On Worthiness And All Things Difficult by Giovannah Philippeaux

So I recently began the Brene Brown/Oprah online course for “The Gifts of Imperfection” and I hate going deep. Emotions are icky and painful, and raking them up for an art journal is difficult. But the last five years of my life have been no cake walk and instead of adding one more year of disappointment (2014) I am making an effort to change my story. Growing is never easy but stagnation is no longer an option for me. Week one brought up some unexpected pain and resentment, but as Brene Brown says “resentment is taking a poison and waiting for the other person to die.” So I’m working on it. It’s not easy but it is necessary “heart-work.”

At the end of the nearly 12 week course I am hoping to move out of this perpetual funk. I am hoping that something, somewhere, somehow will get me going again. I have been feeling exhausted, not just a physical exhaustion but something deeper…more fundamental. It’s like somewhere deep inside, my soul said “I’m tired, F* off.” This exhaustion has transpired in to an emotional and mental exhaustion.

I am a natural care giver, always willing to give of myself to whomever requires it, but of late I have been feeling as though I have nothing left to give. I am not even running on reserves, I am running on empty. So I have closed up, a sort of mental, emotional, and spiritual fetal position; an unconscious attempt to recover. I have nothing left to give, and when I try I get irritated. See, all this time I was busy taking care of everyone else, worrying about what they said, needed, or wanted, that I completely forgot to take care of me. And now I am worried that there might not be any me left. Just exhausted!

Maybe this is why I have been confused, in a perpetual funky, and murky. All this time I was giving everything away freely without refueling.

“Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.” ~ Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are