This Is Going To Fucking Suck But I Will Not Do My Enemies’ Work For Them. I Will Not Just Roll Over

Be your own friend, have your own back, encourage yourself, motivate yourself, discipline yourself, make yourself laugh, comfort yourself when you cry, enjoy your own company, discover yourself, ask yourself the deep questions, feed yourself good food, watch stuff that makes you feel good, hug yourself, smile at yourself just because, compliment yourself, extend yourself endless grace… you are the greatest thing you can offer yourself.

You're not immune to being the bully btw. You're not immune to being in the wrong

I’ve been thinking about 1x03 of The Last of Us and I think why it kicked so many of us right in the heart so hard is because, fundamentally, it said “hey, you’re not going to change this incredibly traumatic forever-altered world you’re in. You - as one person- cannot do that. It is the single most important thing to live and love and build things anyway, you cannot put those things off until the world goes back to normal because it won’t, ever, but there’s room for strawberries here, in this version of this world.”

I think that’s why this particular story doesn’t feel exhausting or entrapping in the way most apocalypse media does in a world that still very much dealing with March of 2020.

No, you're not wrong.

You're not wrong for wanting a better life for yourself.

You're not wrong for believing that you are deserving of better.

You're not wrong for making those necessary changes in your life.

You're not wrong for changing the way you show up to life.

You're not wrong for distancing yourself from those things that harm you.

You're not wrong.

I really do think an important component of activism is to make sure your motivation is based on a desire to help/improve things for the people being harmed by a system, and not hatred for the ones doing the harm. both for mental health reasons, and because either way you're training your neural pathways and it's gonna turn out a lot better for literally everyone if the question on everyone's mind after achieving a goal is "how/which people can we help next, what's the next step for improving things" and not "who do we need to attack next."

I'm not saying don't be angry, there are a lot of good reasons to be angry right now and it makes for an excellent kick in the pants, just don't define yourself by it or it's gonna poison you and potentially do collateral damage.

As an adult you must cultivate the skill of “Gross! Oh, well. Not my business.”

Do you feel, like, constantly overwhelmed? Unable to focus on tasks and self-care like showering? Have I got the tip for you

I recently got put on this method through a YouTube video recommended to me called the Sharp Ax method. Name doesn't matter, I'm gonna skip right to telling you what to do.

You have a notebook? Maybe one that you've horded and used once or twice before abandoning? Grab that shit. Get your favorite pen. At the top of the page you're going to write "Brain Dump". For like, 10-15 minutes, just sit there and write down every thought that comes to mind. Does your back hurt? Write it. Do you have to make breakfast? Write it.

But here's the thing: if there's something you need to do (paperwork, showering, shopping, etc) you're gonna write it like this.

"I want to shower." "I want to check the mailbox." "I want to do my laundry today."

For whatever reason, reframing things you need to do as things you want to do has helped me so immensely, and even when I can't finish all the things I want to finish, I still feel good for finishing the ones I was able to.

This stupidly simple journaling technique (which doesn't even feel like journalling to me) has caused me to go from being chronically overwhelmed to feeling like, even just for a little bit, everything is going to be okay.

the first rule of being on the internet is you should have other stuff going on, besides being on the internet

you should really get comfortable believing in love and magic and whimsy or you’ll continue to live a half-life for the rest of the time you have on earth