A Little Life Update

When life gets hard, its easy to hide away from the world, but isolation isn't the solution ...  

If you've been following my posts lately, you'll know I've been going through the wringer.

When things get particularly difficult, I have a habit of shrinking away from life and isolating myself. 

Not just from family, friends, and my husband, but also from the online communities I am involved with. 

And, honestly, that's not a particularly good habit for me to fall back on.

My day-to-day life already borders on isolation because I work from home and have a severe pollen allergy that keeps me housebound from around 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. everyday throughout the summer, even with medication. 

So voluntarily removing even more human interaction when things get tough doesn't exactly help. If anything, it feeds the depression and intensifies all the negative emotions that come with it.

I'm currently working with my therapist on recognising these patterns and choosing healthier habits when my mental health takes a hit.

I'm not quite there yet.  

I do eventually make healthier choices, but apparently my current strategy is to spend several weeks making questionable ones first before something in me finally goes, 'Right. Enough of that now.'😅

Yesterday was one of those moments.

I opened the main online community I'm involved in and caught up on all the messages, discussions, and announcements I'd missed. I joined a weekly writing challenge another community is running, and I'm going to make more of an effort to reach out on Instagram again.

I also pushed myself to put myself out there in ways I normally wouldn't because I'm afraid of rejection. 

And, yes, I got rejected a couple of times. But that's all part of putting yourself out there.  Not everythng will work out, and hopefully something eventually will. 

For example, this morning I applied to a remote volunteer publishing assistant role for a few hours a week - something I have been interested in doing for several years. 

I'm also planning to submit the first chapter of my novel (in its current version) to a competition at the end of October. 

Last but not least, I am going to start documenting my journey towards being better at writing scenes.

I want to get better at recognising the mistakes I make in my own scenes, understanding why they're not working, and figuring out how to fix them. 

It's a skill I use when editing my client's stories, but one I seem to mysteriously forget when I'm looking at my own stories 🙃

So, although I don't suddenly feel like everything is fine and I'm still struggling, I'm showing up. 

I'm reaching out. I'm trying things and taking chances. I'm giving myself things to look forward to. And maybe that's what getting better actually looks like sometimes.

Not suddenly feeling happy again, but slowly creating little pockets of life for yourself while you're still finding your way through the difficult bits. 

That's what I'm hoping to do now. To find my way back to some of the confidence and happines that life has recently stolen from me and, little by little, start living again.

If you found this post relatable, I hope you're being kind to yourself. Comment below your wins this week - I'd love to cheer you on ❤️

Keep your eyes peeled for more news on my writing here and on my Instagram!