Hi Life3a
You're a legend! You're on track more than you might realise. I say this from my experience in overcoming depression.
- with every emotion and thought im feeling , I know i cant do this alone.
Good call. Whether it involves the help from friends, family, health professionals or even a few 'self help' books thrown into the mix, when we're seeking greater self understanding it's best to have guidance
- To be honest, Im not sure if i can do this at all.
Deep down, you know you can, which is why you've come here. This is evidence of faith in yourself
- ...how do you let yourself go...
This is definitely tough. The 'one step at a time' method took me years in getting to the point I'm at now. This is going to sound pretty strange but I find a helpful mantra is 'I don't care'. Starting with something small in this area is helpful. Example: If I put on an article of clothing that I love and I know it's going to challenge others (to the point where they openly disapprove), I tell myself 'I care about these clothes and colours and the way they make me feel more than I care about another's insane opinion'. I admit, I'm a bit of a trouble maker so I'll also smile when I think 'I care about triggering people'. I get a kick out of challenging them. With almost zero self esteem in the past, I've come a long way.
We're raised to care but, unfortunately, a lot of the stuff we're taught to care about is nonsense. How does it make sense, for example, that a student should care more about not upsetting an abusive teacher who is humiliating him/her than they should care about standing up for them self during such degradation? The student should feel entitled to respectfully put an end to such a lack of respect from the teacher.
I ask myself a lot lately 'What ever led me to care about...?' I do question a lot. Breaks my heart when I think how we're taught to stop questioning so much, when we're young.
'How do I become fearless?' is always a good question. When we're raised to fear so much (what others think, whether we're 'measuring up', whether our questions are valid etc etc), how do we begin to fear less? I find it sometimes pays to question the behaviour of others. When we stop fearing their reactions, we can come to realise how crazy their conditions of us are.
Each time I let go of some insane belief system I've been raised with, that I'd been led to care about, I let go of a part of my (old) self. That's how I let go and gradually reform. We graduate.
🙂
