Chronic stress negatively affects every system in our body, including the health & appearance of your skin...but it goes MUCH deeper than that.
Contrary to what society wishes us to believe, our bodies are not designed to be constantly overworked to the point of exhaustion & delirium. Hustle culture in a man-made ideology that is hurting us more than it is helping us.
I understand the feeling of having little to no support and pushing towards your goals alone. Not everybody understands what that feels like, but I DO. I am not somebody who receives handouts or has the luxury of being taken care of. I am building my company from scratch. I am my team. I am my lifeline. I am my support system.
I know what it feels like to have no choice but to push & I say this with love:
We are not superhuman and our bodies are not designed to withstand the chronic pressure of moving through life as if we are.
After a few years, your body will push back. At the brink of insanity, you must make a decision- reach out for help ( or if you have nobody, reach UP to God/ The Universe/ Spirit whatever you believe in ) or lose yourself completely.
There is nothing on earth that is worth your sanity. Once you lose that, you have nothing.
Many people don’t learn the importance of a regulated nervous system until it’s too late. Until your own thoughts are chasing you in circles & no matter how fast you run, you cannot escape the chatter.
Until your own mind becomes your enemy, constantly feeding you fear-based scenarios that haven’t even happened yet, and probably never will.
Until your body has lost the ability to fully relax- feeling jittery, unsettled & always stressing about the next thing on your to-do list.
Until you’ve lost the ability to enjoy the current moment.
If I could go back in time, here are a few things I would have told my younger self, to prevent the damage that chronic stress has caused to my body, mind & spirit:
#1 SLOW DOWN - there is no reward for pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion every day, skipping meals, hydration & losing sleep to get things done. You are only hurting yourself by doing so.
#2 YOU CANNOT PLEASE EVERYBODY- if you don’t kill the people pleaser inside of you, you will end up killing your own internal spark & damaging your nervous system.
#3 TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST- until you have a child, there is nobody you should be putting before yourself because the fact of the matter is, those people will not do the same for you.
#4 YOU ARE PROTECTED - act like it & stop being so hard on yourself. You are safe. It is okay to breathe.
#5 SILENCE THE EXTERNAL NOISE- The people criticizing you would crumble instantly under the pressure that you endure on a daily basis. Give yourself some credit for all that you have accomplished at your young age.
In the upcoming weeks, I will be sharing specific daily practices that I’ve implemented into my life over the past few months to heal my nervous system, including but not limited to:
- breath work
- journaling / meditation
- plant medicine ( herbs, adaptogens, etc. )
- physical exercises
- mind strengthening exercises
- boundaries
- unapologetically avoiding unnecessary stress ( people, places, situations )
..in hopes that it might help somebody who needs it. I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but I’m better than I was 6 months ago. Slow motion is better than no motion, never forget that!