May 24th 2020
Because not every day will be sunshine and rainbows…
I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that I am a professional dweller. As soon as I see, hear, or think something I don’t enjoy, I dwell on it…hard. I understand why dwelling is given the name it is, because to dwell is to live in a place, and to dwell on something emotionally is to live in that emotional state. It is like setting up shop and making a home out of your negative thoughts or emotions.
A large part of why I came back to writing and then fell off again is because I realized that it was hard to write because I had a small list of things I was dwelling on that have been taking up all the space in my mind that used to be filled with fun ideas and the desire to grow and improve. However, that being said, I think that sometimes we all dwell as part of the process of overcoming our own sadness. It is just making sure that dwelling on something doesn’t consume us entirely that is most important.
For me, the major things I dwell on are fitting in and my place in the world. Broad spectrum topics that I will continue to be confronted with for my entire life but, at this current moment, are hitting me the hardest. You see, when I was younger, I dealt with a lot of struggles in regards to fitting in but, at that time, I was still young and had a lot of life ahead of me and felt comfort in the openness and freedom offered by college and not being on a particular “path” yet.
Then, when I got older I found friends and I started on a professional path. The professional path I was on (and still am) made me nervous, but I found comfort in the security of my tight group of friends that were physically present to help me through things.
Now, I am 25 and my friends all live in a different state than me and I still feel uneasy on my professional path, but feel that I am sort of stuck where I am which has caused me to really feel trapped in my circumstances. The combination of feeling alone mixed with the fact that I don’t know what I want my next move to be has left me in a headspace that I am not really sure how to handle.
I was reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle yesterday while laying out by the lake and felt the section I had opened up to was very fitting for how I have been feeling recently. The section centered around personal peace, sadness, and blame. It talked about how sadness, anxiety, impatience, and frustration are feelings created by the ego and about how we often decide a source of our suffering and place blame on it to avoid acknowledging that we are the creators of our own suffering.
I blame other people or situations for the things I choose to dwell on and have convinced myself I can only achieve peace once I accomplish a specific thing that I haven’t even defined in my own mind yet. Thus, I blame others for hijacking the peace that I have actually stolen from myself.
It is not the fault of the people who don’t like me or the situations placed in from of me that I am sad. I am sad because I continue to make myself sad. I am sad because I choose to take situations and draw connections to other things and create a narrative in my head that is pitiful and dismal, when I do not deserve that. I sit in my sadness because my fear is keeping me from looking for peace and happiness in other areas of my life. I am so afraid of failing that I would rather be sad because it is easier than being happy and fearful.
I am not sure how I am going to leave the place I have been dwelling, but I am trying my best and will really try to make an effort to put my best foot forward wherever I go despite the anxiety and sadness I have associated with a lot of people and situations in my life.
Because, at the end of the day, I am only 25 and I have a lot of life ahead of me, so I just need to keep believing things will go up from here.
Jess~
JessofEarth 
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