Métis Musings

1. Today, I feel positive about these things in my life: my relationships with family, my self-love journey, my work with the 2S Metis Working Group, jumping back into a healthy lifestyle, my work on Reconciliation and Indigenous Knowledge, the fact that I am writing again!
2. Today, if I were to finally give myself credit for something, I would celebrate this: Self-publishing a book at 25 and my journey to publish more at 35, 40, 45, etc!

Above, I responded to some journal prompts from the High 5 Challenge by Mel Robbins. What is that, you ask? Simply, it’s looking at yourself in the mirror each day – I mean REALLY looking at yourself (a really tough thing for me to do – and I’m sure many others), giving yourself a High 5 and really taking the time to appreciate your mind, body and spirit. Thanking it for getting you through another day. Being grateful to wake up and experience another day – no matter what that looks like.

To be perfectly honest, I used to be SO positive. It used to be so easy for me to look on the bright side of things, to always see the best in others, in myself. In the last couple of years, that has become difficult. It has become a habit that I lost touch with and the impacts have been challenging. I’ve started to doubt my place in people’s lives, begun to feel like I’m a burden to others, an imposition in their lives. I stopped reaching out to friends because I felt like I was bothering them. I stopped taking good care of myself because I stopped seeing the point. Self doubt flooded my every thought and action. I started to feel like I wasn’t good at my job, that I was letting everyone down, even though deep down I knew this wasn’t true. What was true was that my mental health was at an all time low.

And instead of trying to pick myself back up, I turned to substances that would instead numb those thoughts. Tuck them away in the back of my mind for the night, only to have them come back with a vengeance each morning.

All this to say, not every day will be a good day. And some days, I’m going to let myself down. But instead of staying down, or even worse, holding myself down, I’m going to extend a hand, to help myself up.

I am enough. I am loved. I am safe. I matter.

And so do YOU!