healing
How to heal fully and properly.
A Year’s Difference
The last few months have felt very surreal, especially within the last few weeks. A year ago, I wished I was dead. I had just ended my relationship with an abusive ex. How crazy is that? I wished that I could have disappeared, forget the idea of return. Ending things with an ex that I wished I had left six months earlier was the act that pushed me over the edge. I was the unhappiest I could have ever imagined myself being. I had never really experienced depression or anxiety before that change. It taught me that the recovery process after something hard ois much harder than the survival mission itself. You learn to live in such a state for so long that when you’re finally out of it, you have no idea how to respond or react. I dealt with depressive episodes for quite a long time, in fact I still do. And there is that victory lap the second you’re outside of the dark situation for sure. All the weight of trying to survive finally gets lifted off of your shoulders, and you think that “nothing gets better than this”. But then it comes to a screeching halt because that situation or that circumstance is literally all you know, and you don’t know that until you’re there. And it is HARD. Rebuilding a life outside of abuse and pain and confusion was extremely tough. I have a lot of trust issues even still with meeting new people and coming back out of my shell. The recovery process is the hardest thing someone has to do after they survive whatever it is they survived. And that doesn’t get noticed or recognition but it absolutely should. A year later, I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I still deal with anxiety and I go through depressed episodes, but I’m happy and put together. I moved out of Utah to go to school in Virginia, and it’s exactly what I needed; a change. And that change managed to change me in the last stages I was waiting to heal in. In December of ‘19 I had written a letter to myself. A letter that said I hope I’d find myself, that I was happy. I hoped that I’d make it, that I’d get over everything I dealt with and grew to be better for it. And I accomplished all of those things. Now I’m with a guy who treats me right, respects me, cares for me and my well-being, who’s patient with me and who sacrifices a lot for me—all things that are still sometimes foreign to me. And I’m even great personally—sure I’ve got some things that come up and I’m definitely not perfect; but I’m happy and healthy. I know what I want and what I’m looking for, what I want to be and what I want to accomplish. My brain is healthy and my heart is healthy. My body is healthy. A year ago, I wished I was dead. A year later, I’ve never been happier with my life. And I’ve never been more excited about the potential ahead of me. Being broken is so hard when you thought you were mended and that it turned out to be not quite true. But the recovery process is also the most beautiful and transformative thing I’ve ever done, and seen others do. I’m meant to keep moving forward. Struggles still happen, relapses still occur, old habits still show up, but it doesn’t mean you move back to square one. It means that you just keep going as you can go. We are not perfect, but we shouldn’t have to be; in fact, we’re not supposed ton be. We should keep living how we choose to live, learning how we choose to learn, and progressing how we choose to progress. We are meant to be strong, beautiful beings, and that process is hard, but it’s also one of the most worth it experiences I’ve ever had.
By Kaitlyn Hardy6 years ago in Motivation
Patience = Growth
During these past 7 months I have suffered, cried and questioned myself more deeply than I ever thought was possible. I understand that challenging times of hardship are lessons and opportunities to evolve into our intended higher selves but holy shit has it been HARD.
By Anna Syed6 years ago in Motivation
How Forgiveness Raises your Vibration
Forgiveness is something that often takes years, with lots of nuance and grey areas, of which nothing can ever be black or white. Forgiveness is the art of giving someone another chance, allowing them to prove themselves again and letting go of the hurt they caused. We do it routinely in our daily lives, some transgressions require minor levels of forgiveness others more. Forgiveness means bypassing our emotional responses and judgement for a moment.
By Kiara 6 years ago in Motivation
TIPS ON HOW TO STOP WORRYING ABOUT EVERYTHING
Worrying doesn't take away tomorrow's problems, it's takes away today's peace" Worrying is a complete waste of time. No problem has ever been solved by worrying about it!
By Galvanize Test Prep - Study Abroad and Test Preparation Consultant 6 years ago in Motivation
I Have A Confession
I have a confession: I feel like the biggest loser ever. And not like the show, The Biggest Loser where you win for losing the most weight after getting your ass beat by Jillian Michaels. Nope. Not like that. I genuinely feel like my life is the biggest joke ever, like, whatever God or cosmic entity is out there is just sitting back, laughing hard every time my life crumbles to pieces after believing I had it figured out. Hilarious. At some point, things are supposed to start falling into place, right? All the screw ups and disastrous situations end up making sense, right?
By Derek Evers6 years ago in Motivation
Learning How To Love Myself
The smile on my face at 50 is genuine, finally. For most of my life my smiles were fake because I had no sense of self worth. I thought I had to always smile because nobody cared enough to get to know the real me. Sometimes I didn't even know who the real me was. I was always somebody's wife, mother or employee. For the longest time I couldn't identify anything that made me truly happy except my children. Children being children often test boundaries. I was the softie and would mostly give in to what they wanted and my second husband (their step father) was always the one who put the hammer down and had very strict rules for the children. This would often cause us to fight, which led to him saying very mean things to me, which in turn made me feel worthless. I can't believe I gave him so much power!! I'm leaving out my childhood because it is not something I want to relive right now. I know where my core beliefs come from and have worked hard to challenge my negative thinking, and self doubts.
By Samantha Williams6 years ago in Motivation
In The Mirror
Today I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the face staring back at me. Eyes that once were bright, we’re bleak—vacant of the liveliness they once held. The smile lines I once complained about, had almost disappeared; not from fillers or treatments—but, because along the way I had forgotten how to smile...how to laugh. Long gone was the girl I used to be—fun, silly, energetic, playful. That girl was gone. In her place stood a body whose light had faded. A mere corpse. A shell of a human. A soul filled with hate. A body that burned with an anger so strong—it burned everything and everyone in its path; left behind were the ashes of those she loved most.
By Zaylee Riddle6 years ago in Motivation
Lost in the Crowd
I feel heavy yet empty at the same time. The world that I once knew around me has frozen in time, the silence, deafening, the numbness seeping in. I felt okay for a long time. Like that I could get through this and that I could occupy my time and make it out alive on the other side.
By Noa Donvan6 years ago in Motivation
A Dragon & A Girl
PART 1 I tell myself this will be short & simple, but I am only ever one of those things. Nothing I say, think or feel is ever simple. It’s all or nothing with me, which is maybe a fault of mine, but it is who I am anyway. I could say it’s wrong, but I’m not convinced that’s right.
By Alysha Whitted6 years ago in Motivation
Being homeless
In life I always heard the saying “disaster can strike at any moment”. I never really knew what it meant until the one day disaster took my whole life and turned it upside down. My parents took us out to eat dinner and when we got home we were shocked by a scene that looked like it had come straight out of a horror movie. Police cars covered the entire street and it wasn’t until we got out of the car that we realized what had happened. Broken glass filled our driveway, our door was wide open, and we could see our possessions scattered throughout the driveway. We had been the unfortunate victims of a home invasion. Weeks went by and though we knew it was a big deal, my siblings and I were not concerned that this would escalate. For the next three months, even though my parents tried to hide it, we could tell something was wrong. They were struggling to make ends meet and our lives were different but we still had hope that the situation would turn around and we would be back to living our old life in no time. Finally, month four came and my parents were late on rent for the fourth time. The landlord hadn’t been so lenient because she said it was becoming a habit. The next day we were served with a three-day notice. We spent the next few days moving all of our stuff behind our next-door neighbor’s house. He was a pastor and told my parents that he had no problem helping us because we could not afford to rent a storage unit. He even gave us money to stay in a motel room for two nights. Little did we know, this was just the beginning. We were homeless and we had to accept it no matter how much we didn’t want to. For two months we were completely on our own with no family, nowhere to sleep except the car and just enough money to provide us with meals every day. One day my mom got sick of seeing us like that and she asked for help. We didn’t know it, but we were about to meet a bunch of people that didn’t want to judge but wanted to help. Organizations like homeless coalitions and the amazing people that worked for them helped us with shelter each night. One day we met an amazing group of Christians who opened up their church house to us and allowed us to stay there for a month. We decided to drive to our old house and bring what was left of our belongings back with us because we needed more clothes and personals. When we got there we were met with a very disturbing sight. Our bags of clothes and shoes were ruined due to frequent thunderstorms and were then full of flies, maggots, and other bugs as well as mold and an extremely bad smell. We were able to salvage about 5 bags of clothing and the rest was hauled off to the dump. We reached out to more programs and they were able to give us clothes, shoes, money for food and gas, and hope that things would turn around. Seeing how hard everyone worked to make sure we were okay and that they had a genuine love for us is what kept us going every day. There were times where we would feel like giving up and a member of the church would pray over the phone with us and let us know that we would make it through. Over the course of the year 2019, we had somewhere around twenty-five to thirty programs helping to get us off of the street and we were able to meet so many people that were in the same situation as us and had been for way longer than us. Even though we didn’t have much, we gave what we could to somebody that was lower than us and had nothing at all. A few people would question how we could give away and we barely had enough ourselves and it was because over the course of those six months we had come into contact with some marvelous people and they showed us that if you are able to help someone you should because you never know how much your blessing means to someone. There were so many moments where it looked like no progress was being made at all. Numerous folks would help us find houses or apartment complexes and we would eventually end up getting denied. Even if we felt like the efforts were hopeless, we had an amazing team standing behind us and telling us to keep going. They were so motivational and understanding of our situation. After four more months of searching the day, we were all so hopeful would come, finally came. An apartment complex called my mom on a Saturday morning and we couldn’t hear the conversation but we saw tears streaming down her face. “Just another disappointment,” we all thought but when she hung the phone up she said four words that sent chills down my spine and tears to my eyes. “We found a place” was all she had told us before we were up and running around the motel room packing our belongings in bags and throwing them in the car. The entire way over I was too emotional to actually know what was going on. When we pulled into the complex a representative from the homeless coalition had been sitting in the parking lot crying. When she saw us she ran to hug my mom and said “I told you, I told you. Give it to God and he will work it out.” It amazed me to know that her, along with many other amazing individuals, had never given up hope and cared about us so much. Never once did we think that this world was filled with such amazing people. Once we were in the apartment, programs like food pantries, goodwills, thrift shops and even members from a few churches gave what they could. Within a week of us being in our new apartment, we had new furniture, clothes, shoes, food, and extra money in our pockets. I remember the first day we stepped into our house. We all stood around talking about how unreal everything felt. At one point all of us sat together and cried because it felt that unbelievable. Not only were we grateful for a place to call our own, but we were grateful that even when we felt like it was the only option, we never gave up. Day after day for a year, my family and I were faced with troubling situations. Some we never thought we would make it out of. Through it all, we realized one thing, that the world is filled with great people and all it takes is motivation to join those great people. Whether you pray with someone who’s struggling or provide a person with enough money to get a room and a meal, it only takes a small deed to give someone enough hope to keep going. I picked up on habits like donating my clothes instead of throwing them away, speaking up about something I can help with if someone is asking, and making it my business to help anyone in need even if it’s just sitting and listening to what they have to say. My heart goes out to the many people who took time out of their workdays and even came and helped us on their days off. Growing up I took life for granted and looking back I realize how bad that was. Being homeless taught me that you don’t need expensive shoes and clothes to be a respectable person in society, you just need to have a good heart and a desire to help. For so long I was afraid to tell anyone what I went through, but now I embrace it. I was homeless, I saw what it was like to live in a car and not know where my next meal was going to come from some nights, and I experienced scary situations that kids shouldn’t have to go through but if you ask me I’ll tell you it was all worth it. I say this because I learned a lesson from it. I learned that nothing in life, besides life and death, are promised to us. So I’ve learned to live life and never take anything I have, even though it isn’t much, for granted because it can be gone in the blink of an eye.
By Eliza Crawford6 years ago in Motivation
