So a year ago today I stepped into Ollyvans studio and began recording the No More EP that unbeknownst to me would become a major turning point in my life.
Coming out of one of my most depressive years (2022) I began 2023 with not a desire, but a demand for change. After a lifetime battle with mental health, shitty circumstances and self-loathing I accepted the role I played in putting myself in many of the bad situations I found myself in. This was because I simply did not have the ability to say no. ever. My entire life I had been so scared to set any boundaries with anyone in the cliche fashioned fear of rejection - rooted deep in the abandonment I faced during my childhood. So I would just give any and everything - emotionally and physically. Eventually I got to a point of complete and utter depletion and I started to see myself deteriorating. Being chipped away by every person that would take pieces of me that I would freely give.
I neglected my health, bitterness festered within and I started hating the person that I had become. Started hating the people that I would give myself to. I hated that they would just take and take and take whatever I had to give without considering my capabilities and rarely (almost never) return the gesture. So I reached that rock bottom moment of depletion and learned a valuable lesson about the importance of energy exchange. Although it's all fine and well to say you shouldn't do things to expect something in return, at the same time there needs to be some kind of mutual exchange. That's how we grow and that is how value is defined. You lose your value the minute you just freely offer it to everyone. Not everyone even deserves the value you have to give.
So looking at myself in the mirror of a golden moonset that melted on the horizon of the 2023 new year. I had a reality check. It was time to get behind the wheel of my own life again and "No More" was born. No more to being taken advantage of, no more of giving too much of myself away, no more to being a victim of circumstance, and most importantly no more to me. I needed to stop justifying my bad decisions and toxic behaviours with the excuse of circumstance. As important as it is to learn to say no to others, it is equally important to learn to say no to yourself. If you don't then you lose your identity and you will end up living like a chameleon always reflecting your environment/circumstance, but never standing out on your own. Being everything but you. Possibly a tactful survival strategy for the reptile, but remarkably detrimental for this blondie haha.