A Little Life Update, and Some Points of Reflection

When I look back on when I last published on this blog page, (which is the blog of my random thoughts and ideas, sometimes poetry, or my late-night musings) I think it’s crazy that “The White Lie about the Holidays” was written now over two years ago. That was my last post. Crazy. Now that we are in January of 2025, it is wild to think about all that has happened since then. How different I feel. So much has happened, that I cannot not acknowledge it. So I wanted to come on here, write, and give a little bit of an update.

When I think back to the end of 2022, I was right at the precipice of massive change. I was transitioning into a new job, with higher pay, which ultimately gave me the opportunity to move out on my own and financially support myself. (I have now worked at this job for two whole years!) I was very close to finishing up my master’s program, and was about to enter my last semester. I then went on to graduate with that master’s degree in May of 2023. I then started and completed a yoga teacher training in the remaining months of 2023, and got certified as a Yoga Instructor, in November of 2023. Now, I teach yoga.

Throughout these last few years, I was working, healing and growing. When I look back on it all, it was a time of my own evolution. Some heartbreaks in between. I learned how to live on my own, support myself, I started and ended Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing, also known as EMDR, to nip some of the traumas that were holding me back in life in the bud. My experience with EMDR, is something that I would like to talk more about eventually. But for the purposes of this post, EMDR, is something that I would recommend and advocate to anyone who has experienced deep trauma, and is open enough to face those dark memories. EMDR was one of the hardest, but also one of the most rewarding things I decided to dive into. The process of EMDR, is where I saw and faced my deepest fears, and learned how strong I was to see those things. I learned to forgive myself for all that I didn’t know, the hurt that I may have projected onto other people, while also learning to accept the peace that I have gained to continue to move forward. 

I think like any self-aware person, I got too far and too deep into wanting to “heal” myself, that honestly I felt like I got “stuck” in wanting to purify myself of anything that may have seemed dark and scary. I wanted to go deeper and deeper. I wanted to get ahead of the curve. But as the very famous Taylor Swift lyric goes, “I was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere, fell behind all my classmates and I ended up here”. I think that is exactly what happened. I wanted to keep digging and digging. I wanted to excavate all of it. I just wanted to clear all of it. I didn’t want the darkness anymore. It followed me around for so long. And it felt like I almost wanted to rid myself of any evidence that I had with it. But I think, that in itself is so foolish to do.

Another thing that I accomplished in 2024, was writing another poetry book titled, “Illusions” which feels like a closing chapter that completes my three poetry books as a trilogy. These three poetry books followed my journey, through life’s toughest trials. Grief. Depression. Heartbreak. Loss. Hopelessness. Renewal. Starting over. Anger. Sadness. Hope. I made friends with my vulnerability and decided to share some of the most vulnerable pieces of myself, with the world. But I think you can’t escape certain parts that will inherently always be a part of you. I think the biggest epiphany that I had to learn to integrate is, you have to make peace with the darkest parts of you. Or else, you will constantly try to outrun your shadow. And you just can’t do that. It will always be there. You do not have to let the shadow override you, but you do need to make space for it too. Life’s journey of trial and error is finding that balance that works for you. 

I think the thing about healing is the very same thing about being a human. You will spend your whole life trying to “fix” yourself, but that is the beauty of being a human. You have to learn to become comfortable with the fact that you cannot be perfect. And no matter how hard you try or think otherwise, you will never be perfect. I have found that you have to learn to accept yourself, as the flawed, imperfectly person that you are. And for someone who has grown up thinking that their value is based on what they achieve or accomplish in life, it has been a very difficult thing for me to “unlearn”. I kept running myself down to the ground, as a survival mechanism, hoping and praying that with one more achievement, with one more accomplishment, then, then I will be happy. Then my life will actually begin. Then it will all fall into place. Then I will not have to worry.

You will find to my greatest surprise (or maybe totally expected by the Universe’s eyes), that as I got older, and I accomplished all of the things that were expected of me, (whether they were desires of my parents or standards of what society wanted me to do) I finally hit my wall. While I still would say, my “rock bottom” was in 2020, I think that after I achieved my masters, moved out, published another poetry book, I finally, finally did not have another next step to cross off. And I felt stuck. 

I did not hit a “rock bottom” per say, but I hit a rut. I got stuck. It was a “What happens next?” type of moment for me. Why do we humans, think of our lives as steps and things that we have to accomplish? As if we are crossing off a “To-Do” list? Is it because we need to feel like we have justifiable proof of evidence, of our inherent value? Is it because we feel like we are competing against so many people and so many odds? Is it because we want to feel as if our life is valuable, because we contributed to the human experience?

I do not know where we got caught up in the hamster wheel of life. But somehow, I got on that hamster wheel too. I have spent the last several years, building my life back up, from a place where everything seemed to have fallen apart. And while that is inevitably good, in doing all of those things, I got caught up in the routine of it all, that I also needed to allow myself to enjoy and bask in my accomplishments.

Something that I also realized in my EMDR journey, was that I was scared, to allow myself to feel proud and accomplished, of all of the things that I had worked so hard for. Maybe, I got stuck on this “auto-pilot” grind, that I didn’t allow myself to look up and enjoy the view. I think a lot about what has “hustle” culture done to me. Learning to “muscle through” and work hard, was also a trauma response for me. It was something I did, to avoid how I was feeling. To avoid addressing the problems that were inevitably going to rise up to the surface. So, an intention that I have for 2025, is to slow down. Learn to flow through the seasons, allow myself to rest and sit proudly with the accomplishments and my accolades. I truly hope that I will write more on here and that I come back to a consistent flow. And finally, I hope to learn how to soak in the pleasure of life. I hope that 2025, is truly a good year for me. I think I am ready to stop running. And I am excited to see what comes.

~Christina Snitko