Lots of doubt consumed my mind.
The longer I stayed by myself, the more I drowned myself in useless thoughts.
The more I drowned, the closer I came to death.
Slowly little by little I found more flaws in myself. The more flaws I found the deeper I sunk. The deeper I sunk, the more useless I felt. I had started embracing the lies that were going through my head.
Embracing the escape
One weekend I got tired of it all and decided to leave the country for 2 days. The reason I decided to do this is because I wanted to clear my mind and create a fresh perspective on life from another view point. While on this trip I did focus on finding ways and solutions to bring back home with me.
In those two days I decided to do 2 things: I needed to invest into my happiness more and serving always helped me gain perspective of what is important in life.
Invest in my happiness
I decided to put a little money aside so that I could invest in me. I decided to embrace the person I have become and to love and care for her, so I went and got myself some clothes.
(No I’m not the type of person to go shopping whenever I feel sad, I actually needed new clothes, because I have outgrown my other clothes and the smaller they got, the worse I felt about myself, so yeah, just a little disclaimer; don’t just go carelessly shopping when you feel sad lol.)
For me, shopping was my way of saying “Joy, you are beautiful, you are a lovely person and you do deserve to feel good about your body.” For the people who don’t know me very well: I’ve struggled with weight issues since I was six years old. I was always told that I was too skinny until I was too fat. I can’t remember a season where I didn’t dislike my body.
When quarantine started it became even worse (you know those quarantine kilos). So when I finally decided to get myself some new clothes that could make me feel better about my skin, it was a huge step for me.
I got myself 3 new outfits and it made me realize that there are ways to dress that don’t make me look or feel like a balloon.
Serve
I’ve always loved to help others out and the best way to help people in this season with the mindset that I had was by helping out in church. Since the lockdown I haven’t been stepping up as much as I normally would, because to be honest I just felt too lazy to do it. Socialising became a huge step and it made me stuck to my phone so much that I grew tired of it after a while. So when the opportunity came to serve in church without breaking the corona-rules I was certainly up for it.
There’s something about serving with a team of people for 1 shared goal that makes me so happy! Not only that, it reminds me that the reason why I’m here is so much bigger than myself. It reminded me of all the people who are wondering, trying to find a way out.
It reminded me that my story could help someone out there. It reminded me that there are people who don’t understand God’s love yet (and I get you all, having faith isn’t easy), but for those people.
Whether it’s my friends from back in high school or random people I met through socializing at-bats, those people appreciated seeing someone struggle yet have hope. For those people am I willing to share my story like this?
It made me realize that I can only truly be joyful when I help someone discover that they are a true masterpiece themselves! ❤️
That weekend for me was a good soul detox! The soul detox reminded me of who I truly am! I hope this story will inspire you to go and find who you truly are too! If you are struggling and would like to talk about it, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me through installation or over email! Let’s all get through this life joyfully together!
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Have a blessed week!
Big love,
Joy
