Letter To Myself

Hey, Jax.

I’ve noticed that things have been going very well for you recently. One might even say that almost all of your dreams have been coming true in the sense that opportunity after opportunity to accomplish your goals has presented itself & continues to do so. That’s pretty rad, dude. Grats & stuff.

I’ve also noticed that you’re still not prioritising self-care & daily maintenance activities like you need to be doing in order to sustain your existence in a less than “just surviving” kind of way. I thought we talked about this. I thought we agreed we were tired of barely scraping by each day. Remember how it’s important for us to be functioning well in order to accomplish our goals? Remember how we care about people & want to help them? Remember how we can’t help others if we’re not helping ourself get better first?

Now, I don’t wanna assume you’re not doing your best. I think you are doing better than you have been in a long, long time, possibly ever in some ways. I also don’t want to give you the classic, “Try harder to do better,” kind of talk because I know that can feel pretty invalidating of all the effort you have been putting in & all the work you have been doing thus far. I definitely want to commend you for your endeavours & thank you for your perseverance despite how difficult it’s been all these years. I’m truly grateful you never fully gave up. It may have felt like you did, but you’re still here. We’re still here. And that’s pretty huge in my book. I’m genuinely happy that you’ve made the choices you have so that we are where we are today, which is having this talk right now. We couldn’t be doing this if you hadn’t put in the work it took to get here. This is bigger than you think, actually.

So, I know things are still really tough on a daily basis. I know the pain is still nigh intolerable & constant. I know how terribly uncomfortable it is to be corporeal in the way we are, and I know how challenging it is to have developed the way we did. It’s okay, though. No, really. It’s just another flavour of life. It’s maybe a super rare & unusual one that requires a lot of time to acquire the taste for, but it’s possible to get to that point. At least, I think it is. I’ve heard of stranger phenomena happening. I just want you to know, though, that even though things are still pretty rough, even though you’re still suffering, even though you sometimes question why you should keep moving forward, it’s worth it to stick around because your experiences can help others. It’s true. It’s happened before, and it can happen again.

I know you’re a fan of logic & critical thinking so let’s just consider how we can increase the statistical probability of helping others real quick:

1) Continuing to stick around: if you’re still here, you might be able to help someone whereas if you’re not, you definitely won’t be able to, right? Yeah. Checks out.

2) Prioritising self-care: if you’re healthy, your ability to be productive will increase whereas if you’re not taking proper care of yourself, your capacity to be there for others will decrease. Yeah. That’s also solid reasoning. Got me there.

Okay, so, if we just do these two little things (just two!), the statistical probability of us being able to help other people goes up exponentially. We both want that. So how are we going to make sure we do these things?

For the first one, we just keep doing what we’re doing. Distract ourselves when things get to the point where we’re having intrusive thoughts, be extra compassionate & gentle in those moments, practice non-judgmental loving kindness, reach out to those we trust & who help us feel better, etc.
And what about the second one? That’s the one we struggle with the most. How can we try to prioritise self-care more? How can we push through that, “BUT I DON’T WANNA!!!!” feeling? It’s the worst, isn’t it? It’s like an amusement park filled to the brim with screaming toddlers who have been abandoned by their parents & we’re the only adults there, but we’re also wanting to scream with them and be rescued by someone.

Well, what do you think? Any ideas? This letter has been nice, right? Being here present with each other in this way? Being there for myself, with myself? That’s pretty new. Maybe we can do this more often? Maybe we can do things together? Maybe we can do the things we don’t wanna do together by supporting each other with love, affection, tolerance, patience, understanding, empathy, compassion, & more? Do you think we could do that? What would it look like if we did that? What would it feel like? Can we try it?

How about we try it right now? Let’s do the thing we don’t want to do: go to bed. I know you struggle with that. So do I, obviously haha. What’s keeping us from closing this laptop right now? Why are we so reluctant to wind down? Perhaps we should explore this another time since it’s approaching midnight & thinking about it too much will probably be counterproductive to the goal of actually going to sleep! Yeah, good call. Okay. I guess we can try…

Are you scared for some reason? Kinda? Maybe? I don’t know why I would be, though. That seems so weird & illogical; like, what do I have to be scared of anyway? We’re just going to bed? It’s okay. We don’t have to understand what’s going on to be able to work through it. It’s just a neural network, right? What’s that thing that Daimon says? “This is my neural network, and I can change it.” Yeah. That’s it. This is just a neural network, and we can change it. So let’s do it. Let’s do it together now.

Goodnight, world. Until tomorrow.
So much love to you all ❤