My self-improvement goal this year is to not be afraid of my feelings. After some recent soul-searching, I find that a lot of my less useful coping mechanisms involve running away from things I don't want to feel: anger, anxiety, hurt, sadness, and so forth. Intentionally or not, my upbringing and society in general have taught me that those are to be avoided, either by denying them or by not doing whatever triggered them, so I've basically learned to just ignore all feelings until they go away.

I believe that approach is incorrect.

I may want to do things that stress me out due to fear of failure, for instance. Being afraid doesn't mean I shouldn't try things I actually want to do, and that fact that I am afraid isn't a character flaw or some sign of weakness, either. It means I care about doing well. That is a good thing, and I don't need to run and hide from it. It's okay for me to be afraid and do the thing anyway. I don't have to feel perfect all the time in order to do things. That's a completely unreasonable expectation, and it results in doing nothing, which leads to depression.

I've been approaching my mental health from the angle of needing to feel less depression/anxiety, but I think what's actually happened is that I've been feeling less everything—I just shove it all in a box. That's okay for just sort of existing, but I don't call it living. It's not enough.

So... I'm gonna try accepting the feelings. It's going to be difficult for a while, because I'm not used to working with them rather than against them, but ultimately I hope they will be assets. 'Cause they're supposed to be tools, right? Feelings motivate us to behave in certain ways, to make necessary changes to respond to our environment. Like any tool, they have to be used responsibly so as not to harm oneself or others... but they're no good at all sitting on a shelf gathering dust.

~Neshomeh can use anger to motivate herself sometimes (because f*** you dirty dishes go f*** yourselves), but suspects there are better ways.

My goal for 2023 is to take better physical, mental, and emotional care of myself. As a nice bonus, I have actual sub-goals for the physical care aspect; winding down properly before bed, brushing my teeth better and more regularly, and stretching more. My hope is that as I get better at one of those things the other two will fall into place. I'll let y'all know how the emotional self-care works out! :)

Both for the PPC and in general, really. It's been a bit since I've published a mission/interlude (the backlogs say it's been half a year, which... wow, time's flown), and I have far too many personal writing pieces left unfinished in Google Docs and on scattered scrap papers. Hopefully some day.

-Fox

so maybe I'll save my resolution for then.

and I'm writing a new mission at the same time.

I don't really make them anyways. I'm more of a short-term goals kind of person, like "Oh, maybe I should work on my writing a bit this week." Probably because I am utterly incapable of seeing things long-term, so I stick to day- or week-long goals. Maybe a month if I feel up to it.

Good luck on your resolution!

As of my writing this, where I live I have to wait about six more hours before midnight. Heh. It's a good thing I have a Terry Pratchett book on hand.

The whole "I am gonna stop doing this thing Right Nowe!" trick never worked for me anyway.