showing up

the week that the united states lost its ever loving mind over this virus was the week i began seeing a new therapist. i have seen her for seven weeks now. only through my computer screen, never in person. i'm thankful for the option, but it makes things just a little bit harder. just listening to my voice sometimes echo back at me when i'm trying to be vulnerable makes me cringe. last week, i woke up not knowing what i wanted to talk about in therapy. i was anxious about my session. i wanted to cancel, but i'd end up paying for it anyway. i like my therapist so it wasn't that i didn't want to talk with her. i just felt like i had a good week + i didn't want to start touching wires + lighting something up again. i felt lazy. i didn't want to show up and do the work. i had twentyfive thousand excuses, trust me. i decided to show up. i told her how i was feeling. i didn't know what to talk about. i am not around a lot of my triggers that make my head spin with comparison. things just are not normal right now. naturally, my thoughts + feelings + behaviors have 'adapted' over the last seven weeks. i won't say changed because i'm not silly enough to believe that. basically, the groundhog day version of life is like a bubble. or so i thought. at one point during the conversation, a really touchy subject came up for me. i didn't expect it to. but, that's how therapy works. or so someone wise once said. i left that session with a plan to take note (mentally or literally) when my ego is looking at a situation and trying to convince me that it's a bad or dangerous. my therapist reminded me that i'm actually talking about these things, so they feel heavier or bigger than they would be to others. i'm also a bit sensitive with my feels + emotions that are carried along in this process. they get uncomfortable. i get sick of feeling. or talking about my feelings. it's freaking draining. i am positive i have earned the master of feeling the feels badge at this point. why am i sharing this with you? i want you to know that showing up to work on yourself is hard. you're not going to want to do it every day. some days, you can't wait. others, you want to hide in a blanket fort in your basement. i urge you to start showing up. keep showing up. any time i have stopped taking care of my mental health, that's when my emotions really started getting the best of me. it doesn't seem possible, but i feel worse when i take the easy way out + don't deal with the hard shit. i'm not saying everyone needs to see a therapist (but trust me, everyone should). no matter how you work on yourself ... keep at it. there's always room for improvement. it's mental health awareness month. show up for yourself today. tomorrow. and every day.