BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. AND BEING “BETTER” IS SOMETHING I AM WORKING ON.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. AND BEING “BETTER” IS SOMETHING I AM WORKING ON.

 

In the spirit of wanting you to know just how much I love you, and being in the midst of working on loving myself, I feel like I some explaining to do.

Better Late Than Never. And Being “Better” Is Something I Am Working on.

 

After the holidays came and went, it surprised me just how incredibly difficult it felt trying to get back into the swing of every day “Love & Loathing LA” life. I reluctantly walked into 2019 with my hands over my eyes feeling a bit paralyzed. Bored with myself. Uninspired. Guilty. Unworthy. And a whole plethora of feelings that, let’s just say, didn’t serve me. And if they weren’t serving me they sure as shit weren’t going to serve anyone else either. Thoughts like, “why try if you don’t have anything interesting to say”, “you are lazy”, or “you’re giving up”, just tumbled around in my head for a constant month-long stint.

 

It was a struggle trying combat and replace these thoughts with positive ones, like, “it’s okay to take a damn moment to yourself”, “it’s ok that the holidays weren’t enough time to really re-energize”. Or “it ok if you still needed time to sort yourself out”. The whole time I tried to have these conversations of acceptance with myself. The little voice in the back of my mind only seemed to focus on the fact that it wasn’t all fine and it wasn’t that simple. So the deeper I dove, the more I felt that the longer I took to try to understand and process my emotions, the more I was actually giving up on myself. And thus giving up on the life/career I had worked so hard for the past 5 years.

I was thiiiiis close to the beginning a slow decline into nothingness and irrelevance – or at least so I told myself.

Needless to say, I didn’t enter 2019 with a whole helluva lot excitement. And, being an “aware”, emotionally intelligent and generally overly optimistic individual – I hated that I felt so out of it. I was terrified to enter a new year in a struggle. I am hyper aware of my privilege to be able to do what I love for a living. And to my disappointment, I just punished myself for it further. “You are so fortunate. How dare you take this for granted”, “it’s not all about you”, “if you slow down, you stop”. It went on and on.

 

I was in overanalysis paralysis.

The thought of “shoot, edit, write, post, edit, repeat” with my shaky outlook on my ability was simply terrifying. So I chose not to. In the beginning, it was in part to simply avoid and ignore the real issues at hand, almost in an, “I don’t even care” kind of way. But a few weeks ago when it was clear feelings of being ready to get back to work and excitement of the perspective on my path weren’t as near in my future as I’d hoped and tried to force… it was time to have a “kumbaya” moment.

 

I had no idea where to even begin with myself. I was sick of my shit. But wanted nothing more than re-ignite that fire inside that I knew was in there somewhere. I was desperate to guide myself out of the rut that was holding me back from starting an incredible new phase of life. Struggle is no new news, it’s how we chose to deal that defines our outcome. In the past I have been no stranger to therapy, or tuning back into things/experiences/hobbies/people that truly “spark joy” – I take a Marie Kondo perspective towards about everything in life these days, not just tidying.

 

Once I had finally recognized that it was time to take control of the situation, I chose to approach my fears and issues with feeling lost in a few different ways.

First and foremost, I chose “me”. I chose to take care of myself, and take however long I needed to get back to the right headspace. If that meant not posting on my blog because I was burnt out, fine. There was no sense in posting for posting’s sake. If it meant taking care of my body to take care of my mind, fine – the gym and cooking healthy meals at home would help that. If it meant reading Jen Sincero books 3x over, fine. Words of encouragement are welcome and self-help books can, well, really fuckin help. If it meant trying things I’d never tried before, like meditating, fine – damn well couldn’t hurt, and at the very least I could pat myself on the back for moving towards improvement.

 

It’s been a full month since I’ve posted on my blog, and while twinges of guilt and feelings of failure still creep up even admitting that, I have come face to face with the fact that if there is no struggle, there is no gain. And I want so badly to be able to continue on with my purpose, which, at the moment is continuing to build Love & Loathing LA up to be the most badass happy place it can be. The best food, the best fashion, and the most fun in Los Angeles for everyone!

 

If there is anything I want you to take away from this, it’s that you and me, we’re human.

Try as we may be the determined little badasses we are 24/7, sometimes you’re going to burn out, or fall short, or hit a roadblock. They fuckin suck, but accepting challenges with grace, welcoming the process, choosing to see them as necessary steps towards betterment, and remembering to at the very least, even in the deepest darkest moments, to love yourself… like me, you’ll be just fine.

 

 

Now back to your regularly scheduled Los Angeles programming.

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