Accept Responsibility Conclusion

"People don't realize how easy life is to change. You just get on the bus." - Marisha Pessi

I don't like responsibility. I hate grown up things, many of which centre around responsibility. Bills, taxes, work.  I hate going to the bank or to the solicitors
I am 24 and yet I don't feel ready for facing these grown-up things by myself. I wish my mum could still look after my banking for me. Or that someone else could sort out the complicated things like insurance without me having to be involved. They cause me anxiety - sweats, tightened chest, thumping heartbeat, nausea.

I often don't feel like I am ready for adulthood.

But this year I have grasped responsibility by both hands. My goals and plans and action plans have allowed me to steer my own ship. Creating a Life Handbook showed me how to chart my own course, how to aim higher, how to achieve what I want from life.

It's quite easy to shirk away responsibility. We see our life as subject to outside influences. Other people meddling in our affairs and scuppering our plans. But I have learned that we have influence, control, and responsibility for our own future. We have more influence than others, more control. And absolutely more responsibility for getting what we want from life.

We are responsible for making changes and creating progress in our own lives

It can be a scary thought to know that our own future is in our hands. But it's also quite liberating.

There are still the adult chores I hate having responsibility for. But I can also see the bigger picture - I am responsibility for bringing about the change I want to see in my own life.

Choose Happiness

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." - Dalai Lama

This year I have been trying to cultivate happiness. My resolutions, which form the Romeo Project, have aimed to increase my happiness, despite my mental illness. So this month I am accepting responsibility for my own happiness.

As the Dalai Lama points out, we are responsible for our own hapiness. Nothing struck me more than this quote while I was feeling severely depressed last week. I found that leve of responsibility for my own experiences terribly burdening. I couldn't cope under the heavy weight of knowing only I could pull myself out of my downward spiral and back into (at least some level of) happiness.

But the Dalai Lama is right.

You are Responsible for your own Wellbeing

"The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs." - Joan Didian

Regular readers of my blog and my Twitter rants will know that I've spent the past two weeks struggling with my mental health. It's difficult to write about recovery and hope and then find yourself submerged in the depths of a severe depression. In my head those two things conflict. Who am I to talk about finding happiness when I'm feeling sad? Am I failure for finding myself depressed AGAIN? 

For my depression to come back in full force during a month where I aimed to accept responsibility for my own wellbeing is all the more conflicting. I feel helpless for not being able to prevent it, control it, or move myself out of it. I feel responsible for making those around me worried and upset.

I feel like I have an onus to be well and recovered. Not just for myself, but for others in my life too.

The World Health Organization define health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing.” WHO see these faucets of health as inter-related and co-dependent of each other.
I know I have to accept responsibility for these three pillars of health, and take action to improve my wellbeing. Especially now that my mental health has been suffering. Taking preventative and relieving measures can reduce the impact of a depressive episode. And after the past two weeks, that's all I want.

So here's my plan to take back responsibility for my wellbeing

My Morning Routine

Today I want to talk you through one of the biggest life changes I have made this year - my morning routine. Back in April I decided to take back control of my busy life and reclaim my mornings. I decided to finally accept responsibility for making positive life changes and bring more happiness into my life with my own calm morning.

This involved rising half an hour earlier than I used to, and starting my day off with some additional me-time. Rather than rushing to get ready in half an hour - I gave myself an hour. It was a small addition of 30 minutes into my day, but it's made a world of difference.

“Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?” 

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Why do we need a morning routine?

Morning routines give us the chance to not only have more quality time, but also to make better use of our time. Morning routines create discipline. Even if you are not traditionally a morning person, creating a structured morning can help you to become that early riser you always wanted to be!
For me, a morning routine also sets me up for the whole day. I feel more prepared, motivated and ready to face the day ahead.

My Morning Routine:

My morning routine took time to develop. Try out different activities, schedules and routines until you find one that works for you!

Early to bed; early to rise
At first, I tried rising 15 minutes earlier, and gradually increased this back to half an hour, and now sometimes 45mins to an hour depending on what I want to get down before I head to work. It's important to finding a sleeping schedule that works for you. I'm rather reliant on my 8 hours of sleep per night; so getting up earlier also meant sacrificing some time at the other end of the day too. To get up at 6:30 am, I try to be asleep by 11pm at night. By 10:30pm I am tucked up in bed and ready for a long rest.

Hydrate
I for one am really bad at drinking my eight glasses at water when I'm not at my work desk. But the mornings is the perfect time to take on some water for the day. Your first drink also wakes you up, and according to science, it helps flush out the toxins too.

Life Handbook - How I Accepted Responsibility for my Own Life

Revisiting my Life Handbook

Back in January I found authenticity by mapping my goals, dreams and life plans in a dedicated Life Handbook. I loved having a notebook of my favourite motivational quotes, my one-, three-, and five-year plans, and ambitions for my life time. I spent the rest of month feeling motivated. I took action in some key areas (most notably under my Relationships goal).

But as the month ended, I forgot about my goals. With the Handbook put aside, they were out of sight and out of mind.

June approached and I found myself almost half way through not only the year, but also my Romeo Project. While reflecting on my progress so far, I looked back on my first resolution and remembered that I had plans and aspirations for the year that I was not fulfilling.

How could I achieve my dreams, goals and ambitions if I didn't accept responsibility for implementing them? I needed to take action.

"If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them." - Wally Lamb

The fog is lifting

The fog is lifting. Slowly but surely.

I looked up the word 'fog'; read about it on Wikipedia. I learned about how it forms, that there are nine different types of fog, how it affects visibility, create shadows and that you can make your own artificial fog (if you were scientifically inclined, of course).

Sometimes the word fog is the best description for my lows. It neatly captures the heaviness I feel - sluggish and weary. It's hard to move through the dense thickness of a fog. It slows you down. Everything moves at a more lethargic pace. My reactions were diminished. My ability to feel gone.

I haven't felt like me. I felt like I was outside myself; watching and observing as if in a dream.

It's been 7 days now of feeling exhausted, apathetic, listless. 7 days of feeling that I was not and could not be me.

But day 8 sees the fog begin to lift. I am now visibly brighter. I feel calmer. The dark mass is passing overhead.

If the Romeo Project has taught me anything, it has taught me this - sometimes, no matter what efforts or actions we put in place, no matter how much we try to be happy, mental illness is still there. Reading self -help books doesn't stop your depression, anxiety, BPD. Applying the tools from self-help books doesn't make mental illness go away forever. Positive affirmations won't cure you.
Mental illness isn't that simple.

But they help. The self-help books, the self-care, the positive affirmations DO make you stronger. They help you bounce back. To fight it.

Finding yourself in the fog of a depressive episode doesn't eradicate the progress you've made.

I need to find acceptance with that.

Black hole

My mental health has taken a hit over the last week. Whether it’s down to exhaustion, new stress or an inevitable low after such a positive and happy month – I crashed.

I feel helpless. Like I don’t know how to pull myself out of it.

I keep repeating this month’s resolution to myself – 'Accept Responsibility'.

But it only makes me feel worse.

I am responsible for my own moods. I am responsible for how I feel. For turning this around. For pulling myself out of this black hole.

I know that. But knowing it doesn’t always help. 

I feel like a failure for not being able to pick myself back up; or not being able to stop the tears. 

I am responsible. But does that mean I am responsible for finding myself in this mess too? Should I have done more to look after myself? To take preventative measures against the bad days? Should I have been making the time for self care each day? Should I have avoided alcohol? Should I have handled difficult situations better?

How to take back responsibility and find the right actions? 

I don't know. Right now my head is too fuzzy to even think straight. I can't locate the answers in the darkness.