Reflecting on 2020 as I turn 20

I turned 20 this week (January 18th)...how crazy is that! I loved every second of being a teenager, and I feel like I finally grew up this year. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. For many reasons including the pandemic and personal family problems, 2020 was not easy. It was hard and painful, but I’m grateful for what I learned this year as well. As cheesy as this quote is, “there’s no beauty without pain”. And I am so proud of the person I grew up into today. 

When quarantine started early in March, I moved out of my college dorm in the city and moved back home to Long Island. With so much time on hand, I started working out daily and went on walks in the forest next to my house. I have never been a fan of working out, so it was the first time I really took care of my physical health, got in shape, and also enjoyed it. But I knew I had to take care of my mental health, and I think mental health is easily ignored/dismissed and not talked about enough. 

We are quick to go to a doctor, get a gym membership, go on different diets, but we don’t do much to take care of our mental health regularly. I’ve even had some people tell me they don’t “believe” in therapy. But think about it like going to the gym; you don’t just get dressed in your lululemon, show up and take a mirror selfie, and see real change in your body. Same with therapy, you have to show up consistently, commit to it, and put in real work to see a change. I started therapy in the summer of 2019 using Talkspace, an online therapy platform that is a more affordable alternative to traditional therapy. (link to Talkspace).  I was on the most inexpensive plan of being able to text my therapist 24/7, and though the idea of being able to text your therapist whenever seems great, I was falling into the routing of just ranting when something upsetting happened to me. I noticed I wasn’t reflecting or having a full conversation with her, and even though I was actively messaging my therapist, I wasn’t going deeper in reflecting to really learn about my feelings and behavior. And with online therapy, it was easy to forget to text my therapist back as there wasn’t a set time in the week to talk to her. 

So though I was already in therapy for a year, I recently started being able to video call her with my new health insurance, which I was so excited & grateful for!! This time I really got to fully be present in my video therapy sessions and take what I learn in it and apply it to my everyday life. I began to learn more about myself and spend more time with myself, learning to be my own best friend. Learning what your love language is and showing that love to yourself is so important (link to a love language test). For example, if your love language is receiving gifts, then buy yourself flowers! Treat yourself! If you like words of affirmation, shower yourself with compliments, hype yourself up! Get groceries and wash your sheets (acts of service) and get cozy in your warm bed (physical touch). My love language is quality time, so I loved taking myself on dates, long drives to the beach, and doing other fun stuff alone. Slowly, I was beginning my path towards self-love. 

For me this year, self-love was letting go of toxic relationships, learning and verbalizing my boundaries, and identifying & modifying my core beliefs. I also worked on my people pleasing tendencies, codependency, and saying “no”. Basically, I learned how to take my power back. There’s a podcast I really love called “The Self Love Fix” by Beatrice Kamau, specifically episode 40 “10 Signs of  a Toxic Friendship” really opened my eyes a lot. 

I have a lot of beautiful friendships that I am so grateful for, but I was also holding onto some friendships that weren’t helping me grow or make me feel supported. Even though I never felt good and emotionally drained during and after hanging out with these people, I continued to be their friend because I kept making excuses for them and myself. The thoughts in my head sounded like “but we’ve been friends for soo long”, “but they’re so cool, fun and my only friend in this class”, “I know they’re not trying to hurt me intentionally”, “maybe I’m just overreacting”. I made so many excuses and stopped paying attention to how I was feeling. 

But the thing is, our feelings are never wrong. It is just the way we feel, and though we can’t control or stop every feeling we have, what we can do with that feeling is understand where it’s coming from and reflect on it, and find healthy ways to cope with it. Soo, I let these friends know how I felt. And as simple as it sounds, this was difficult for me because I usually have trouble sharing my feelings, or even identifying how I feel. And I found it impossible to speak up on my feelings because I cared so much about how the other person would feel, and I didn’t want to hurt them or make them feel uncomfortable, all part of my people-pleasing tendencies. But I had to ask myself, what good comes out of keeping other people happy if I was going to be miserable? 

Oftentimes in the past I would just distance myself and drift away from toxic friends, but I knew this time instead of just mentally distancing myself, I had to let them know how I felt. I also knew I couldn’t have any expectations on their reactions because that was not something I could control, but overall they were very understanding of how I felt and why the friendship needed to end. It was hard letting them go as these were people I still loved a lot, but I knew doing so was an act of self-love. And though it felt like I was losing people, it was also just creating more space for better, healthy, beautiful friendships. I started focusing on already existing friendships I have I am so grateful for. Friends should make you feel supported, loved, safe, help you grow, and I wasn’t going to settle for anything less. 

photo by natalia baba

I can’t imagine 19 year old me speaking up about my feelings and cutting off unhealthy relationships. There was so much growth and hate replaced with love this year, and it’s amazing how much can change in a year; especially in a year as crazy as 2020. I can only imagine what I will be like next year, and I’m so excited for it. 

photo by natalia baba

Links & More

Podcast: “The Self Love Fix” by Beatrice Kamau 

https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/

www.talkspace.com