Mindfulness and Finding Beauty Where you Can

A few months ago, I got really fed up with myself. I was way too attached to my YouTube Videos and as much as Markiplier, Jack Septic Eye, and Just Kidding Films made me happy, they were a crutch. They were my excuse to not take action. I was neglecting myself and my mental health and ignoring my sadness and giving into apathy.

It was like a knife to the gut when I decided I had to cut out YouTube from my life altogether at least for a time. I needed to be productive and most of all I needed to write. However, when I started all that I decided I would put more effort into my blog and learning Spanish. Somewhere in there I found a post on mindfulness and meditation. So I checked it out.

Mindfulness to me never felt like something I could practice as some of the meditations I had tried before just didn’t work and gave me a headache. They were usually really long and meant for sleep and it turned me off from meditation. Never mind, that many people suffering from depression often mentioned their disdain of people telling them have you tried this? Making them want to scream, because it’s been shoved down their throats one too many times.

Even so, I decided why not try it? I downloaded a mindfulness app and started meditation and at first I sucked at it. It was different from what I thought and I tended to not have the ability to let my worried thoughts go. However I kept coming back to it and slowly ever so slowly my mind gained a little sense of peace. It helped me jumpstart the ups and downs of my growing productivity.

After a while, I got addicted to it. It was a part of my day that was just for me. Even if now it brings me to a state where I fall asleep even with a short meditation. It thought me so many things. Sometimes it was concentrating on the space around me or remembering a bad memory and learning not to turn away from my emotions. The practices are all so varied.

One of my favorite ones is imagining myself as a tree I played on in childhood. The tree is bent and I can still find it at the park I played at. I remember lying on it face down and hugging it. Not bothered by ants going past or if a squirrel was up in the higher parts of the branches. I could imagine the texture of the wood and how it felt to lie my face against it. Imagining myself as that tree made me feel so much serenity and strength. Being bent only to accommodate the people that love me. I go back to that meditation every chance I get.

I’ve learned from meditation that our thoughts have only the power we choose to give them. That they can lie to you. That you can choose what thoughts to entertain and which to let fall away.

I’ve learned to find beauty in every place I can. To find joy in the simple things and to trust in the fluidity of life. I’ve also learned that mindfulness isn’t a cure all for mental illness. It’s just a manifestation of self care. It helps me. It reminds me of how important the present is and how much we need to live and live for now. How to let life lead you where it will.

I appreciate my body and my organs now more then I ever have. I welcome each breath as it comes and every unending beat of my heart. That’s huge for me. I am no longer the girl who saw her long hair in freshman year of high school and felt a true sense of disgust for the briefest of moments and decided I had to cut it.

I don’t let moments of self-hate define me anymore. The thoughts come and I breath and I let go not into nothingness, but into a place of happiness.

I still falter. I sometimes give in to my pain, but it’s not so alluring anymore and I have bounced back again and again more and more with less and less giving up.

Thank you all for reading! I hope that this has helped some of you in some way. I highly recommend practicing a little mindfulness and adding it into your lives. It may or may not work for you, but I hope you all will give it a try.

-Till next time!