Letting GO: Fighting my Battles by Quitting the Fight by AnnaSophia Bates
When they said that college would be a whole lot of work and strain, they were serious. This is the lesson I learned this semester. Between making new friendships, adjusting to a new state and city, developing a stronger sense of independence, maintaining four different jobs/side hustles, and just doing my assignments, I found myself stumbling to my dorm each night with a sense of exhaustion,nly to realize that I still needed to eat dinner, take a shower, study for a test, read five chapters of a textbook, and do two loads of laundry.
All my life, I have been a fighter. Some would say this is a positive thing—and sometimes, I agree. However, it can also be to my detriment. I have fought to retain autonomy so hard that I have rejected help, I have fought to “have it all” by overloading my schedule constantly, and I have fought to be strong by ignoring my weaknesses. My life is just… a lot. These days, it’s gotten harder to manage everything while still holding space for checking in on myself and maintaining balance. For a long time, I fought the idea of self-care, believing that it was indulgent or that I didn’t need it. I felt selfish and overwhelmingly negative each time that I utilized self-care practices in my own life.
Then, one day, I realized that I didn’t want my life to be a fight any more—I wanted it to be a project. To do this, though, I had to STOP. FIGHTING. Throughout my life, I have been very harsh on myself and resisted relaxing for fear of being perceived as lazy. Herein lies the first hurdle to developing an effective wind-down routine:
Admitting that you need one.
For me, I had to accept first that I was doing too much in my day-to-day to not take intentional time to unwind and relax. I had to stop fighting the idea that self care was inherently bad.
Finding out what doesn’t work.
The next hurdle was finding out what did not work for me: For example, I hate breathing exercises. They may work for other people but I find that for me, as an asthmatic and impatient person, breathing intentionally was not what I needed, nor was it something that took away from my stress at all. I had to stop fighting the urge to just reject the first thing that I tried, because I had to accept that there were a lot of things that just didn’t work for me.
Finding out what does work.
Finally, I had to find out what actually does work for me to wind down each day. I had to stop fighting the stigma that I built for myself around taking time to rest before getting everything done.
Here’s what I came up with for my wind down routine:
First, when I get back to my room, I take time to check on every part of my body. While this sounds like a yoga practice that takes a lot of effort, it’s really not—it just means that I check if I need to eat a snack, if I need to use the bathroom, if my clothes are too warm or cold, and if I have any pain that I need to take care of.
Next, I write down what I need to have done over the course of the night.
Then, I stop. I’ll lay down in my hammock, or watch an episode of one of my favorite shows, or even go to get ice cream with friends.
Then, I can pick up my project- NOT my fight- And embrace my life as something to walk through, rather than battle through.
Sometimes, winding down isn’t just at the end of the day. It can come in the form of stepping away from the desk at my office job to walk a lap around the building (giving up the battle to get things done quickly, rather than well), or taking a moment to pray (giving up the battle to do things all on my own), or literally filling up the sink with cold water and holding my face in the water as long as I can (giving up the battle to ignore my body’s feelings and needs). All of these practices, while they may not work for others, are things that make me STOP. FIGHTING. And start moving forward.
Winding down and stopping the fight against myself doesn’t mean that I ever stopped trying. It does mean, though, that I stopped seeing my life as something to just “get through.” The negative energy coming with my fight mindset was only effective if it was 11:30pm and I had an assignment due at midnight. These days, I care much more to walk through life than to go in guns-blazing. Others’ lives look different from mine, but the relief that comes with releasing the idea of tasks as an enemy is more powerful than a caffeine-powered-cram-session will ever be—ecause taking life as it comes, rather than just trying to get it done, is what restores the joy that life can have.
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Additional tools for when you may be in crisis:
U.S. Crisis Text Line: 741-741
Ohio Mobile Response and Stabilization Services: 1-888-418-MRSS (6777)