I smile and I laugh and I may seem like the happiest person out there but I too am human facing struggles. This was one of them. It has now actually been a while since and while I wrote this, I was never brave enough to actually share it up until now. So here it is, to show that there may be so much more happening underneath people’s smiles.

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I’ve been riding the happy wave for a long time so I have almost forgotten what it feels like to come down crashing. So yesterday, crashing down I went. I hadn’t slept well, I had a lot of thoughts, dreams and the in-betweens. I was also excited to get up and start the day so as soon as I deemed it a reasonable time to get up (6am in this case), I got up and did my morning yoga, followed by a tasty breakfast. So far so good. After breakfast we started on our trip. We had a reasonably long drive there but it didn’t feel too bad. We eventually parked up in Pula, a Mediterranean town with a little bit of Roman history.

We grabbed a quick snack and headed to the Roman arena. It was a lovely sunny day and I was quite happy wandering. We decided to take a few pictures “for the gram”(which I then don’t post anyway) with the gladiator spirit of “Are you not entertained?!” in mind.

At this point I first felt that something was off. I felt annoyance build up in me as I was either impatient or unhappy with the way the photos were turning out. I had nowhere else to be yet I was eager to “get it over with” at the arena.

We walked on through the city and things seemed to get more stable again. Maybe it was just a momentary thing I told myself. A couple of hours later we were heading back and I got really irritated when we slightly missed the course and ended up backtracking to get to the car. I realised at that point it wasn’t going to pass that easily.

By the time we got to the car I was actually itching to go back home and completely forgot we weren’t quite going home yet. We had one more place planned by the coast (which I did agree to the day before). Not wanting to look like a spoilsport I kept my mouth shut though thoroughly annoyed. I felt really tired, too. I hadn’t eaten as much as the others mostly down to feeling I hadn’t earnt it, given I was on holiday and not following my normal workout routine – meaning I shouldn’t feel the need to eat any more than I normally would?

For the sake of clarifying, I do generally eat a lot and I eat well and I have had a hearty breakfast and two morning snacks up to that point so not exactly starving – The same would normally do even through a workout.

As we were getting nearer to our second destination I got increasingly more annoyed as the road was uneven and not well marked to the point of stating we should maybe just skip it several times in hopes of that actually being the case. We did not. We finally made a stop at the end of a peninsula where we took a short walk. I headed for a flat, clean surface which happened to be a wooden bench, to lie on and sleep while the rest enjoyed the view. It was a nice view in fairness, which I did admit, grudgingly. It would have been a cool place to come back to.

We started our way back home – a 2-3 hour drive. I was tired, hungry and annoyed with myself for being tired, hungry and grumpy and the feelings were multiplying off of each other. My thoughts went downhill and suddenly I felt lonely for not having anyone that would be like me, that would understand. I felt weak for not having worked out and for feeling so low on energy despite not having worked out. I felt like I didn’t want to do anything but at the same time like I was missing out on everything. I looked at the people around me and thought about the people close to me and decided they weren’t the people I was looking for. Within minutes, my world turned upside down and what was bright before and I was proud of, was now dark and not quite good enough or right even.

I tried to nap through it and coming home, I had a delicious dinner which I was hoping would solve a lot of the problems. Unfortunately, it did not do much. I have worked on digging myself out of these states extensively which helped me get enough will to agree to go for a game of badminton with my brother. The fact I missed my usual workout as I am on holiday somewhat guilted me into it also, if I am completely honest.

Playing the game, I felt the lack of energy even more so and I struggled to cope with it because I have had a very good run in the past month, always having a lot of energy and generally feeling really good. I got home not feeling much better and started feeling afraid because I liked the good run I’ve had and didn’t want to let go of it but also had plenty of experience with the bad runs and where they lead.

I looked for reasons and eventually concluded it’s because I am away from home, my routine, my food, my drive. By drive I mean my career and my workouts. The psychological and the physical challenges that I aim to conquer with everything that I do. I looked for a way to apply this to my current situation. A quick search later I found myself a challenging yoga routine to do in the morning. As I fast forwarded through the video I got really excited to try something new that looked super hard to do. Then I thought about the breakfast that I would have after and started looking forward to my fried eggs and peanut butter corn cakes (odd I know but trust me, it’s amazing).

With excitement I felt a new surge of energy that would fuel the new challenge, shortly followed by a spark of inspiration to write and motivation to share even though it sounds a bit too much on the “feeling sorry for myself” side.

Today, I got up bright and early, actually swapped to a different yoga video that was a bit more flowy but still advanced. I tried a few new poses and fell over but eventually did really well (just this once and then fell over again). I had my amazing breakfast followed by a productive and happy morning cooking, making the best profiteroles I’ve managed so far and exploring the hills nearby.

I fell. I got lost. I complained. I tried. I challenged. I took on the challenge. I got up. I found myself again.

Never stop challenging yourself whether you challenge yourself to do something new and crazy or whether you challenge yourself to deal with a shitty situation better than you did last time. It doesn’t get better. But you do.