Hello, and welcome to my blog on personal transformation, self-care, self-healing, and mental health.
I am still fairly new to blogging and I have a lot to learn, but I hope this won’t stop you from finding useful tips here!
So what started all this?
About 2 years ago, I embarked on a spiritual journey of personal transformation and self-improvement, self-care and self-healing. Somehow, I had reached a point where I was determined to “fix” myself.
I was severely depressed and suffering from chronic pain.
I didn’t know then that it was rheumatoid arthritis (and depression, but that I kind of knew), but after 10 years of pain, my body decided it had had enough. I could barely function physically: I was so inflamed I couldn’t use my hands (my wrists), and my mind was a mess.
Although it had been for a while, my life had become hell and I had reached my breaking point.
And that’s when it finally hit me: either I let myself die (or actively tried to end my life)… or something had to change.
Why “self-healing”?
When I say “self”-healing, I don’t mean that I was rejecting other people’s help.
I was looking and asking for help, but I never really found it. I was lonely, an immigrant in a foreign country, with no real support from family or friends… and my doctor was only interested in feeding me painkillers or antidepressants.
And then one day I finally realized that I was my best resource. And incidentally, I was the only resource I had.
So I took some time off after “losing” my job, to see if I could figure out ways to improve my mental and physical health. I decided I was going to figure out how to heal myself.
But what had started as a little personal project quickly turned into a full blown spiritual awakening. A few months in the process, the lessons I was learning from this experience were so life-changing, the ongoing transformation that was happening in my mind and my body were so far beyond my expectations… I had to keep a record.
Turns out, you can completely change your life. You can heal yourself. You can improve your physical health and you can come out of severe depression, even depression that’s been going on for over 10 years.
Or anyway, in some cases, apparently, you can. Because I did.
I wanted to remember that journey. Every single part of it. I had to.
And that’s how the blog came about.
I was already journaling daily. But it wasn’t enough.
I still felt a strong need to make sense of what I was experiencing in my mind, my body, my relationships, and find ways to interpret it and understand it better.
Why a blog?
I am everything but a public person. I’m not even on social media. So blogging about my experiences does not come naturally to me.
So why start a blog then, you might ask?
Find my voice
One of the big phases of this journey toward self-healing and out of mental illness and depression, is the search for my ‘inner genius’.
You know, that thing I constantly felt inside of me that was screaming to come out? Like a sort of ‘energy’ that’s trying to express itself through me, and through each of us actually.
I guess that’s what some people refer to as your ‘voice’, or your calling?
I’m not sure what to call it, but I was looking for it. And about a year later now, I think I can say that I may be finding it through writing.
Come out of my shell
Another stage of that self-healing journey involves sharing more with others. I mean ‘sharing’ in the sense of sharing “myself”. Or hiding less.
I hide in my little corner like you wouldn’t believe! And I never want people to notice me either.
But I also mean ‘sharing’ in the sense that I want to consciously put my most valuable assets, i.e., my time and attention, into doing something (hopefully) useful for others. The internet helped me so much in my recovery, I wanted to give back the same way I received and share everything I learned.
And let me tell you, after feeling so crappy for so long and finally seeing a change in my own life, if my experience can give hope to even just one person out there, then it’ll be all worth it.
Remember the lessons
“Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday” (Jordan Peterson)
You may think you’ve learned a lesson, but you will still need to be reminded of it from time to time or you might forget it. I swear, sometimes I was having incredible ah-ha moments… only to make the same mistakes again 2 months later.
It really is important to keep track of your progress and of everything you are learning.
I started writing these short (and longer) texts when I eventually realized that I was forgetting some stuff. And I was learning so many lessons, I couldn’t keep up! I had to write it all down.
This is also why I always insist, in almost all of my posts, on the importance of journaling. I don’t say it ‘just to say it’. I say it because I believe it’s true. Try journaling! It’s more powerful than you think.
Other reasons why I started this blog:
- Improve my writing skills. English is my third language you guys, so please be kind when you will (inevitably) find mistakes. But I appreciate and welcome your feedback, thank you!
- Build consistency. The main thing that was hurting me in the past was my incapacity to be consistent. I decided to change that last year, and this blog is one of the tools I use to practice being consistent.
- Be more creative. I talk a lot about creativity here. But I found that self-expression (versus mindless consumption”) was/is essential to my mental health and healing in general. And I’m so grateful I discovered blogging because it offers me so many opportunities to explore my creativity!
- Let go of perfection. One of the most painful mistakes of my life has been to work on (and pay for) my Master’s thesis for 5 years. You heard that right, 5 years of misery because I was too afraid to express myself on a topic. I’m still paying for these mistakes. This blog, is an opportunity to put out imperfect work out there, every single day.
So, for all these reasons, and maybe a bunch more, I created this blog.
What I am not
I am not a doctor or a medical professional
This content does not constitute professional advice and I encourage you to seek help if you suffer from any form of physical and mental illness. I am only sharing here what has worked for me and what has allowed me to heal and feel better.
Please, always use your judgment when seeking information online.
I am not ‘out of the woods’
Can you ever truly be out of the woods of depression (?) Can you truly heal “once and for all”?
I still have to deal with the same emotions you probably deal with daily, I still feel lonely, sad, or angry at times. Although to be honest, it doesn’t happen too often.
The difference is, whereas before I felt like that every minute of every day and would spiral down uncontrollably in a well of darkness and despair, I don’t do that anymore. I think I finally understand myself better, what triggers me, what my weaknesses are, and the kind of thoughts I do not wish to encourage.
I am not better than you
I’ve simply made progress compared to who I was before. I may be more advanced in my own journey compared to who I was before, but that’s because I decided to dedicate all of my time, attention, and resources to healing, which most people either cannot afford to do or simply don’t want to.
We are all a work in progress and we all have something we can learn from each other. This is why I always encourage you to share your thoughts and own experiences in the comment section. It’s so important, not just for me, but for everyone out there feeling overwhelmed and looking for hope in online communities.
What I am
I am curious to know what you think, what you are going through, and eager to hear from you if you are reading this.
Please leave me a comment or send me an email if you’d like. It would mean the world to me if I could hear from someone else experiencing things similar to what I write about.
So that’s it for my story…
I hope you’ll stick around and again, do not hesitate to reach out!
Sincerely.
