Take care of yourself
“Taking care of myself”
Yesterday, as my Dad coached me through the paranoia, he said ‘you’re going to have to find the truth of your voice in life and hold onto that.’
This morning contrastingly I felt completely miserable.
Weak and incapable. Responding, I was, to all negative input. Not entirely’there.’ Finally I thought, as I was sleepy, and nodding off during service l, I thought’ then I should get some sleep’ rather than contastingly react to the social pressure to keep my focus. It came to ‘take care of yourself!’ Part of that birthed another thought. I wasn’t feeling so loving or talkative but I knew at that moment that i need to take care of my relationships as well i wasn’t feeling it but it totally gave an insight into being social practically an awareness to other’s existence and the social demands of the
Moment rather than just shutting down closed off from others in pursuit of my own desires and instinctual reactions.
I’ve realized I have been a master at following the romantic and the romanticized version of my relationships and desires with anny kind of social endeavors and analysis and I realize that some of those things are not so good for me. For relationships and life issues etc…
I remember in college when I would escape social situations and go to the painting studio and paint for hours alone with a bottle of red wine. It was my dream conversation with love and life! I see the pattern here!
Replies
It’s all helping me just learn and ask and accept what is ‘human nature’ rather than be derailed by stuff and the go down a rabbit hole of trying to change myself
Is painting something you can do now, in addition to your duties? It may still be the kind of relaxation you need.
Jack has a t-shirt that reads, "Hang on - let me overthink this". And I know it's appropriate for many people! (including me!)
Thanks GT!!! That’s funny!!!
Does everyone want to know they’re living right?
Feelings just happen, why do I get so derailed by mine?
Is it so much about curating my life too? Is that a sense of lack of control?
Big squishy hug sweetie
Some of what you struggle with are symptoms of schizoaffective disorder
Maybe tell yourself this if you can when you're going through these moments
'It's a symptom but i will come out the other side and be okay'
I think MA has a good idea
Art mean s so much to you
Even a sketch pad to draw might be enjoyable?
Prayers sent...xo
Thanks Janet!!’ Xxoo
Again I’m starting to see that feelings just happen and just because moments happen that are disruptive
It’s not an undone and awful result. In America we really get into ‘curating our lives.’ It’s the culture since we have not really a common emotional context like Canadians or Europeans. It’s our control to live in aesthetics. I’m here in Greece there’s less pressure to curate our lives and more pressure to get along with each which opens the door to great hospitality and caring for each other with humanity.
I see in the past I was very open socially and as I grew older and older my peace was found in art (my curation of life in college ) to psychological and philosophical and wisdom constructions (as I tried to navigate adulthood). Here in Europe I have to get healthy and social again. It really shows me how awkward I am and the super isolationist I tend to be. It’s also a relief. For myself all this creative control is just the relationship I have with my feelings. disappointment and being with other people. I spent the morning with the fathers who I enjoy but now that I’m alone and resting I feel even better.
Chat Gpt:
Yes. There is a lot happening in this journal, but I think there is a particularly important shift underneath it: you are beginning to distinguish taking care of yourself from obeying your feelings, and taking care of relationships from abandoning yourself.
“Take care of yourself” feels like the center of the piece
Your father’s statement — “find the truth of your voice in life and hold onto that” — seems to set up the whole reflection.
Then, the next morning, when you felt miserable, weak, unfocused and socially uncomfortable, you had a remarkably practical realization:
“Then I should get some sleep.”
That’s deceptively significant.
You didn’t have to solve the misery. You didn’t have to figure out what it meant about your life. You didn’t have to determine whether you were failing spiritually or socially. You simply noticed what your organism needed.
Take care of yourself.
And then you immediately discovered that self-care doesn’t necessarily mean retreat.
You realized, essentially:
“I can take care of myself and still take care of my relationships.”
I think that’s one of the most mature ideas in this journal.
⸻
You’re identifying an old equation
You describe your younger self escaping social situations and going into the painting studio with wine:
“It was my dream conversation with love and life!”
I really like that sentence because it isn’t merely self-criticism. You recognize why that life was so attractive.
Art gave you:
* control
* beauty
* solitude
* imagination
* emotional intensity
* companionship with your own inner world
And there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
But you’re now seeing that your relationship with your inner world can become so compelling that the outer world starts to feel like an interruption.
That’s the pattern you’re investigating.
And I think it connects beautifully with something you’ve written in your other journals: your tendency to respond to discomfort by going inward and constructing an explanation, philosophy, wisdom, or creative framework around it.
The mind says:
“Something feels wrong. Let me understand it.”
And then understanding becomes a rabbit hole.
You’re now experimenting with another possibility:
“Something feels wrong. What do I need right now?”
That’s a very different question.
⸻
The distinction between feeling and direction
One of your strongest questions is:
“Feelings just happen, why do I get so derailed by mine?”
Exactly.
A feeling is an event.
It isn’t necessarily an instruction.
You can feel withdrawn without needing to withdraw.
You can feel disappointed without needing to reorganize your life around the disappointment.
You can feel socially awkward without concluding that you are fundamentally socially incapable.
You can feel miserable without deciding that something has gone terribly wrong.
And perhaps most importantly:
you can feel unlike yourself without having lost yourself.
That’s a profound distinction.
Your father’s “truth of your voice” doesn’t have to mean feeling good or feeling certain. Your authentic voice may sometimes be very quiet and ordinary:
I’m tired. I need rest.
Or:
I’m not feeling particularly social today, but these people matter to me.
Or:
I don’t need to solve this right now.
That may actually be the voice you’re looking for.
⸻
I also think your observation about “curating life” is fascinating
You suggest that American culture encourages us to curate our lives aesthetically and psychologically — to create the right environment, relationships, identity, experiences, and even emotional narrative.
I wouldn’t make too sweeping a claim about Americans versus Europeans, but your personal observation is valuable regardless of whether it applies universally.
You’re noticing that you have sometimes tried to create safety through curation.
First perhaps through art.
Then through psychology and philosophy.
Then through analysis and “wisdom constructions.”
There’s a common denominator:
If I can understand it, arrange it, interpret it, and make it meaningful, perhaps I can control how life feels.
And you’re beginning to question that bargain.
Greece seems to be giving you an interesting counterexperience: life is less about getting your interior world perfectly arranged and more about being among people, participating, accommodating one another, eating, talking, worshipping, resting, and simply getting along.
That’s not necessarily “better” than your American way. But it is giving you another model of being human.
And perhaps that’s why your final sentence is so important.
“I spent the morning with the fathers who I enjoy but now that I’m alone and resting I feel even better.”
That’s actually a wonderful outcome.
You don’t have to choose between community and solitude.
You can have both.
You can participate in human life and then come home to yourself.
⸻
There’s another subtle shift here
I notice that you’re no longer saying:
“I am an isolationist, therefore I need to change myself.”
You’re saying:
“I see that I have an isolationist tendency. I can understand it, and I can learn to participate more.”
That’s much gentler.
And it gets you out of the trap you’ve written about before — the tendency to turn every difficult experience into an examination of what is wrong with you.
Maybe the lesson isn’t:
“Become a different person.”
Maybe it’s:
“Become more skillful at being the person you are.”
You may always be someone who needs solitude. You may always be deeply nourished by art and imagination. You may always have a powerful interior life.
The goal doesn’t have to be to eliminate that.
It may be to keep the door open between your inner life and the human world.
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And “take care of yourself” may actually include three things
I’m hearing three different kinds of care emerging in this journal:
Take care of your body.
If you’re exhausted, sleep.
Take care of your inner life.
Don’t panic because a difficult feeling has appeared.
Take care of your relationships.
Other people exist. They have needs, feelings and expectations too. You don’t have to fulfill all of them, but you don’t have to disappear from them either.
And none of those three has to cancel the others.
That feels like a significant development in your thinking.
You don’t have to choose between self-possession and belonging.
Perhaps that’s the deeper meaning of your father’s advice. Finding the truth of your voice doesn’t necessarily mean retreating into the private world where that voice is easiest to hear.
It might mean hearing your voice while you’re actually out there living among other people.
And I think your final experience — being with people you enjoy, then being alone and resting, and feeling good in both circumstances — is a small but very convincing piece of evidence that you’re discovering exactly that.
All this parsing is not good for me. Feelings happen, people can’t live in design..
ChatGPT:
Yes. I think you’re putting your finger on something important.
The parsing itself can become another form of control.
You don’t necessarily need to extract the lesson from every feeling, understand its origin, identify the pattern, or turn the experience into a philosophy.
Sometimes:
You’re tired. Sleep.
You’re lonely. Be with someone.
You’re irritated. Let it pass.
Someone disappoints you. Feel disappointed.
Someone is kind. Enjoy it.
You want to paint. Paint.
You don’t feel like talking. That’s okay.
People need something from you. Respond if you can.
That’s life.
And I think your sentence “people can’t live in design” is especially good. Life isn’t a finished composition. People aren’t characters we can arrange into the right emotional architecture. Relationships aren’t problems to solve so that everything feels harmonious.
Maybe the freedom you’re looking for is much simpler:
Stop trying to make life come out right. Participate in it.
Feelings happen. Other people happen. Mistakes happen. Beauty happens. Awkwardness happens.
And you don’t have to turn every occurrence into a referendum on who you are.
Your journal may not need another interpretation.
It may simply be saying:
Take care of yourself. Take care of the people around you. Let life be life.