Price Check: Reclaiming Your Mind 🏷️🧠☑️

Happy July! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and taking good care of themselves.

If you’ve been following along with the Price Check series, welcome back. If this is your first time here, I’m so glad you stopped by.

Today, we’re diving into Part Two: Reclaiming Your Mind.

🏷️🧠☑️

Yesterday, I realized that I deserve joy. I have spent a great deal of time “working on myself” and “changing myself,” and it dawned on me that being in a constant state of improvement is not fun. 

I have accomplished a lot. My list of accolades is long, but so is my list of grief. I think that’s important to keep in mind. There’s a saying I repeat often: “Two things can be true.” You can achieve, yet still grieve what you thought you would have by now. Both deserve to be acknowledged. 

When I first started this post, I thought about skipping that part. I wanted to keep things light and avoid getting too personal. But that’s never really been me. Garden of Growth has always been a place where I share what I’m learning in hopes that someone else feels a little less alone.

Anxiety changed me. It changed how I have relationships, how I write, and really how I move through the world as a whole. I change my mind A LOT. I mean, seriously, I never know what I want for dinner, I say “might” and “maybe” a WHOLE LOT, and I can be indecisive. 

I wouldn’t change who I am for anything. 

But I would like to know who I am without all the baggage and trauma of my past. 

Another thought of mine when I started this post was to pick up with acceptance and give a how-to guide for reclaiming your mind. 

If I can be honest—I don’t have the answer to that. 

But I’ve realized that I have permission to move past my hurt. Not brush it away or stuff it down, but to truly move on with my life without those things hanging over my head and weighing me down. Because it doesn’t really let me live my life or enjoy the accomplishments I’ve worked so hard for.

And maybe that’s what permission really is. 

Permission to seek joy. 

Because yesterday I realized something. 

Joy isn’t something I have to earn. 

I deserve joy. 

I do. 

I truly do. 

And if you’re reading this…

I hope you know that you deserve it too. 

I hope you find it. 

I hope you claim it. 

Take Care, 

Tori B. 💕🌻