Sleeping In With Sanity

There was a battery pack inside of me. I never truly found out where it was placed. Maybe it was placed in my throat chakra, or maybe it was placed in my spirit. Wherever it was placed, socializing took an excessive amount of energy out of it. My social battery never really had a good battery life. Sometimes I can feel when she’s waning out, but other times I try to speak and it takes me an enormous amount of fuel to get even the smallest of sentences out or simply reply with an emoji. My social battery is simply the amount of energy that I have to not only interact with others, but even be in the same room as them. For a long time family and friends had convinced me that something was wrong with needing to be alone, valuing my time in isolation, and not having enough in me to converse. I would force myself to be in rooms long after my battery life had expired and be exhausted afterwards. When my battery was low, or even worse dead, self-care was always the hardest tasks to complete. The task of washing my face felt like I was being faced with having to tug a mountain with a thread of floss. I realized that the world was way too entitled to my energy.

To combat this problem and the guilty conscience given to me, I will spend my 2022 training. My training does not include lifting weights, running miles, or having an extensive workout plan. My training simply consisted of exercising one word. The word no.

Last year one of my biggest tackles was really conquering self-love. I think self-love is displayed differently in everyone's life. My definition of self love isn’t only removing yourself from a toxic relationship or looking in the mirror to tell yourself that you are beautiful, but it's knowing that you love a fast city so you move to New York. You know that you and your co-worker get into mild arguments every time you go out, so you decide to miss out sometimes for your sanity. I think every action you take in life should ooze in self-love. Saying no was an act of self-love. The word no is looked at so negatively that not many people would associate it with self-love. But, my studies found that it has everything to do with it. It's easy to say yes to the things you want, but it's extremely difficult to simply say no. I think one of the hardest things for people to do, more specifically the people pleasers and the people often and easily turned into the bad guy, is to say no. There was a lot of power held with the word no.

I love myself and my health so much that when my manager asks me to come in on my off day after working five eight hour shifts in a row, I will now say no. I’ll decline the invitation to the family functions where they ask me the same questions they asked the last time they saw me. But, of course I won’t flat out say no. Nobody does because most of the time people will believe that it's rude. However, I don't think we have to formulate an excuse for our reason for declining someone else's wishes. Most of the time when people can’t think of an adequate excuse they simply don’t reply–or even worse they cave and say yes. So as a solution, I realized that we can’t look for excuses, but rather look for truthful explanations. In 2022 I will not be afraid to say that my mental health won’t allow me to come in today. I presume that is more professional than saying I am tired of the human race, I do not feel like interacting today, and doing nothing today was and will remain the plan.

I will no longer perceive myself as a villain for respecting my own energy. There are definitely other ways to show you care about someone without telling your mind, body, and soul that you don't respect it.

My social battery works closely with my sanity. Around the time my social battery gets to 30%, it’s time for me to get home. My sanity is my top priority because everyone knows there is too much going on in this world that can threaten it. My personal rule is to not flake out on my sanity to compensate others. One thing about my sanity is that sometimes she calls unexpectedly, sometimes she flows in when I first wake up, or randomly when I’m going through my day. But, it doesn't matter when or how she presents herself, it just matters that I listen so that I have enough energy to wash my face. My New Year's resolution for 2022 is to loudly and proudly tell the world that I am sleeping in with my sanity today. Raincheck?