needing one so that I didn’t overwork myself.
I haven’t seen most of these people in several years and yet they know me, they know how I am.
I have loved doing so much while I’ve had an opportunity to do so, but stepping back for a bit now is incredible – if only because I understand why I’ve been so exhausted for so long.
The other piece of this all is that I’m scared beyond measure.
Starting your own thing is tricky. This is a fairly spontaneous thing for a couple that dated for five years before an engagement to do! Sure, T is still working, but that means he has that much more pressure. We’re a team and we go through this as a team, you know?
I’m scared to fail. It would be sad not to try for just that, but I know that it’ll be difficult and hard work. I know that I will have to hustle a lot and do things that I’m not always good at in order to succeed.
Honestly? I’m almost more afraid to succeed.
Over the last week, I have been trying to push those feelings off because my immediate reaction is that feelings are bad – especially unhappy feelings.
I am Unikitty, after all.
I’m trying to not do this, though. I’m trying to feel my emotions so that I can process them now and not have to do a ton of therapy forever and ever. I love my therapist, but it’s hard to process after the fact all the time.
I’m scared because I’m not necessarily in control. I’m scared because the last time I wasn’t in control was when I lived with my abusive mother. Needless to say, that loss of control is one feeling I’m shit at dealing with.
Little K got through it, though. And she became a freaking badass.
I got this.

 

Mental Clutter

Posted on by Grayson

Spend a little time clearing your mental clutter by writing down everything that’s on your mind so that you can release your worries and be more present in conversations today.

Do you feel that your worries have less of a grip on you now that you’ve taken some time to purge them in this way?

I am worried about leaving my job. I know that I am making the right choice, but I worry still.
Will I be able to stick to this schedule I have outlined in my mind that involves visiting the gym daily in order to regain my strength and to work on becoming healthier?
Will I be able to push myself enough to get Chronic Sex as a project and a potential non-profit off the ground?
At the very least, will I be able to take care of keeping our apartment clean and general housewife-type stuff?
Is this the beginning of the end of real work for me? When will I be bad enough off that I have to look at disability? How does this affect our potential future plans to get a house?
I worry about how this will impact my place of work. I try to act like I don’t, but I do. This is the main reason why I have had any second thoughts I have encountered. They’re very small, but still there.
Will I be able to pull myself away from taking a break to start all this? Will I really be able to take a break?
I doubt it, but I am going to try.
I’m burnt out. I’m tired. I’m ready to take the next step, to stop working for someone else and do work that is desperately needed.
Maybe it’ll help me figure out how to eat again. Even with this prednisone burst, I’m not hungry and that frankly scares me.
–
I do feel better after writing this out. I enjoy activities like this which allow us to really examine what we’re doing and worrying about.
I think it’s natural here for me to have concerns. After all, I’m looking at starting like an official organization? It’s a little daunting.

 

I’m not a bad daughter

Posted on by Grayson

Identify something negative you believe about yourself because of a past mistake for which you’ve struggled to forgive yourself (for example, “I’m a bad person”) – something that is not a fact, even if it may feel like one. Look for one piece of proof to support the opposite belief today. (For example, helping your sister could be proof that you are, in fact, a good person.)

My belief: I’m a bad daughter for not having a relationship with my mother.
Believe it or not, that’s still a belief I struggle with.
I know I’m doing the right thing for me, but damn. Society always thinks differently, and that peer pressure is hard.
One nice thing, though, is that I know I’m not alone.
We’re warned that “divorcing their parents will comeback to haunt” us, that we’ll rue the day we ignored Biblical and societal standards of honoring our parents.
The thing is, those parents have to honor us back at some point too.

“I feel angry that I never had a proper mother. I feel angry that I don’t know what it feels like to be nurtured or taken care of.” – Adult daughter who has not spoken to her mother for seven years

Adult children do not divorce their parents lightly. “The feelings of love and loyalty are so strong,” says a daughter no longer in contact with her parents. “It took me many years to stop feeling ashamed of the hurt I had caused them, but my desire to protect my new family was stronger.”

Some note that forgiveness doesn’t mean erasing the past:

Forgiveness doesn’t mean sacrificing myself to please someone or an entire culture of someones.

Others note the freedom that comes with the change:

Overall I am a happier person since I have disowned them. I feel relief mostly, like I’ve gotten out of jail for a crime I didn’t commit.

Regardless of everything else, I know that I’m doing what’s right for me. I refuse to be abused anymore. I don’t expect everyone to understand, but I do expect that people respect my decision.
It’s not one that anyone in my position makes lightly.
Without my mother, I am whole. I can have a real relationship with my sister, something ironically my mother predicted would happen when we were younger – we were told she didn’t care if we liked her or even loved her but we better love each other, damnit, because we’re all we have. Apparently it’s easier to talk that than live it.
My health – mental, physical, and emotional – is better than it has ever been.
My relationship with myself and with others is better.
I’m far less angry or frazzled all the time.
Courtesy of Pinterest
If my mother truly cared about me, she would support me in this even though it hurts her since it benefits me so much. I guess I know now that she doesn’t really, does she?

 

Anger is a black hole

Posted on by Grayson

Think about how you parents (or the people who raised you) processed and responded to anger. Write down anything unhealthy you learned from them and what might be a healthier choice. (The goal is not to blame them for their shortcomings, but to recognize how you formed some of your patterns and what can do to change them.)

Oh heavens, Mother didn’t. There was a lashing out with anger, hurtful and stinging words.
Some of them still echo in my head.
I learned to be horrible to other people because it would supposedly make me feel better, but I always felt empty and horrible afterward. I wanted the horrible pain and feeling in my stomach to become a black hole and suck me into oblivion.
The Eridanus Black Hole, courtesy of ListVerse
I was led to believe that anger and judgment were a way of life, that being paranoid about others judging me was what I was supposed to do.
My anxiety loved it.
My heart did not.
By working on mindfulness and compassion training, I’ve been able to build upon my natural skills for helping others. I’ve been able to calm down a lot of that anger that seems to come from fear and hurt.
I’ve taken that black hole and created something new, something beautiful.
The Pillars of Creation, courtesy of ListVerse
And I’m incredibly proud of that.

 

The power of vulnerability

Posted on by Grayson

Watch Brene Brown’s TED talk “The Power of Vulnerability” and then share the link with someone in your life who you believe could benefit from watching it.

There’s not much that I want to say here, except to note that people ask me all the time how I’m able to share what I do here or thank me for being so brave to share.
Being vulnerable is a natural state for me. Abuse, assault, PTSD, chronic illnesses – they’re all vulnerable things.
It just takes us getting outside of our comfort zone enough to share those vulnerabilities with others.

 

Hiding

Posted on by Grayson

Identify one experience from your childhood that taught you to hide your true self – some event that led you to believe that hiding was safest. As you go about your day, recognize when you’re acting on this belief, and remind yourself, I am not that child anymore, and this belief no longer serves me, since it holds me back in life.

Yikes. I wish I didn’t have so many events to choose from.
When I was in high school, I came to terms with something I’d already known to be true for quite a while – that I am attracted to all genders. At that point, I considered myself bisexual but I’m likely more in line with pansexuality based on this definition:
Courtesy of Queer Babble
It was great for me to be able to embrace that side of myself, even though I wasn’t able to really do so publically. A few of my close friends knew but that was about it.
All my friends at the time openly embraced and lobbied for same-sex marriage and other related rights. Living in a very Tea Party-esque household, I couldn’t, no matter how much I wanted to.
One day there was a rally and we drove by it on the way home from school. My mother was livid to see my boyfriend at the time as well as all my friends there. I got a thorough lecture about how civil unions should be enough for ‘gay people’ who didn’t need to shove their sexuality in everyone’s faces.
There’s so much wrong there.
It took me until I was in college and others sharing their own struggles with me for me to be upfront about it.
I grew up hearing, again and again, the same things about sexuality being pushed in people’s faces and how it was fine to be different like that… but not in front of others, not in movies, not in shows. You could be yourself as long as you did it in secret where no one could possibly see you.
What kind of message is that to send to any child?
I opened up about my sexuality as well as my sexual abuse at the hands of another child when we were young at the same time. My mother’s response was that the abuse must have confused me. Besides, I was dating T at the time, so I couldn’t like everyone unless I was a super slut.
I wish I was kidding.
I know now that degrading myself for my sexuality and feelings serves no purpose, other than to replicate my mother’s words in her absence. I refuse to do that to myself.