Your journey to recovery will be a lot of work.
It will be hard. It will take work and effort and lots of tears and lots of failures before you succeed (and then a few more failures). Your journey will be swathed in doubt and pain. You will have days you want to hide and days you want to give up and days you wake up and say “Hell yeah! I’m doing awesome!”
There are a lot of paths on your journey, a lot of ways to get where you want. Therapy, medication, exercise, self reflection, religion, art, meditation.
There are a lot of things to try to reach your wellness goals. A lot of values to nurture.
I’ll tell you a secret, once you get passed some of the yucky hard stuff…your journey can be fun and rewarding in ways you never thought possible.
Once I was on the proper medication and seeing a therapist I liked more regularly, it took me about a year to get to a place where my journey to recovery become more fun and more rewarding. It seems like such a contradiction to write that, honestly. How can it be fun to heal? How can it be rewarding to improve your mental health? Because at some point in all of our journeys, we get to a point where life is okay-ish. You aren’t hiding in bed anymore, you are making progress. You can see the possibility of success but maybe you still have a few triggers or your self esteem needs work.
For me, I was making such huge progress and while I still needed outside support and help, near the end of 2013, I was at a place where I could focus on fun things. I wasn’t so much wrapped up in trying not to cry or trying to hold my panic attacks back so my toddler didn’t see me break down everyday. I was able to leave the house, I was able to look around me and see the beauty again.
So I started working on my self esteem. It sounds yucky and hard, and some parts were. But I did a lot of art, a lot of soul searching and I’ve been celebrating such mundane things about myself. I have a daily(ish) art habit that I’ve created to facilitate my wellness and I couldn’t be more pleased with the rewards I’ve gotten. I have pages and pages and books filled now, when I can’t remember the last time I worked in my journal before now. I have mantras and positive words to look back on to bolster my self esteem and cheer me up when I’m having a low day.
You could start your own art habit.
Take up yoga.
Write a book.
Use photography as a mindfulness practice.
Go shopping for some new clothes!
Hang out with friends again, renew old connections or make some new ones.
Go camping.
Explore some alternative healing styles (reiki, chakra clearing, acupuncture, crystals…so much!)
There is never a right or wrong way to wander down your path to healing. These are my suggestions above. These things are fun and are rewarding because they will help you on your journey. Some give you a new sense of self, some will give you a cool end result (a finished novel, a new passion for fitness).
I’ve been through the hard parts and I’m sure over the course of my life, I’ll be there again. But at some point, this journey becomes more about self discovery and healing and less about surviving and that’s pretty damn cool.
Click to Share in the Comments: What steps have you taken lately for your journey that have been fun? What can you do now to start feeling rewarded and enjoy your path to wellness?
ps- keep scrolling for some awesome news!
I want to share something very exciting with you today! I am a published poet! What?! This has been a life long dream and I am so happy to see it come to life. My new book is, “Dear Self: A Collection of Poems and Art”.
This collection of 30 poems and illustrations is a culmination of years of work and I am proud to be sharing it now. In November of 2013, I began work in a journal, creating poems, notes and words of wisdom written to myself. For the first time in years, or probably ever, I was making art and writing just for myself. I was creating with no intention of sharing my work everyday. I wasn’t creating for the praise of anyone but myself. It felt good and I was filled with freedom.
Once I decided to create a book out of my work, I went back through my older journals and realized that I had been doing these “Dear Self” type poems and notes for years without knowing it. It’s kind of funny how that works sometimes, isn’t it?
Dear will be released on June 10th, 2014! BUT WAIT!
Want to get signed copy of Dear Self plus an exclusive one of a kind artwork by Kendra?
If you purchase a copy, from me, before the official launch on June 10th, you’ll get:
The Dear Self poetry book, signed by me (include your name and I’ll personalize it!)
A one of a kind 5×7 artwork, made just for you, in a similar style to the pages in Dear Self
For only $50 you can get your personal art and exclusive signed copy of Dear Self!*
Cost of the pre-order includes: signed book, one of a kind artwork for $50 plus $6 shipping for USA, international will be added per zip code
Your artwork will be created on-demand, after you make your purchase. When purchasing you can pick to have a poem or a mantra/affirmation on your piece, or be surprised! Artwork will take around 5-7 days to create. All orders will begin shipping June 10th.
Click here to check out more sneak peaks inside the book, find tweet-ables and more!
