Finally, I feel my creativity coming back. It’s been missing for quite some time. I almost want to say since the start of the year, if not before that, but I did have some creative moments while creating and marketing our last issue. However, those were short-lived as that was one of the most difficult issues we have published, and I was battling depression throughout that time. It felt as if I was running nonstop from January to May. Then in May, my business slowed down tremendously. Clients were not paying or paying inconsistently, meanwhile, my expenses had grown and I still had a payroll to meet three times per month. It was a stressful time.
I’ve said it before but I always think I will not be saying it again, but I thought about quitting. It crossed my mind a lot but I could never figure out what else I might be good at and enjoy doing. I love writing but I hadn’t been able to write. I had not been able to concentrate and my thoughts were very, very dark-nothing I want to share with people.
What Happened Was…
After attending EPIC Woman in late April, I decided to go on a 90-day journey to find myself with hopes of getting my creative juices flowing. The naive me really thought this was going to be a cakewalk. I thought that all the changes I would make would go smoothly and I would be fine.
I was not fine at all. I was very uncomfortable. It started with business slowing down more, then clients giving me anxiety, the guy I was seeing for almost exactly a year ghosted me, and my cousin was killed in a hit-and-run accident.
I was already spiraling before everything kicked off, but once the series of events began to occur, I just lost it. I had quit self-medicating and everything and everyone worked my nerves. I felt alone and abandoned. I lost 10 lbs due to a lack of appetite and stress. I quit self-medicating because it no longer helped and I had already sworn off men when I began the 90 days in May. I could not sleep at night and woke up each morning with panic attacks. I kept my phone on do not disturb.
I had been off my bipolar medication because I had been doing so well that the diagnostician and I thought I could make it without them, but in the end, that is what I had to go back to. I hated it but I had to admit I needed to be on medication. I hated the feeling of rage and being distant from everyone. I felt like I was letting down the people I loved and cared about, and in the end, I had to ask the diagnostician to put me back on that particular medication. Though the pills themselves are small, it was a hard pill to swallow but I did it.
But before I did that, I made a conscious decision to do better. One day I woke up and said I am going to be happy today. I will be productive today, and I did, but unfortunately, that was also the same day the online editor told me they were leaving. In some ways that was a good thing because it was one less person on the payroll but it also meant that I would have to do the work. I could no longer do the bare minimum like I had grown to do and then task out everything else. I had to get my head back in the game.
It has not been easy. I’ve lost people and things along the journey. In some ways, I almost lost myself because I had begun to question everything. I felt like a failure. I wondered if my time would ever come. I wondered if I had wasted soon-to-be twelve years of my life. I wondered if I would ever have a man that I could depend on but I never questioned if I was worthy of love. I would not go that far because as horrible as I felt, I knew I had been doing a lot of growing. I just wondered if it was in the wrong areas.
How I Spent My Time
I listened to audiobooks on Audible to help keep me sane and tune out my racing thoughts. Getting caught up in a story is a great way to trick your brain into turning off. I read the following books during this time “Breakup Bootcamp” by Amy Chan; “The Perfect Day to Boss Up” (second time reading) and “Hurricanes” by Rick Ross & Neil Martinez-Belkin; “Napoleon Hill’s Outwitting the Devil” by Napoleon Hill and edited by Sharon L. Lechter, “Set Boundaries Find Peace” by Nedra Glover Tawaab (another re-read); “When Chickenhead Come Home to Roost” by Joan Morgan; and “The Five Levels of Attachment” by don Miguel Ruiz Jr. I thought I would share those in case anyone was looking for a good read.
Some other good things to occur during this time were we got placements for all of our then-clients in May, which was a big deal to me. I am currently the cover story of Rally Up Magazine, which is a mental health publication, I enrolled back in school to complete my studies for my degree, and I hired a new lawyer for my child-custody case. As for the clients, I lost during this time, I realized what I really did was enforced my boundaries and removed some headaches from my life, and I am proud of myself for that.
I also did a lot of journaling during this time but I had strayed from my affirmations. It almost seems as if once I began to practice those again, I began to see my luck change. Of course, I did a lot of thinking and reflecting. I realized some things I needed to change about my business to ensure I do not end up in this situation again. Of course, I was supposed to be finding myself and I discovered that I do not enforce my boundaries enough and that was a big source of my anger. So I am also working on that.
What I Learned…
I am now 70 days into my 90-day journey and overall, I must admit that this time was not spent in vain. While there were many times I wondered if God had forgotten about me and wondered what I had done wrong, I now think that what God was doing was making room for me to receive better. I needed to be uncomfortable so I could see how things were not working properly. I needed to be abandoned to know that people did not value me the way I valued them. I needed all of this time and I am thankful for it. And now I am getting my creativity back… Yasss! Thank you God!
If you would like to learn more about my 90-day journey you can watch my vlogs here, but I need to get caught up.
One Response