Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!
Yes, it’s a SAS post, and yes, I know it’s not Saturday. For Blogust, SAS posts are on Sunday for the time being, so hi, welcome back!
Again, I really must thank my therapy sessions for inspiring me for these type of posts; I learn a lot about myself and life in general through those sessions, and they make really good content to share with you guys!
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been having to recap some of the major milestones I’ve made since first going to therapy and document if I’ve personally seen any change regarding my anxiety and depression. At first, it was a little difficult. I was only able to think of things at the top of my head like “being more assertive” and “more self-aware of my mental health”, and it honestly took someone who’s only known me for 4 months to tell me more about myself than I could. She explained to me that victories and victories, no matter how big or small they may be. While yeah, that’s true and all, we have to define what’s truly something big and that’s something small, and she described it in the most perfect way: “sometimes, when something is not tangible, we tend to forget that those things still exist, so when we talk about victories, those things that you unknowingly worked on are considered victories as well.
So, here we are for this SAS post.
The little things I looked over, like being able to trust and express a little more and having a better balance of my feelings and the feelings of my loved ones are some of the things I’ve worked on without truly ever realizing it. Looking back, I don’t remember the last time I didn’t say nor do something just so I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. I don’t remember staying silent about something just to protect someone else’s feelings. I also don’t remember the last time I allowed my anxiety to say “no, we’re not going to that social gathering”. Also, I don’t remember the last time I told my therapist that “no one understands me.”
This idea of documenting the intangible victories applies to more than just the mental health victories you’ll make. Feeling defeated because it seems like the hard work you put in your projects or agendas isn’t paying off? The fact that you keep coming back every single day to just try is a victory. The fact that you’re putting things into action is a victory within itself. Feeling like your goals are too far away to reach even after actively working on them? You still working on achieving your goals is a victory; you didn’t give up!
At the end of the day, you really can’t be too hard on yourself for only seeing the major victories in your life. Most of the time, the big ones can only happen if the small ones are constantly being met, so take things one step at a time! I must say this every time there’s a post about this, but Rome wasn’t built in a day! Every day, people actively put in the work to see it become something in the future. Take it from somewhere who is tremendously hard on themselves when there seems to be little to no change in their life: be patient and keep going. Document those intangible victories to keep yourself going!
Letters From Liz. 