The one thing I regret (I try not to spend much of my life regretting, but it happens often) from my struggles with mental and physical health is being afraid to even try.

I would say no to things because I didn’t feel like I was up to the task. What I wish I had done was just attempt a modified version of it. Maybe my issues kept me from being able to do as much as other people but I could’ve done something. I could’ve gone and seen how it would’ve gone. I was so afraid of embarrassing myself or not being able to keep up with everyone else that I just declined.

I thought everyone would have more fun if I wasn’t there holding them back. I hope none of my friends who struggle with things feel that way. I want you to come, even if you just sit in the corner and watch. I want you to come and be with us. I want you to suggest things that would be fun for you. I hope you don’t worry about being lame, like I always did.

I recently was all gung-ho to do a 30-day ab challenge and it made my body hurt like a mother. So we’re back to yoga and gentle stretching and walking…Yeah, walking. So lame. I’m young. I want to be sprinting up mountains. I want to be able to touch my toes. But I can’t. Some days I can’t get out of bed. I can’t eat everything I want. I am, in fact, kind of lame. But, I think it’s okay. I wish I was better about owning my lameness instead of trying to hide from it.

I am Lauren Laws. And I am lame.

And as I start working with my body and mind and it’s lameness I start to make progress towards less lame-ness. I’m getting a bit repetitive in these posts, but there really is a power in working with your weaknesses instead of against them. Constantly focusing on the negative seems productive but ultimately stops you from progressing.

I love writing, but I hurt my arm, so I’m writing only ten minutes at a time and doing a podcast. When I can’t get out of bed, I try and work from bed. When I don’t feel up to doing something I try and do something else. It’s not easy. And some days I literally don’t do anything, but most days I wake up feeling like I can’t do anything that day and by the time I go to bed I realize I have done something. And, again, I know other people have it way worse than me, but maybe some of the same principles can apply.

Stop beating yourself up. And don’t give up. How can you work within your limitations?

I’m laying in bed at midnight. I gave myself permission to go to bed at 9:00 p.m. tonight even though I had more to do. But I can’t sleep.

So I wanted to talk about giving yourself permission.

There’s a theory, that I’d link to if I wasn’t writing this on my phone, that talks about the different parts of us that determine how we feel and how we see the world. The easiest way is to think of it like Inside Out.

So when I feel sad, my brain immediately jumps to all the reasons I shouldn’t be sad. So it becomes a battle of anxiety instead of just sadness. It’s sadness + I can’t feel sad because people have it way worse + oh man, now I’m thinking about everyone suffering around the world + but I am still sad about my sad thing + omg single moms how do they do it + but I’m so sad it hurts, like a giant weight in my chest + there are people on lists who need heart transplants and that must feel awful for them and their families + I can’t feel sad, it’s not that bad. Etc etc etc.

This is… Not helpful. You have to feel the feelings as they come and not rationalize them away. They’re like a small child that’s begging for attention and will calm down once they get some. If you are sad, angry, happy, excited, let yourself feel those things. I rationalize away happy feelings sometimes too. I can’t be happy because x,y,z is going on in the world.

Feel what you are feeling. Express what you’re feeling. Don’t feel like you have to feel anything else. It’s natural to want to suppress bad feelings and to tell people “everything will be fine.” Or “You’re better off.” But the dismissal of feelings will just cause them to come back later, usually stronger than before.

Grief has become a friend of mine. Grieving is a great word because it implies there is purpose to your sadness. Let yourself grieve. The loss of a person, a job, a project, the life you thought you’d have. Let yourself grieve small things that don’t seem important enough to grieve, because the only validation you need is that you’re feeling it.

I’m to the point where I cry in public. It’s terrifying and embarrassing. But when they come, they come. And I actually recommend it because after a few times you just stop caring. Wear sunglasses and carry tissues with you at all times.

Trigger warning: More suicide talk.

Okay, ten minutes. I’ve been on a roll-ish with this but tonight I’m drawing a blank. I want to talk about suicide, but everyone else already is…And I want to have a solution, but I don’t have one.

If I’m being totally honest with myself, which I usually am not, I have had suicidal thoughts. I’ve felt stuck in a body and a life that seemed hopeless. I have felt like I contribute nothing and so I wouldn’t be missed. I felt not good enough. These things are definitely not true. I have a really, really great life. I have had a great life my whole life. I have always had friends and family who care about me. But feelings don’t always listen to reason.

And that’s why I’m not sure how to help people. I don’t want anyone to feel like it’s their fault if someone close to them commits suicide. Yes, reach out to people, yes, be supportive. Yes, share the hotline. But it’s just not your fault if someone takes their own life. I have a huge network of support. It has definitely helped. But it doesn’t stop the waves of negative feelings from coming.

The worst part about trauma is it breeds more trauma. When someone dies it affects the people who care about them. Depression not only takes a life but it ruins more lives and it spreads. We can’t let fear win.

I think if you’re depressed you should look for every solution you can to feel better. But don’t be too hard on yourself if they don’t work. Someone who got to travel and eat delicious food for a living was depressed. It may be that having everything won’t stop you from feeling like you have nothing.

Dear God,

Give me your strength. All of it. I know you have all power so give it to me. Open my heart wide open and fill it with love. Fill it with so much love it cannot feel hate. Take the hate I have away on the wind. Let the feelings I have pass through me and pass on. Give me the power and strength I need to use that love to change the world. To change someone’s world. Let me know what talents I have and how to use them. Bless the people I love with the same strength and love and the strength to overcome. Help me to move forward. Give me bravery and vulnerability and help me to better understand how those two are intertwined.

Dear Norah Ephron,

Give me the creativity and whimsy to write something like When Harry Met Sally. Guide my pen and my mind to make people laugh and help people see the ups and downs in love. Help my jaded heart use my experiences for good and for creating. Guide me to Mindy Kaling (and/or my own Matt Warburton) so we can worship you together. The world misses you. Help me fill that void that 90s RomComs left that has only slightly been filled by films like Bridget Jones’s Baby. I want to write movies and books and plays. Make me just like you, in my own way.

Dear Kate Spade,

How do we help people who have the shadow of depression as a constant companion? I can empathize and I still don’t know what would help, what can we do? You spent your life creating things that brought whimsy and joy to the world. You and Robin Williams spent so much of your life making people smile while a torment raged inside. How do we stop equating outward success with inner peace? How do we help teenagers or other people who have even less resources? How can we convince people life is worth living when it gets so hard sometimes? Too many people and too many artists are taking their own lives and leaving us without all the goodness they have to share. And it makes me feel so helpless. So please get Robin, Van Gogh, Marilyn, Hemingway, Woolfe, and the countless young actors and musicians together and come up with a solution and let me know. Thanks.

I told myself that if I made it through today I would reward myself with writing something I wanted to write…But what do I want to write? It’s 22:22 right now as I look at the clock so I can force myself to write for ten minutes without stopping.

Basically these days I just have Hamilton lyrics going through my head. So when I think, what do I want to talk about? I want to talk about Partisan fighting, grab a pen start writing. 

I don’t really want to talk about partisan fighting. I want to talk about nothing. I want to talk about how I hate my transcription job and the main reason is that it makes me do a double space after a period so writing this I am overthinking how many spaces to do after a period because I’m a one space girl. I’m thinking about how grammerly is correcting me as I go, including how I misspelled Grammarly…and misspelled.

Sometimes I feel stuck. Do you ever feel that? Like, you want to change something about yourself or your life so badly, but you just can’t. And you don’t know why. And you go searching for answers. And sometimes you don’t find the answers. Sometimes you don’t even have the words to explain how you’re feeling or what’s wrong. Sometimes you can’t possibly know what is causing what which is causing something else.

I wish I was a perfect person. I wish I could float through life without ever offending anyone or accidentally being mean. I wish I was pure and clear as glass. I wish I communicated what I felt. I wish I knew what I was feeling enough to even begin to communicate it. I wish I could be more vulnerable. I wish being vulnerable didn’t hurt. I wish hurting didn’t lead to so much growth. I wish I didn’t believe growing was part of life.

I wish everything worked out how I wanted it to. I wish I didn’t keep getting rejected by things and people I want to accept me. I wish being brave wasn’t so hard. I wish I was strong enough to not be shattered by every rejection.  When most of them aren’t personal. And the ones that are personal are one person’s opinion.

Ten minutes is a long time.

I am not a perfect person. I’m messy. Figuratively and literally. I feel too much and not enough. I’m so emotional and yet somehow still closed off. My main goal in life is just to help people and I don’t even do it all that well. My heart is broken. My brain feels fuzzy. My body is literally a tense mess that can’t do all the things I want it to. I don’t deserve anything from anybody. I think I’ll get everything I want in life, but I also have a low self-esteem. I mess up every single day. I don’t even want to be around me sometimes. But when my heart stops racing and I breathe in and out I remember and realize that I do love myself and I am worth something.

And then I feel like I’m not allowed to feel those feelings. Because, logically, I’m worth nothing. I canceled my life insurance policy, because who cares. People say they’ll hire me, then don’t. People say they’ll be there for me always, then don’t. And I’m the common denominator.

I didn’t mean to end this on a downer, but that’s ten minutes.

Give yourself permission to feel what you need to feel. Especially if that feeling is that you’re good enough. You’re allowed to feel that. For some reason, we’re wired or taught to think we can’t love ourselves with our flaws. We can, I just don’t know how yet.

Everyday. Ten Minutes. No stopping. Barely edited.

“There is no need to do anything but rest in the fullness of who you are right now.”

This is what a tarot card said to me last night, but it’s also pretty basic wisdom.

Is there anything scarier than being happy where we are? We are meant to always be striving to be better, to be improving, to be progressing. But what about being where we are?

It’s so much easier to look at what we don’t have, what isn’t perfect, what we’ve lost, what we’ve failed at. It feels productive to beat ourselves up. To keep “shoulding” ourselves. But maybe, everything is okay. We are always whole, even when we are broken.

“There is no need to do anything but rest in the fullness of who you are right now.”

I understand this intellectually and I see the truth of this statement but how do I actually feel it, how do I apply it to myself?

I feel restless in my own skin. It itches. I don’t like who I am physically. Not because of how I look, though sometimes it’s that too, but because I live in a body that doesn’t work how I want it to. Constant pain. Lack of coordination. Organs and muscles not functioning right. All things I can work on, but I’m not where or how I want to be now.

I can’t remember the last time I truly felt “good enough” just the way I was. In theory, I get it, I’m awesome and capable. But in practice, I’m just not enough.

“There is no need to do anything but rest in the fullness of who you are right now.”

I don’t feel full, I feel empty. But there are moments of calm when I feel like I can rest in the emptiness of who I am right now.

Everyday. Ten Minutes. No stopping. Barely edited.

It’s only day three and too soon to give up. I had a haunting dream last night. And it haunted me all day. A little girl was mad, because things hadn’t gone her way. Is she my subconscious or is she someone real? She said I was supposed to be her mother. That I had to make things right and find her. I promised I would. I would find her, wherever she is. She said she didn’t know where she was going now. I told her I would find her. I would adopt her if she ended up in the wrong place or I would bring her into this world with my own body. Somehow. I don’t know if she’s already here somewhere or if she’s still waiting.

I have complicated feelings about motherhood. Because I know it’s in the cards for me. But I just don’t know how. There are many ways to be a mother.

I had visions of all the places this girl could be born. In Syria, in Africa, in Detroit, in Haiti, in Mexico, next door, or with me in a hospital with any number of men who could be her father. Any path could bring her to me.

Or maybe she is me. The me that is young, and wild, and free. Little girls are the strongest kind of people I know. They’re creative and resilient. They don’t mind skin knees and they hang upside down.

I’m afraid of motherhood. I don’t know if I want to have a little girl because I want to be a little girl again. I don’t want to worry what people think. I want to wear leggings and oversized t-shirts and pigtails.

I want to laugh and invent games with my friends and check out piles of books from the library.

I want to roll in the grass with my dog. I want the world where the only thing I had to blog about was puppies and the cast of Harry Potter. And quizzes about what kind of fruit I am.

I’m lucky because my childhood is not dead. My childhood friends are still close. Connected through social media and visits once or twice a year but always in my heart.

Little girls bend and do the splits like it’s nothing. Well, not me, I’ve never been able to touch my toes. Not even in grade school. But still, the sentiment of flexibility is there. But I’ve always had too much tension.

My body is full of tension and it finally caught up to me. It keeps me from doing all the things I want to. I don’t know if my small frame and strained muscles will ever be a home for new life. I never quite feel comfortable or free. But that’s a feeling that can come from within, despite the physical pain, we can be comfortable with ourselves.