Learning to love me

Today I consider myself a happy person ... I have discovered that happiness is a decision and that is why I choose to wake up every day with a smile ... but there are times when the 'black wolf' that sleeps inside me wakes up and I go back to adolescence where my response to everything was to hurt myself.

People who know me today would not believe it, but as a teenager I was a cold, closed and reserved person, I hated physical contact and I harmed myself ... Since I did not know how to control my emotions and 'I hated crying', hurting myself and cutting myself was for me the only way out, and it became a drug.

At school I would sneak out to the bathroom to cut myself with the blade of the chopper, or I would dig my nails until they bled, or sometimes I would take a cutter with me. So that no one would notice, I always wore long-sleeved shirts or a sweater, even when it was hot. I injured myself for almost 5 years and even when I promised that I would not do it anymore, when anger rose to my head, or tears came to my eyes, I could feel how I would rather hurt myself than feel 'fragile' and vulnerable. The most difficult thing is that there are a thousand ways to harm ourselves.

When I stopped cutting, I found alcohol and food and I would binge on food until I wanted to vomit and then I would vomit and continue, even now, my first instinct when I have a hurt ego is to hurt myself, including the decision to get away from everything and everyone until I feel like I'm drowning. The difference between my adolescent self and my present self, the big difference, is that now I have a tool that 10 years ago I did not have:Meditation... There is still in me a temperamental girl who needs attention, the girl who wants to swallow her emotions rather than having the humility to yell and ask for help, but I have a tool that keeps her off the wheel.

Thanks to the Enseñanza and La Jardienra, today I have discovered that when I feel I am drowning, when I do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes it is enough to just stop for 5 minutes, breathe deeply and meditate, remember that there is always a solution when you have a clear mind and a mouth to speak and express what you feel. I am not saying that it is a magic wand that solves all problems in one go, but they have taught me that it is a great act of humility to ask for help and that the awareness and courage not to feed the black wolf is within us. So, even if sometimes it’s still hard, I am aware that I have the power to ask for advice, to meditate and clear my mind, to use the tools that return me to a state of 'balance'.

I know that I am not the only one who has been through this, and that many adolescents resort to self-harm to control their emotions ... And after many years of having made that mistake I can say with certainty that as much as the temptation exists, It is not a scar (or a hangover, or a bad stomach) that will make us feel better. What will make us feel calm is to sit down, even for those 5 minutes, look for a little clarity, release the emotion, say what hurts and makes us angry, yell at the river, throw away everything that poisons us inside.

Do the act of humility and self-love, the simplest, but most difficult of all: Ask for Help.

You have to dare to live, and it takes more courage to LIVE than to let go and use a cowardly solution ... And to all those who have silently had these same feelings: there is always a way out of the tunnel ... Sometimes just 5 minutes is enough!