This may seem like an odd subject, but it’s truly something I had to work on this past year. I was not accustomed to being happy. And not just any kind of happiness, but the happiness that comes from fulfilment from within. I didn’t know that was a thing. As you know, I’ve battled several mental illnesses over the years, and it’s felt exactly like that. Like there was a war that I had no say in going on inside my mind and body for years. When I looked at happy people, I assumed they were like me. Just smiling to hide the immense pain they felt on a nearly 24-hour constant loop. Even ...
Healing
How to Stop Blocking Your Blessings
Do you feel like you keep missing the opportunities that everyone else seems to magically stumble upon? Or do you realize way after the fact that you should’ve taken that chance or joined that group? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us. We don’t realize what we have until it’s gone or we’re too scared to take a leap of faith. And it only leaves us kicking ourselves in a few months’ time, because someone else is where we wanted to be, because they did what we couldn’t or wouldn’t. It’s amazing how we get in the way of our own happiness or satisfaction, isn’t it? I used to stand in ...
How I Came to Appreciate My Blessings in Disguise
Last year, I was considerably hurt, confused, and depressed when my ex-fiancé decided to dump me without warning. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. In my eyes, our relationship was great. I was doing everything I could do have a solid and healthy relationship, but life did what it normally does. It threw a curve ball and had me on a plane 4 days later to Orlando, leaving the house I made into a home, most of my clothes and shoes, books, and everything important to me. I couldn’t understand it. If I had done nothing wrong, why was I ushered out of a happy life that I had worked so hard ...
It’s been a year since my trauma
I wrote an open letter to my trauma anniversaries. I’ve done a lot of growing and inner work in the last year. Thankfully, I am a better and stronger person now. To my trauma anniversaries, Each month of every year, I am paralyzed by you. The anniversaries have stacked up quite a bit over the last thirty years. Every few weeks, a new anniversary creeps from its hiding place in my mind, down my central nervous system, and has life breathed into it again. Many times, I don’t know what it is that has me anxious, angry, and depressed until I look at a calendar. When I put two and two ...
7 Ways to Help a Friend in Need
We’ve all been there. A friend calls us crying or sends eight paragraph-length texts in a row. Of course, we’re immediately concerned. We want to help and make them feel better in any way we can. Sometimes that backfires because we go into problem-solving mode and unintentionally invalidate our friend. No one wants their friends or loved ones to be upset. I know I become a protective mother hen when someone I love is sad or angry. It’s easy for me to take on their feelings and become just as riled up as they are. That’s not helpful, though. It’s taken a few years to really perfect being a ...
I said goodbye to my insecurities today, and I feel great!
This is the follow up to my last post, My Deepest Insecurities: Iris, Warts and All. I’m going to go through each insecurity and disproving it. There’s no reason for me to believe bad things about myself, especially since I’ve made leaps and strides in my healing journey and loving myself! The problem with comparison and insecurities The thing about insecurities is that we think they are facts, when all reality, they are just thoughts. Let’s bring up some common insecurities: “I’m ugly because I don’t look like girls in magazines.”“I’m too old to be considered attractive anymore.”“I’m ...
