This year I’ve been doing a lot of inner work and focusing on healing myself. This has been an emotionally challenging journey as it means facing unhealed traumas, being 100% real and honest with myself, understanding the roots of my negative thoughts and challenging this. This is a process where you have to be fully vulnerable with yourself as you have to take a deep reflection of your whole life, including revisiting painful memories. Healing is a journey, not a destination. It is something we have to keep working on. We live in a world where social media is prevalent and people are constantly showing us the highlights of their lives. It is easy for us to think that everyone else is living a great life except for us. One thing I've learned is that what we see on the outside of someone's life is not always a true reflection of what's going on in the inside. Contrary to what people show on social media, most people have silent battles we will never know about and are going through struggles in life. We all need healing.
I've spoken about mental health before and going to therapy. I will always advocate for therapy and if you are able to, I would recommend doing it. I am glad we live in a society where people are more open about their mental health issues as this is a topic which has previously been taboo.
I've learned a lot during this journey and have made a list of things I did that you can apply to your own life and healing journey.
- Forgiving myself and others for past mistakes
- Addressing my unhealed traumas
- Visiting my inner child
- Unlearning detrimental things I was taught to believe
- Challenging the negative beliefs I have, especially towards myself
- Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones e.g. instead of saying 'I am a failure' say "I am a success"
- Not comparing my life to others (this is a struggle!)
- Understanding that titles, finances, status and people's opinions do NOT determine my value. I am valuable in the eyes of God
- It is ok to fail, it is ok to struggle, it is ok to cry and it’s normal to find life hard
- I don't always have to be strong
- It is ok to not know things, you don’t always have to know what is next or have the answers for everything. Sometimes we just don’t know. It is ok to not have life figured out
- Be picky with who to share things with, some people will speak negativity over your life and try to stop you from progressing
- Not to live my life trying to meet the expectations of others, it is draining, plus it's not my responsibility.
- Prayer/meditation
- Listening to high-frequency music without vocals
Here are books I’ve read to help me on my healing journey:
