LS031 - Clearing Up Pathways

Hi everyone!

It feels like an absolute age since I last posted consistently and, after the day I've had, I am hoping that it triggers some more content to be created for this blog.

First of all, I just wanted to thank you all for your patience whilst I've worked through my personal stuff that was never going to make it down upon here. I had to journal my way through this season and, now that my review is coming up tomorrow, I am looking forward to whatever the future may bring.

I want to share a few thoughts with you today on what it means for me, as someone who regularly struggles with anxiety and depression, to find positive life in the smallest of things...

Dead Dreams, Alive Inside

As you all know, I'm quite vocal about a lot of things and it is something I am not ashamed about because I used to be so shy when I was a child, that it's nice to see me coming out of my shell more and more.

Throughout my life on this blog, I have documented a lot of things, from reviewing motorsport to taking on matters of a more personal, faith-based nature. Each time, I have gone through my ups and my downs with probably the lowest point coming as I struggled to get to grips with what I was feeling for a certain girl I have told you about many times.

Yet throughout all of this there has been one thing pulling me along, even if it has felt like I'm being dragged along by an out of control horse at times.

I am of course referring to my relationship with God.

This, however, is not a religious post, it's more of a reflective one as, come tomorrow, I will have passed through my review and will be on the other side looking into the lands of Q4, or Quarter 4. I am sincerely hoping that I have been able to inspire each and every one of you my dear readers by keeping my topics upbeat and, where possible, only dwelling briefly in the doldrums.

I have come to realise that my words take on a greater significance when it comes to considering the splash damage they trigger in other people's lives. Whilst I am a big believer in me not having responsibility for how someone takes what I say, I don't have a right to say what I want.

Just because I consider myself to be a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, I have come to realise that people just won't always take what I say the way that I mean it.

This is people.

This is imperfect people.

Expecting Too Much

Too often we can come to the table of our relationships with a 'what can I gain from this interaction?' mentality as opposed to 'what do I bring to it?'. I have tackled the subject of the object of our focus many times and in many different ways because it is something that I often feel is misinterpreted in our interactions with one another.

As someone with anxiety and depression, social interactions are a minefield for me and quite a few have gone off this year as I realised there were just some people who were either holding me back, or holding me down. That's no bad thing, really, because it's always a constant assessment of whether we are surrounding ourselves with the right people.

I look for champions, not chumps!

It's quite brusque to say that, but it's the truth as I am constantly on the look out for people to befriend who will champion me and vice versa, rather than those who will complain to me about everything under the sun yet not lift a finger to do anything about it.

Sadly, the high price I paid in my constant search for companionship to do life with, was of course church attendance which my last posting covered in quite some detail. All of this becomes the test of my testimony and the mess of my message, yet it's something that has taken a very long time for me to deal with.

Despite how some of these posts might come across, I don't always do well in social situations. Ask anyone with social anxiety what it's like trying to mix with a group of people. Then increase that challenge when you were part of a church of 3000+ people.

Are you starting to see the challenges I faced?

I couldn't really find that many people to do life with, despite trying different things, so I had to make a change.

Then when social anxiety, depression and a desire for companionship all collide? BAM... I'm burnt out, feeling like my world is spiralling out of control and wondering which way is up again!

That took a lot out of me. Too much if I am honest. More than any one person should have to deal with.

But it has been nice taking some time to look after myself as a priority and work out first of all where I am in relation to my calling. Following that, I was able to take that information and work out if I can still get there on the pathway that I'm on.

The good news? I can.

Final Thought

I hope that you can find the hope that I am writing here as, though I write these things, I cannot always see the hope until I read it back to myself some days later.

Let me share with you my motto for this year, before I sign off, in the hopes that it inspires you to keep fighting: -

Whilst I live and breathe; I hope.

Keep fighting everyone because it's always darkest before the dawn.

Peace!

===TLP===