When your stress level is high and your self-esteem is low

I'm having one of those days where I want to sell everything I own and hitch-hike to some faraway place where money and other humans don't exist. Unfortunately, there is no such place.

Amid financial issues, work troubles, an impending eBook release, the pressure to stop being a terrible blogger, personal worries, cabin fever, lack of inspiration, and depreciating self-doubt, I've been feeling a lot of temptation to just take a nice, refreshing leap from a cliff. I suppose it happens to all of us.

Sometimes I need to step back and summon my "inner wise woman" to tell me the things I'm too distracted or stubborn to tell myself. Here is what she has to say:

1. This will pass. It always does.

2. Writing and releasing a memoir is not self-indulgent. It's brave and inspiring, and as long as you know your intention behind writing it, it doesn't matter what anyone else may or may not think.  

3. Keep trying to please yourself, and stop trying so hard to please others.  

4. Stop taking everything so personally.

5. Happiness is a choice. That sentence would've pissed you off about two years ago, but now that you understand how powerfully true it is, remember it the next time you decide to dig yourself in a hole.  
 
6. Stay in touch with the people who love and put up with you. Write "call or text so-and-so" on one of your daily to-do lists if that's what it takes. Being totally alone in the world isn't fun. You would know.  

7. That $5 you spent on the ice cream you just had to have could've gone towards something useful. Like feminine products. (TMI. Whatever.) The unfortunate truth is that you are very poor right now. Start acting like it.

8. Celebrate your little victories. And for God's sake, give yourself a pat on the back every once and awhile. There is nothing wrong with celebrating yourself.  

9. When you don't feel inspired, don't blog. Or your blog posts will suck.

10. October is your favorite month, and it only comes once a year. Enjoy it.

<3 Madison