#pursuingpeace

[defensenow]

"Vice President Harris Addresses Israel-Hamas Conflict: Combating Tensio...

[mariprivi]

Thanks for the tag! This was a lot of fun!

No pressure tags: @wildfoxling @pursuingpeace @odd-dragon @8-bitmonkey @cherrybombs-and-gasoline

And anyone else who'd like to participate!

Share the last song you listened to and do this picrew! Thank you for tagging me @skijjiki, this was so fun to complete! I'm tagging @evanox @ratatoskrr @opalescent-apples @ashi-cookie and @makemeaplant!

[pursuerlife]

—New Post— My 2022 Theme + Vision Board 🔹Wow, it’s been a long time!! 😩 🔹I have been sick 3 times in the past month, with 1 of the times being COVID, but it’s my last day of quarantine + I’m finally well again, praise God! 🙏🏻 🔹I finally had the chance to decide my theme for this year + create my vision board to go with it 👏🏻 🔹This year’s theme: “Clean” 🤍 🔹Check out my new post on the blog to read more about my theme + see how I created my vision board 👌🏻 🔹Do you have a theme for 2022? I’d love to hear it in the comments below! 👇🏻 🔸link in bio🔸 • • • #pursuer #pursuerblog #peace #lifestyleblog #pursuingpeace #mentalhealth #newyear #2022 #happynewyear #growth #mentalhealthawareness #clean #cleanaesthetic #2022theme #visionboard #moodboard #cleanliving #2022goals #inspo #artsy #creative #healthyliving #healthylifestyle #healthylife #cleanlifestyle #cleanproducts #toxinfreeliving #toxinfreehome #notoxins #nomakeup (at Tropical Paradise Village) https://www.instagram.com/pursuerlife/p/CY1CuokFiwo/?utm_medium=tumblr

[pursuingthatpeace]

Response from a Reader

Reader:

"I just want to let you know that you've inspired me. I've watched you change through your posts and I love the way you try to change the way you look at things. Ya, things can still suck sometimes, but you've done a lot to make yourself happy and I'm slowly learning to do that too. I'm going to try that love poem to myself thing that you did. Thank you for showing me how I can help myself.

Life is really scary sometimes and I just have been needing a boost. I have to fight with myself to try to avoid anxiety attacks and depression. You'e inspired me tie and time again and I really want to change like that. Maybe all I needed was a mentally distorted buddy... So we could maintain sanity together."

This response means so much to me. It feels wonderful to know that I'm helping someone make it through, and gives me hope that I'm helping more than just her.

I know this isn't easy for anyone. It's not easy for me either, but I promise you, once this stuff really starts sinking in, life is so much more beautiful and easier to get through.

[zombiegravy]

Check it out

Hey guys, check this new blog out. It's about self love. I made it for a blogger on Blogspot so that there could be a wider audience to try to get the word out there. Check it out and share the link with your friends and followers. The messages Ty puts out are really important. Link below:

pursuingthatpeace.tumblr.com

[rememberspring]

mumfordmania replied to your post: So I told my mom I wanted money for my birthday so...

Theres probably just an app for word processing you can buy. Im a Mac person, so I have an iPad and theres an app for everything. Lol.

I'd love to get an iPad but I don't want to spend that much. I was looking at the windows tablets. I wasn't thinking about an ereader. I wanted something for movies and internet and writing things.

pursuingpeace replied to your post: So I told my mom I wanted money for my birthday so...

(Sorry if Im repeating myself, this reply thing confuses me) but evernote=awesome free word processor app for kindle fire. Plus books , music, photos, internet, and library ebook ability all in one. It rocks

I will check that out, thanks. 

pursuingpeace replied to your post: So I told my mom I wanted money for my birthday so...

and if you have a library card you can check out books on it,which I thought was really just awesome

That is definitely good to know.

charminglymisanthropic replied to your post: So I told my mom I wanted money for my birthday so...

I have one its fine, but its not something I super love. All the warnings Id read before I got it about its limitations I should have listened to.

I haven't read any warnings about it. I wasn't looking into getting one. I was figuring I'd be getting one of those Windows tablets, not an ereader though this Kindle is nice.

[pursuingthatpeace]

[pursuingthatpeace]

Backstepping

I'm hurting a lot today, and feeling very down on myself. I know I'm not alone.

These two songs really help me, maybe they'll help you.

Perfect by P!nk

Love Me by Katy Perry

As I said, this journey is a hard one and mine is not finished. I am currently having a really hard time dealing with a breakup, and a lot of my old issues about myself have flared up pretty badly.

I think I am beautiful inside and out. My mind and heart fascinate and delight me because they are a universe to explore in themselves. Their abilities astound me, like they are separate being I don't even know all about. I worry that I am too intense, too odd, to ever be able to connect with another person whole enough to love me the way I love.

Physical beauty isn't supposed to be important, but we focus a lot on it, so it becomes that way. I am anorexic, and though I am even on the low end of a healthy weight for my frame, I still find myself picking apart what I consider to be extra pounds. My acne and heavy acne scarring upsets me a lot. I feel like my hair is too thin. Everything I've already been through in my short life has already started to wrinkle my skin and grey my hair. I worry that all of these imperfections will make me too imperfect to be loved romantically.

These things may honestly be true, as every fear and insecurity I have listed has its origin, has its evidence where it got in the way of something, the moment a lover called attention to it.

I'm trying to make myself okay with being by myself because I may be all I ever have. I also know that every relationship I have until I reach that peace will be tinged with at least a little bit of desperation to not end up alone, and that will always add something untrue to whatever love I create.

My mission is to reach a level of peace that allows me to be happy with whatever my fate becomes. I have not come as far as I thought I had, but I have still learned.

[pursuingthatpeace]

Acknowledge Struggles

It's important to acknowledge struggles and bad days. This process of undoing everything we've been taught by society, of defying this instilled need to depend on other people for emotional stability and becoming self-reliant, is not an easy one or a quick one, and it is not without its setbacks. Today I am going to acknowledge a personal struggle I continue to have in my journey. I will also be talking about what I do to deal with and resolve this issue, because the reason acknowledging our struggles is important is so that we can learn to move on from them. I am anorexic. I now eat healthily and carry a healthy weight, but I still struggle with the mental aspect of it. I still haven't stopped my mind from jumping to "maybe if I was skinnier..." every time I feel inadequate or unloved. I still often look down at my beautiful body and have a hard time seeing anything except problem areas and soft spots. I still obsessively count calories, even though now I use it to try and make sure I consume enough every day instead of as a limit. I am now 15 pounds over my lowest weight, and it's hard to be ok with that number, even though I know it's healthy, even on the low side of healthy for my frame. Satisfying anorexia is futile. If I give in to the urges, no amount of weight loss will ever be enough, and I'll just keep going until my body gives out and I die. I don't want to die, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life picking myself apart either. That is a big part of why I started this project for myself. I knew the reason I was never satisfied with myself is because I felt unloved. I finally faced what I had known and been told for years; I can't just keep searching for some external force to make me feel loved. With My level of self-hate, the only people I would even allow close to me were those who confirmed my fears by mistreating me. I had to fix myself and learn how to love myself or I would spend the rest of my life miserable, panicked, and doing terrible things to my body and soul in a misdirected and desperate effort to be "good enough". I haven't given up on dating or finding love with another person, and I don't think that love and friendship are flawed sources of happiness. I have just learned that without loving myself, I will never be able to believe anyone else genuinely loves me, and will not be able to find happiness in those relationships. I heard something a while back that really struck a chord. I can't remember the origin of the saying so do forgive me. "Beware of a naked person offering you a shirt" What it means is that if a person doesn't value their love enough to bestow it upon themselves, be wary of letting them bestow it upon you.

[pursuingthatpeace]

Savannah Brown is a brilliant woman. I only wish that I had been able to gain this wisdom as young as she is. Ming blowing.

Transcription of her poem:

When I first learned that no one could ever love me more than me, a world of happiness previously unseen was discovered because somewhere along the line of aging and scrutiny and time, I was taught to despise myself. But I made sure I kept myself beautiful so someone would love me someday, so I could belong to someone someday, because that's the most important thing a little girl could ever want, right? I was 13 the first time I was embarrassed about my body, of course it might not be the last, and I remember stuffing my bra in the morning, tears stinging my eyes, hoping, praying to something that I could look beautiful enough today, braces and all, for the ruthless boys who mercilessly told me I was worthless because my boobs weren't big enough. And I would go home and put on a sweatshirt with my eyes closed, deny myself the right to be shown myself because I didn't dare want to insinuate beauty in regards to something so insulting as my body. But, I mean, we all end up with our heads between our knees because the only place we'll ever really feel safe is curled up inside skin we've been taught to hate by a society that shuns our awful confidence and feeds us our own flaws. And sometimes when I need to meet the me that loves me, I can't find her or remind her that the mirror is meant to be a curse so that I could find her in my mind, but when he or she shouts, "Let me out!" we're allowed to listen. But it's met by a chorus of conceited, egotistical narcissists. But since when was self-substitute a sin? Since when was loving who we are made an offense by morons that don't matter? Change this physicality and that one. Don't you dare shatter the illusion that you could ever be anything beyond paper-fine flesh and flashy teeth and fingernails. A code of accusations of not good enough, never good enough. Have you ever felt so numb that it hurts? Entertain me. You can't surrender to them. You've gotta remember that you're the only thing you'll ever truly have. And no, I don't mean your body. Because someday that will go bad no matter what you do. I mean you. I mean the way your bright eyes go wild when you smile and how your laugh is so melodic it's a song. I mean the way your creativity is a compass that leads you to what you love. And you don't need any miracle cream to keep your passions smooth, hair free, or diet pills to slim your kindness down. And when you start to drown in these petty expectations, you've gotta re-examine the miracle of your existence because you are worth so much more than your waistline. You are worth the beautiful thoughts you think and the daring dreams you dream, undone and drunk off alcohol of being. But sometimes we forget that because we live in a world where the media pulls us from the womb, nurses us, and teaches us our first words: skinny, pretty, skinny, pretty, girls, soft, quiet, pretty, boys, manly, muscles, pretty. But I don't care whether it's your gender, your looks, your weight, your skin, or where your love lies. None of that matters because standards don't define you.

You don't live to meet the credentials established by a madman. You're a goddamned treasure whether you want to believe it or not. And maybe that's what everyone should start looking for.

[pursuingthatpeace]

Challenge 2: Hang out with yourself

In my last post I talked about trying to force myself to focus on things I actually enjoyed, maybe even preferred doing alone. Now it's your turn. Here are the guidelines I suggest you use for this challenge. First, try to do this for at least an hour. Maybe you want to do it longer-fabulous! Maybe you can't quite make it-that's ok! You can work up to it! Nobody is counting or holding you to anything except yourself. Secondly, and this part is hard even for me, try unplugging. If you can't unplug because your activity involves using the internet or your technology, at least unplug from messaging other people. That's not alone time. Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, choose your activity carefully. You want to try to make these experiences positive. We are all still animals at heart, and if you're like me your mind and body learned that alone time means time to panic and be upset. I had to teach myself that it can be nice, like teaching an animal that humans can be friends. Finally, try not to use any substances to do this. You aren't learning if you're high or drunk, you're numbed out. Believe me, I have been there, I get it, but at the end of the day you know that there's a line, and using substances for self soothing crosses it into danger land. I can guarantee you, your progress will be slowed if not halted or even reversed if you don't at least try to learn how to cope without substances. Be patient and gentle with yourself. Show yourself all the love you would show to another being you were trying to make feel safe and comfortable in your presence. You deserve that same love and care. Here are some of my favorite things to do by myself: Watch movies Read Play my guitar Sing Do research on things that fascinate me Do artwork Meditate Write Good luck!

[pursuingthatpeace]

This song has really been helpful with my healing process, as has music in general. Pay attention to the words, they have a lot of wisdom.

I lost myself in fear of losing you I wish I didn't do But I did I lost my own, my own identity Forgot that you picked me for me But now, I don't negotiate with insecurities They always seem to get the best of me I found I had to love myself, the way I wanted you to... ...love me, No more second guessing No, there’s no more questioning I’ll be the one defining who I'm gonna be No concealing feelings, or changing seasonally I’m gonna love myself, the way I want you to love me Sometimes I wish my skin was a costume That I could just unzip And strip But who I am is who I'm meant to be And it's who you are in love, in love with So now, I don't negotiate with insecurities They're gonna have to take a back seat I know I have to love myself, the way I want you to... ...love me, No more second guessing No, there’s no more questioning I’ll be the one defining who I'm gonna be No concealing feelings, or changing seasonally I’m gonna love myself, the way I want you to love me [2x] No more standing in my own way Let's go deeper, let's get closer No more standing in my own way (I want you to love me) No more second guessing No, there’s no more questioning I’ll be the one defining who I'm gonna be No concealing my feelings, or changing seasonally I’m gonna love myself, the way I want you to love me No more second guessing No, there’s no more questioning I’ll be the one defining who I'm gonna be No concealing feelings, or changing seasonally I’m gonna love myself, the way I want you to love me

[pursuingthatpeace]

How the Heck do I Love Myself? I Can't Stand Myself!

The first time someone told me my problems would get better if I learned to love myself, I was confused. First of all, that's all they said. No pointers on how to proceed or how it would help me. Second of all, the baffling task of truly loving myself was so great that I didn't know where to begin. I started tallying up positive traits in my head and immediately disqualifying them with negative contradictions. Nothing seemed genuine enough to be worth loving, and it hurt. It took a long time, a battle with anorexia, a lot of failed relationships, and a lot of pain before I finally faced that I was going to have to do something or else my self hate was going to kill me. I forced myself to find something, anything to love about myself. I angrily thought to myself about how I had been able to find things to love and beauty in all of these people who had treated me so horribly, but couldn't do it for myself. That's when it hit me. Maybe all the misplaced love I had given to abusive people and toxic relationships could be converted into training to love myself. I tried to look at myself from the outside, as if I was looking at another person instead of myself. I realized that I loved how silly I was, and that I admired myself for my ability to laugh like a hyena without caring what other people thought. I realized that my eyes are unusual and beautiful, even if they are just brown eyes. I realized that I had a knack for finding the good in people in situations, ans that it was beautiful, and that I could use it on myself. I realized that I was one of the most loyal, forgiving, and understanding people I had ever met, and that those things made me a valuable friend. That made me realize that people were as lucky to have me as a friend as I was to have them. Then, I tried to tackle my anxiety about being by myself. I tried to think of things I preferred or at least was ok with doing alone. I realized that I love to sing by myself and for myself. I realized that I prefer watching movies alone because when I'm with other people I'd rather talk to them. I realized sleeping alone is actually pretty nice, even if cuddles are awesome. I realized that being alone with myself didn't have to be scary because I didn't automatically have to be anxious and afraid of my anxiety creeping up on me if no one was around to distract me from it. I know it sounds crazy and impossible, but my anxieties started to melt away. I didn't spend nights alone tossing and turning unable to sleep any more. I didn't going in to anxiety attacks if the house was empty and no one would answer a call or a text. I went from psychotically terrified to be left alone with my head to realizing it's kinda nice in here and not nearly as scary as I thought it was. My self injury has stopped, though I do still fight urges when my anxiety pops up. My panic attacks have become less frequent and less severe. I don't feel like a burden on my friends and family any more. All of that, all of that from learning how to enjoy my own company and do a little self-soothing. I know it sounds crazy, but seriously, just try it and see if it helps. Now I hang out with people because I want to, not because I feel like I'm going to die of anxiety if I'm alone. I can sleep deeply and happily by myself. I enjoy my alone time. I can comfort myself and calm myself down because I have a better handle on what upsets me. This improvement isn't a temporary high caused by a coping mechanism, this is an actual, irrevocable step forward caused by true healing instead of a band-aid. These are the steps we need to be taking. Not just seeking out more band-aids to cover the wounds.

[pursuingthatpeace]

Coping Mechanism Problems

One of the problems I immediately ran into when I started trying to heal was with learning how to cope in a healthy way. I had lots of things I did to try and regulate my emotions, and almost none of them were good for me. In fact, a lot of them were seriously dangerous. I realized the methods i was using were more like addictions than ways to heal, and I had to learn how to break the cycle.

First I isolated all the things I did to cope. I self injured, shopped, had sex, played my guitar, sang, spent time with animals, exercised, slept for long periods of time, over-ate, did art work, and hung out with my friends. It was immediately obvious that some of these things were healthy outlet for stress. Music, art, exercise, and spending time with animals were all things that didn't hurt me and reduced my stress. Easy enough. At the same time, self injuring was obviously never going to be an okay or healthy way to deal with my stress and it was endangering my life. Then came that harder part of the grey-area items, and this is where a lot of people end up falling.

Things like sex, shopping, food, sleep, and time with friends are all fun things most people enjoy. The dangerous part come from overdoing and depending on these things to regulate emotions. They stop being fun and start being drugs, and when you are inevitably forced to deal without them, your depression, your panic, and whatever else you're dealing with becomes worse. That's when dangerous coping mechanisms like self-injury and drug use start looking like your only option.

The Way I Found to Break Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

1. Identify the unhealthy coping mechanism.

2. Identify the specific void you're trying to fill with said unhealthy action, i.e. find the root of the issue.

3. Identify a way to solve the problem or a healthy way to cope with the problem to replace the unhealthy action.

For example, when I needed to have sex to be okay, it quickly stopped being fun and became a fix I needed to find. I made bad decisions about who involved myself with and would get irritable with significant others if I wasn't getting as much sex as I felt I needed from them. It also caused a lot of emotional pain for me because when I pursued unattached sex, I was unable to separate my emotions and ended up getting hurt when my feelings weren't reciprocated. Sex should never be something that causes shame and anxiety, and that became all it was for me.

I overcame this hurdle by figuring out what emotional pain I was trying to soothe with sex. After some introspection, I determined that I wasn't getting enough love, and since sex kinda feels like love sometimes, I subconsciously tried to fill that void with sex. Sex isn't love, and when it didn't heal the hurt, all I did was pursue it more and hurt more. 

After figuring out what was going on, I came to the hard part, which was replacing the harmful coping mechanism with a healthy one and trying to heal the problem. I knew my need for sex stemmed from insecrities about not feeling enough love, and I knew the types of partners I was pursuing were only making that insecurity worse because they were treatingme badly and using me. I took a step back from other people and from sex and worked on figuring out how to love myself. I realized that the more I loved and respected myself, the more I enjoyed my own company, and the less I depended on other people to regulate my emotions and make me feel loved and happy. Being alone became enjoyable instead of terrifying, and my urge to self injure was greatly reduced.

It's easy to say love yourself and everything will be okay.The thing is, even though loving yourself does make life  a hell of a lot better, it's not a snap your fingers type of deal, andit's not a magic fix. It takes work, it takes screw ups, and it takes time.

Today's media and social expectation encourages us all to hate ourselves inside and out. Outer beauty is never quite enough, and inner beauty is nothing without outer beauty, society says. It's really hard to break that well drilled concept out of our heads.

A lot of my challenges are going to be based on how I learned to love myself. I'm a firm believer in hands on learning, but some people learn by show and tell, so I will be providing both the challenges and summaries of my experiences in this blog. Hopefully people are able to find stuff that works!

[pursuingthatpeace]

Challenge 1: Write yourself a love poem

I have a challenge for you, internet. I want you to write a love poem to yourself as though you were another person. I want you to look at yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you so much all your flaws melt into perfect imperfections. You don't have to share it, but I want you to do it. If you can't, ask people who love you for ideas to expand on.

There is a difference between humility and treating yourself like dirt, and I see very little humility among my peers. What I see is self-hate and a bunch of people desperately seeking some kind of proof as to whether they are as beautiful as they wish to be or as ugly as they fear they are. 

It's time to bare our souls to ourselves and force ourselves to see their beauty. It's time to learn how to love ourselves so that we can truly love each other purely and not out of desperation to fill holes inside of us. We need to fill those holes ourselves.

This is the first in a seies of challenges I plan to put forth in the hope that some of the things I've learned can help my peers, and that they in turn can expand on the and tech me, too. I am far from the end of my journey to peace. I am even farther from perfect, and I don't claim to be any sort of guru. However, I have uncovered some realities that have brought my world into a dramatically sharper focus and helped me reach levels of peace and emotional self-reliance I never thought I could possibly reach. I want to share them.

So, bear with me, try these ideas if you want to, and please share. This world needs more love, and just like charity starts at home, love starts within.

Thanks, guys.

I love you.

I love you because you smell like summertime and feel like rose petals.

I love the way you give yourself so willingly to love that your entire body melts into every embrace, softly, like your heart has never been broken even though it's been shattered a hundred times.

I love the way your hair shines red in the sun, glistens black in the moonlight, and flows long and soft as silk down your back.

I love how you laugh long and hard, no matter who can hear you.

I love how you breath the rain in just as deeply as the sun so you can squeeze every drop of beauty out of every second of life you get.

I love how your eyes can be soft and warm as fall leaves, or sharp and cruel as burning bronze.

I love how you never wear a mask, how your genuine personality with all its sassy spunk, all its awkward sweetness, all its boundless silliness, and all its raw honesty is as immediately visible as your face.

 I love that your loyalty, your compassion, your capacity to forgive, and your ability to love are almost bottomless.

I love your ability to see the light in the darkest moments, the beauty int he most broken people, and the sweetness in the wickedness of life.

I love who you are. You're beautiful in every way, in all your perfect imperfections, and you are worthy of love, respect, and forgiveness.

I love you.

[pursuingthatpeace]

Hi, there

My name is Ty. I’m a 20 year old Colrado native. I’m an artist, a minimum wage worker, and a lover of life. I’m also an assault survivor, a suicide survivor, and anorexia survivor, and a lifetime sufferer of depression and anxiety.

I’m tired of those labels being defining characteristics of who I am. I’m tired of being a victim and a sufferer. I am starting this project because I realized life is too short to waste hating myself and being sad, and hen I started to realize that I have the tools to help myself. Once I started to heal, I looked around and realized that there were a lot of people in my peer group in the same pit I was in. I started to wonder of the things I tried to do for myself might help other people, or at least help them get pointed the way they want to point.

I do not claim my ideas will work for everyone, and Idefinitely don’t think they’re a magic cure. Everything I’m doing and have tried to do has only worked because I genuinely wanted to get better. Depression is kind of like an addiction with how seductive it is, and the only way a person can truly start to heal and continue to do so is when they themselves truly want to get better. I’m hoping that for those of us who want to feel better and move forward, but don’t know where to start can maybe some passive direction in what I have to say.

Thanks guys!

Love,

Ty