grace_and_june | moving forward

I'm doing some homework set by my new psychologist (primarily to learn management techniques to combat my anxiety), and it has occurred to me that my life, instead of consisting of sheltering in a dysfunctional home and the products of that home, has now turned towards improving how I cope with how I fundamentally relate to the world and how well I do that, as a unique individual. I no longer need to verbalise what I was going through and processing; I've now upgraded from survivalism to questions of thriving and doing well. I'm now asking questions about the quality of my life, rather than checking in and making sure that I'm doing just okay. (Reaping the benefits of resolving a dysfunctional family system, definitely.)

Part of this means that I'm no longer in need to use the creative arts to settle myself down and save parts of me from incredible sorrow and anguish--I rarely write poems more than 5 lines in length now, and I rarely, if ever, draw. I don't rely very much on books for the purposes of escapism anymore, and if there's just one thing that remains, it is a habit of listening to music to jump through different headspaces. I'll concede that I'm still pretty self-blind at the moment, so I'm not yet beyond using music to navelgaze and try to understand myself--I suspect that a better self-image, a better sense of self, and a better understanding about who I am will be on the cards this year. I mean--I think I have this already at some level of cognition, but it'd be good to have a more concrete version of that.