Last night I just wasn’t feeling it. I was exhausted. All my joints hurt. I wanted nothing to do with people and I’ve been having some rough flashbacks. 

All of it hit me at once. It happens. Life is what it is, and sometimes it’s not pleasant.

I had all the right excuses to not volunteer my time at the food share. I could take some time to myself, lay down, and rest up. I’ve been through a lot and I deserve some rest.

So I asked myself a question: “What’s best for me?”

Not “What do I want to do?” or “What feels good?”

“What’s best for me?”

The answer was simple this time. As much as I didn’t want to go to the share, going to the share was what was best for me. The hard pill I’ve recently learnt to swallow is that just because something is hard, tiring, and/or takes a lot of time and consistency doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t do it when I don’t feel like it.

Volunteering is part of the person I strive to be. Everytime I help out I reaffirm to myself that my own values are important. That I value myself and how I wish to live my life.

Let’s throw a wrench in this.

Let’s say I was really sick or that I got hurt and couldn’t walk/ pick things up. Now I have competing values. 

Do I volunteer or take care of myself?

I think all of us agree that in a non-critical situation I have to take care of myself. In the absence of an immediate threat, we need to heal and recover if we wish to maintain longevity. There’s only so long my tank can run on empty before the engine stops.

Which is why I ask myself “What’s best for me?”

Let me be blunt. I’m an expert at dissociating from my feelings and needs. It happens faster than me snapping my fingers— and it feels a bit more automatic.

Even when I ask myself the question “ What’s best for me?” I need to jump through hoops just to get in touch with my intuition.

I work my ass off and fail quite spectacularly on a regular basis when it comes to being present. For me it’s a little agonizing, and it’s far more convenient to work myself into a stupor or reach for an oreo. Tuning in to my present experience and needs brings up so much anxiety I think I’m going to die.

And yet what do I do? Every morning I make time for still meditation to try and tune in. I’ve done so for a decade. I go on long nature walks and make time to just sit and destress. And I do what I can each day as the constant roil of emotions wracks me.

Despite how hard it is, how impossible it often seems, or how overwhelmed I find myself, I do it. I fail, I do alright, and at a snail's pace I’m moving in the direction I wish to go.

Maybe I’m the odd one out here, but I have to sit through all of this just to get to the answer of our original question: “What’s best for me?”

So many things factor into the answer of “What’s best for me?” Health (every aspect for it), values, and where I’m at on my journey are usually the big three. As for the last one, there are certain things I just can’t handle. I can sit with a lot more than I used to be able to— and that’s saying a lot considering the things I’ve faced. But certain things still overwhelm me in ways I can’t yet process.

The point of this journal entry is to get all of us to take a look at how we live. Because I can accept myself as I am. But to continuously sacrifice myself because something I want to do is hard— to give up, let myself and others down because I’m afraid of being uncomfortable— is one of the biggest horseshit excuses I can ever tell myself.

I did not survive the things I survived to curl into a ball every time something gets hard.

You know, maybe I can’t be as present as I want to yet. Maybe I still dissociate as emotional experiences cue up the past and make it seem impossible to sit with what’s going on in the moment.

So I’ll take that small step forward. I’ll feel the sensations around the edges and go as far as I can manage without overwhelming myself. I’ll remember to breathe. Or focus on the sounds around me to try and get out of my memories and into the moment.

I like to use volleyball as an example. Take a look at how a professional hits (spikes) a ball. There is nothing natural about that motion. Nothing. Even the way they jump is odd.

Learning to hit a volleyball is an example I lean back on. You need to learn your approach, your timing, the ability to read a block, how to swing your arm, how to contact the ball with your palm, and the appropriate follow through— all while not crashing into the net and while keeping the ball within the playing area.

If you would have told me to hit a volleyball well when I first picked up the sport a couple of years ago, there is no way I could have done so. I needed to learn through deliberate practice. I needed to experiment. Be exposed to different conditions. Play with and against different players. Have the right mentors. All of these things needed to come together for me to attain a basic proficiency at just hitting the ball. That’s not even including passing or setting.

Change takes time. And many of us have been taught how to sacrifice who we are and what we need because it benefited others. Forging a new path means we likely have to learn a whole new set of skills.

And that takes time.

So let me ask you, “What’s best for you?”