Sticky Note Affirmations and my Pizza Grease River

You’re already doing it. I wrote this on my mirror this morning to remind myself that I’m doing so many things I used to just talk about doing, launching this website being one of them. 

I reached an all-time-low motivation paralysis this summer - I lost all UMPH and was suddenly capable of only talking about the things I want to do instead of actually doing them. This was my brain’s version of Instagram vs. reality-  I found this temporary high in saying things like, “Oh yeah, I’m almost done writing my book” nonchalantly or “I was gonna run a full marathon but with COVID and everything, I think I’ll just do a virtual half”, like that’s something you can just do - like deciding to buy some apples at the Sunday market. The truth is, I’ve been sitting on the same word count with my cute little book since the end of last summer and I run 4-6 miles on a rare day when all lights turn green in my very adult (not really) schedule. 

With launching this new website and the many other pieces of this passion project, there’s a hefty load of hard truths. The hardest one being: This. Will. Take. Time. As someone who is allergic to doing one thing at a time, I have to embrace slowness, even stillness, and organize my thoughts into love-filled pep-talks on sticky-notes in hopes they might serve someone else if I share them. 

You just need to start

You can focus on just one thing

Doing any bit of something is better than doing nothing

You’re already doing it

These are the mantras that have most recently taken over the sticky notes on my living room mirror. Not my bathroom mirror- the living room mirror that is ever-present when I’m mindlessly scrolling social media or watching a guilty-pleasure Netflix original that I’ve likely seen at least five times. I rely on these notes to keep me honest. I honor these words and if I stare at these love notes and would still rather Netflix and doom-scroll, I’ll go easy on myself if that’s my best for the day. 

Back in February, a *boy* came over for dinner and I put myself and my apartment together just so- like it’s always super clean with the aroma of fresh baked banana bread and no signs of anything weird like sage-kissed mirror affirmations. I ripped my sticky notes off my mirror for that date and then abandoned myself for the next few months- without my sticky notes, without my daily mantras, maintaining a sugar-coated belief that I can WILL my wants into existence with braggart day dreams while binge-eating pizza with fuckbois and successfully concealing the touchy-feely parts of me. Those weird, touchy-feely parts were my self love. Without those reminders, I genuinely forgot my own script for self-compassion. 

If I drew you a cartoon of my worth during those months, there would be a tall stack of my wants and then a little paper-napkin boat called Marina, navigating her way haphazardly through a puddle of pizza grease. 

My mirror is back to being covered in sticky notes. Some of the other ones say:

Dare to be present

I release the things outside of my control

This, or something better

Breathe in joy and strength, breathe out wisdom and peace

You are a force

Self trust is a tricky bitch but she’s teaching me that there’s actually so little I can control. If loving myself all over my mirror is what scares a man off, I’m okay with driving away beautiful assholes. Whoever it is I’m greeting daily in that mirror, I’m doing right by her because how the hell else is this napkin-boat gonna stay afloat. It’s not.

Choose thoughts that feel good. Write them down on sticky notes and keep them where you can read them every day. Only take them down when they don’t feel true to you anymore or until they’re sewn into your thick skin- then you can make space for new notes (unless you have a really giant mirror, then frame yourself in sticky note love, sweet thang.)

I have a more-than-half finished book that I’ll hopefully finish eventually, I’m a casual runner, I’m a photographer and a storyteller. It took regretfully long to just get to this next level, right here. There are mornings and nights when I need to sit paralyzed in front of my mirror in a soup of limiting thoughts and self doubt, reading my affirmations and sitting in the quiet of my head-to-heart storms. That soup and my pizza grease river got me this far.

So one more time for me, and for anyone else who needs these words on their mirror and maybe even tattooed on their arm (if that’s what it takes):

You just need to start

You can focus on just one thing

Doing any bit of something is better than doing nothing

You’re already doing it