7. Self Sabotage.

I don't care, and I never will.

This is what I categorize as self-sabotage. The act of limiting one's self to ensure their own dreadful demise.

With the frames of our lives are plastered on digital screens, we find ourselves completely exposed. We willingly tax ourselves to paint a perfect picture of our lives, retouch our insecurities, and hide ourselves behind personas. This new found vulnerability has found us sprawled at the feet of keyboard warriors and hidden agendas behind the far removed screens, detached from emotion and realization of humanity.

Ignorantly, we draw the conclusion that we must remain impenetrable. We developed an "I Don't Care" culture. An "Untouchable" culture. A "Couldn't Care Less" culture. Where we have even made it a competition, determining the most emotive person as the defeated in a losing game. This is something I believed for a long time. It was something that I perpetrated in my life for a long time... that if I just moved on and not induced anticipatory nostalgia or grieved or felt anything other than happy, I buried it deep down. I joked about it, and laughed so that all people would see was a girl living and learning. Little did she know that it was teaching her to close herself off from the world.

"Posture your Heart - and let love move." Tess Guinery.

Believing that your life is more beneficial to be unaffected by the world around you, when you are made to be moved and challenged by it, is self-sabotage. Believing that showing and opening up yourself to people is a weakness, when in actuality it is the strength that builds the bridge of connection, is self-sabotage. Believing that you don't deserve to heal from your past, when it may be the very thing that holds you back from your future, is self-sabotage. I am tired of being afraid of vulnerability, our emotions are not made to hold us back from the world. Rather they can be used as the fuel that can change and impact the world, and our very own lives.

Don't bury your heart behind what you may fear, but "Posture your heart - and let love (and grace) move," (@tessguinery). Let us not be hurt by our own hand, and being afraid to emote and express will do just that. It is never weak to speak about your trials, tribulations, and mental health. Your emotions are valid, use them as a source of creativity, fuel to heal, and a reminder of how far you have come.

This is a letter to younger me.

P.S. Also, don't let your emotions be definitive, let them be swayed with understanding, empathy, and truth. Use them, and grow. Go with God.

#speakingfromtheheartbfletcher