codevibetown

[codevibetown]

little miss sunshine

Im actually doing okay. In fact im doing more than okay. Better than I have for a really long time and im so deeply grateful for that.

Life is simple.

Its about loving your hair and the way it makes you look like you. Its about going to gym on a sunday to spend time with one of your best friends who you wished for for years and moving your body because it feels good and you want to be better for you.

Its coming home to your weird family who you love deeply and make you feel like you.

Its seeing your friends at work and having green tea with them everyday. Its staying after work to work on scripts and saying goodbye and hello to people you work with who’ll low key miss you. Its making work friends who message you to tell you they miss you on a Saturday and friends who take off work together to go to gold reef. Its making friends you know you’ll miss deeply when they leave.

Its meeting your soul person four years ago who makes you feel the most you you’ve ever felt and loving them totally for who they are.

Its having parents who’ll fly across the country to be with you and who’ll always be in your corner.

Its playing the wordle everyday as an office and learning how to do sudoko the calculated way.

Its learning things about yourself and working on them.

Its wearing outfits that make you feel beautiful and having a little disco ball that scatters light around your car.

Its going camping with your friends on a random weekend in march like you always dreamed of doing and closing cycles that your inner child really needed.

Its lying in bed on a sunday evening not hating the fact that your skin is breaking out, being excited to see your friends tomorrow, watching ASMR cause it puts you to sleep and feeling so deeply grateful for your life.

Its the little things. And its beautiful.

<3

[codevibetown]

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other, and to feel.

That is the purpose of life.

[codevibetown]

on authenticity

ive been struggling with my confidence lately. okay lately is an understatement, its been an uphill battle for quite sometime, but thats not the point. the point is that ive been trying to figure out the roadmap to confidence because the whole "fake it till you make it" thing wasnt working for me. what this process has done has made me look at things a whole lot differently so here's what ive come to find out:

the coolest people i know are the most confident people i know who are also the most authentic people i know. and this isnt confidence in like a "i can stand up and speak in front of an arena of people". its more of an aura they exude, one of stability and a security in themselves that just automatically makes you feel safe and grounded around them. they know who they are and so you do too.

the root of all this? authenticity. here's why:

1. being who you are takes bravery because to be authentic, you have to be okay with the vulnerability that comes with putting yourself out there for the world to see, quirks and all.

2. it invokes confidence because without even realising it, you take a stand for what you love every day and not like morals and belief structures and stuff, its more simple than that. like choosing your breakfast and picking out your outfit. every morning you choose what you like and you run without it. you like cereal and have it every day even tho some people might say it takes bad or your friend suggested you try avo on toast? nope youre sticking to your cereal and that shows strength in character. you love one shirt so much you buy it in 5 different colours? maybe youre boring or maybe you just really know what you like and dont want to waste time on the things you know you wont.

3. you feel a stronger sense of surety and trust in yourself because you arent constantly doubting yourself or what you think is right. you go about your day in the way that works for you regardless of what other people might think or what article about "successful people and their morning routines" might say. you arent so easily swayed.

4. you do what you love because you love it and this comes down to quirks and character. its skateboarding like you used to, doing that weird thing cause you love and dressing like you did when you were a little kid because you just loved those yellow rainboots and spiderman mask and wanted to wear them all at once and quite frankly it never even crossed your mind what other people thought.

and dont get me wrong this isnt an ego thing or a stubbornness thing. its confidence and self trust that creates a sense of calm, peacefulness and stability that comes from knowing who you are and being so genuinely okay with it.

that's the goal and i think thats how you reach confidence. it all starts with authenticity, which starts with cutting out the clutter and starting fresh. its confronting your decisions. its questioning how you fill your day and ensuring that the things that make up your life are all things you picked for yourself, not because someone else chose it for you. and that will inevitably lead you to loving yourself and your life because how can you not like the thing you built out of things you love.

[codevibetown]

5 things ive heard recently, which you should hear too (and yes one of them is from billy joel)

1. the version of you that will handle that tough thing - if or when it happens - will be born into existence in that moment. trust your future self to handle future problems

2. the fact that you exist means there's a long line of people that fell in love with someone who looked like you

3. learn to live alone because no one will stay forever

4. create your own world instead of living in the world around you. focus on you - the things you value, the value you give to others, and your own personal views and aesthetics. the world around you will transform because you've built it for you

5. slow down you crazy child you're so ambitious for a juvenile, but then if you're so smart tell me, why are you still so afraid? where's the fire, what's the hurry about? you better cool it off before you burn it out. you got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.

slow down you're doing fine. you can't be everything you want to be before your time. too bad, but it's the life you lead, you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need. though you can see when you're wrong you know you can't always see when you're right.

[codevibetown]

i'm alone and it took me 22 years to be okay with it. this is how it went.

Let me preface this by saying that i've been alone my whole life. sure, ive had a great home support system and in my later years ive found amazing friendships, but at the forefront, im 22 and im alone. and for a long time this left me with a pit in my stomach and a sense of scarcity that i couldnt shake. but recently something changed.

now ive given this a lot of thought and i think a lot of it came with coming to terms with the fact that this is my path. up until this point in time im meant to be alone whether i like it or not. if i wasnt meant to be, i wouldnt and that realisation holds a lot of safety in it.

throughout my whole life i was also under the impression that because people loved me, they owed me something. whether that was the promise of never leaving, of checking in on me, of listening to me or always loving me. until i realised that no one owes you anything. in fact, the world owes you nothing and at the end of the day its you, only you. at first that made me mad. the loneliness made me angry, it felt incredibly pessimistic and stupid, but then i came to terms with it and thought again that sure you pick up beautiful people along the way and thats amazing and incredible and most of the time those people will stay with you because they love you. but also? and this one hurts. as much as they love you, they dont owe you anything. them loving you and treating you with love is a choice they make everyday. how this links to being okay with being alone? its a reminder that you really do have to do things for you, and love yourself and treat yourself with kindess because no one owes that to you. and when you realise that the choice of them loving you everyday is the same as the choice to love yourself everyday.

its like when you come to realise that everyday its just you waking up in your brain and your body. its you choosing what you wear and what you eat and getting in your car and driving to work and choosing how hard you push yourself and how you treat the people around you. its your ideas, its your decision what you eat for lunch, its your choice whether you see the sunset that evening and its your choice what time you go to bed. its you. and there really is a kind of beauty in being alone with yourself like that.

someone really smart told me the other day that you can approach everything in life with fear or love and that choice is up to you. and i think in that moment my brain short-circuited. i get to chose to live in the world that i create for myself, not the one other people have created for me. i get to look through my own eyes at the world in front of me every morning and choose. and theres some kind of beauty in that.

so i pose you a challenge if like me and youre alone. you dont owe anyone anything. you have a type of freedom that not many people are fortunate to have. you have freedom of self. and rather than being scared of that, use it. or at least find peace in it.

[codevibetown]

treating yourself with love is hard

ive come to realise that I dont treat myself very well. In fact im actually pretty mean to myself. its weird cause youre supposed to be your biggest fan and most wholesome support system because its literally you and yourself against the world, but often youre your worst enemy and biggest hater. at least ive come to realise that i am.

but in the name of growth and creating a life for myself, thats just not on anymore. one of the bigger seeds (thanks @hisarahbassy :) im trying to plant this year is showing myself more love. And it was weird I kind of had an energetic download about it this morning and it went something like this. I woke up and felt totally overwhelmed, sad, anxious and angry at the idea that its my last day of holiday and tomorrow I go back to the grind. My first reaction was to be mad at myself for feeling this way and to almost punish and put myself through the ringer as if I wasnt going through it already and as if perpetuating that feeling would make it go away. Obviously that was so counterintuitive I dont even know why my mind jumped to it in the first place and yet it did. So after a bunch of ranting and talking and feeling with my girl maverick I got the download loud and clear - treat yourself like you would a little kid. thats how you show yourself love.

If a kid was feeling sad and scared about his first day of school, would you be mean to him? Of course not. You’d sit with him, tell him its all gonne be okay (which it is) and give him a big ole hug. Then you’d make him tea, put his fave show on, maybe get him a croissant, take him to the beach and that evening you’d give him a nice warm bath that smells totally delicious, feed him some spag bol and wrap him up in a nice warm towel. you’d show him all the love you could, because being mean to him would do absolutely no good.

[codevibetown]

growing pains

no one talks about the constant uphill battle of healing. sure its talked about, but its still painted as this ‘beautiful journey of becoming one with yourself' not as the hard, tiring and seemingly endless battle with your own mind that it actually is.

someone a while back, you know who you are, gave healing the perfect term. he said its like growing pains. Growing out of your old self, your old ways, your old habits and mindsets and perspectives on the world and into the new. its hard, it feels never ending and then all of a sudden you look up and everything’s different. youre 3 inches taller and 5 inches closer to who you've dreamt of being. its a culmination of effort, of little footsteps and of active thoughts.

for some of us, you dont love yourself at first sight, you fall in love with yourself. falling in love with who you are, with your life takes time. so give yourself the grace, the mercy, the time and the coping mechanisms you need to get there and one day you’ll wake up and think “hey, im alive and im doing alright.”

[codevibetown]

I just wanna know, did you ever think maybe. Maybe it would be us. And maybe we would be great.

[codevibetown]

The soundtrack to my life if it was a coming of age movie:

The trailer - weet disposition by the temper trap

The opening scene - paper planes by m.i.a

I meet my love interest - gimme love by Joji

Kissing scene - fire for you by cannons

Conflict - cigarette daydreams by cage the elephant

My friends and I go on a trip to escape life - love my way by the psychedelic furs

Major character development - I need you by M83

Bittersweet ending - tongue tied by grouplove