HopeFul Reflections

It’s been a while, friends. I needed to take some time to work on some personal issues and deal with planning some personal adventures. The above is a picture I took while out in Houston with my girl. I hope this means I am able to supply you all with more interesting stories and perspectives.

Summary

Below I will be going over how I recently felt completely overwhelmed and differently than how I normally have, with unexpected results. I start off with what was overwhelming. I then go into how there was something underneath it all, making it hard to focus. Then I talk about my approach and give my recommendations for what I would do in the future.

The Impact of a Fresh Start

So for today I’d like to discuss fresh starts and renewal. It’s November 1st and that means it’s a chance to start over. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve needed a do-over in life. The reasons have included falling behind my targets, feeling overwhelmed, and straight up feeling lost. At those times I couldn’t think of anything but wanting to quit. You know what, I usually allow it. Not without an honest effort of course, but I can’t keep banging my head against a wall all day. I allowed myself the breaks and gave myself space to come back stronger.

In Over My Head

I gotta be honest y’all, I decided to be overly ambitious with the year off in natural me fashion. In my year off since medicine, I signed up for an MBA, a half-marathon, a Muay Thai class, a new tutoring job, prepping for a powerlifting competition, started a weight loss journey that I am starting to document on my TikTok, and some other hobbies. I thought I was well prepared for it all because I was ready to plan out my day and anticipate whatever would happen.

Let me tell you, nothing humbles you like life and I am grateful. My body and mind were constantly being taxed in every which way and I had the audacity to ask it for more. It’s hard for me to say no to things because I am afraid I will miss out on those things and I never want to live my life with regrets. However, my body forced me to take breaks with an injury and my mind forced a break because of burnout. On top of all that, I had a personal issue I was dealing with that made it hard to give it my all.

A Mind in Disarray

I really did want to write here in this blog because it is where I record my thoughts and reflect on what I am facing. However, this time it was just too much. I just wanted to feel my feelings and understand them later. I wasn’t in the mood to process my feelings, I simply wanted to understand why I felt pain. I had been having many interpersonal issues with friends and I needed to square these issues away before I could get back to less important things like what I listed above. Yes, these goals are incredibly important to me, but nowhere near as important as the people around me. I cannot overstate just how much the disagreements and arguments with my friends were breaking me. I tried every which way to be better and to do better to be enough for them. I read every blog post I could find, I looked up videos on communication, and I even started asking ChatGPT for help haha. At the end of it all I just hid like the Avatar when the world needed him most.

Why it Hurts When Friends Fight

Everything hurt and I just wanted it to stop. I am totally fine with getting punched in the face or whatever I need to do for a workout, but emotional wounds are hard to defend against, especially when you allowed that person to get closer than anyone else in your life.

When a stranger says something horrible to me, it means nothing to me because they don’t know me, but if a close friend does the same, it’s unbearable because I was vulnerable enough to show them my whole heart and that’s their response. Their response was a rejection of the heart that I showed them. The only heart I have. A representation of who I am. I became ashamed of myself so I hid. Not only did I want to hide away from pain, but I was ashamed that this was the man I had to offer the world. What good was I? So I took time away from everyone and everything.

My Healing process

I severely limited what I engaged in so it became manageable. Instead of splitting my time between 10 things, I chose 3. Three has always been my lucky number for things I can handle at once. I am currently over half-way through my MBA, most of the way through my half-marathon training, and I still tutor. More importantly I gave myself the space to heal and become ready to have the difficult conversations with my friends.

Being alone I felt sad, but healing was automatically happening without me thinking. I soon felt better day by day. The love I have for myself and my own internal voice kept healing my soul. More importantly I spent much time in quiet prayer because I wanted to ask God for help and guidance.

I felt strong again. I felt energized to take on the world again. I started remembering what I love about life and that is facing life head on. I started slowly getting back into my hobbies, speaking with friends, and learning to value myself. It was incredible. Just by being alone and giving myself space to do things for myself like resting, relaxing, and appreciating life I became better than I could ever have hoped to be through active efforts.

Specific Healing Strategies

1. Prayer. Spending 5 minutes at a time to ask God for strength and love is vital to the process. Prayer gives you strength and helps when you feel alone.
2. I like journaling and writing about my thoughts. I have a journal that I regularly like to record my thoughts in and it was the predecessor to this blog. The journaling helped me better understand my thoughts.
3. I started venting to A.I. I wanted a neutral and fun perspective. I started asking A.I. what they thought of my problems and surprisingly they were quite kind. I also started asking them to respond like my favorite comedians and the laughs kept rolling. This was mainly for fun.
4. I was allowed to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was beautiful. I naturally feel the need to do 10 things at once, but no, this time I wasn’t allowed to do anything. I needed this.
5. I watched comedies, went for walks, and had my favorite foods. These things comforted me as they have all throughout my life.

Jimmy’s Summary/TLDR

I was overwhelmed, I stepped back, relaxed, reflected, prayed, and I came slowly back better than before.

Farewell

I’m so glad to be back and hope to hear from you all again, but I also hope that if you need space and a break that you seize the opportunity and come back better than ever. Let me know in the comments what you do to recover and deal with stress.

-Jimmy