Things to Remember During Your Healing / Mental Health Journey

Let’s face it, your healing and your mental health journey can be a rollercoaster. It truly takes a support system to pull yourself out of dark space when you are having a challenging moment or a rough day.  

Yesterday was one of those days for me, so I called a few friends for moral support, and I’d like to share with you a few key points from our conversation that were so lovingly shared with me. 

1. Healing isn’t a destination; it’s a journey and you are always worthy every step of the way. 

Sometimes we do more damage to ourselves trying to reach the destination of being healed from whatever trauma or tragedy we went through or are currently experiencing. 

When we do this, we are subconsciously telling ourselves that we are not good enough as we are in this moment - that we are not whole - and that we will not reach worthiness until we are “healed”. 

This is simply not true, and a form of self-sabotage and self-betrayal. Despite what many may say, we are always whole, we are always worthy, and we are always good enough; even amid our pain, struggles, and confusion; and this is what we should be reminding ourselves of every single moment of every single day.  

2. Do not silence yourself because you are hurting. You are still equipped to help others. 

Just because we have not completely recovered from a situation does not mean we are not equipped to help others experiencing the same problems. Sometimes just sharing your story or being gifted with the capacity to understand and empathize (from experience) is all another person needs to know that they are not alone and inspire them to keep going. 

3. There IS a such thing as too much accountability, and it can be crippling. 

Unbelievably, we can betray ourselves by taking TOO MUCH accountability for the things that happened to us. Yes, we might have seen red flags and ignored them. Yes, we might have ignored the sound advice and warnings of our loved ones. Yes, we might have experienced cruel treatment and not left when we should have or left and gone back several times against our better judgement in hopes of a different outcome.  

However, despite it all, we simply did not know any better; or have the knowledge, options, and/or resources to do any better at that time. Regardless of what actions we did or did not take, no one deserves to be mistreated, taken advantage of, disrespected, abused, or bullied in any form. It was and IS not your fault. Therefore, we must invite ourselves to begin to release the heavy cycles of blame and the shame that keeps us stuck in the past. 

4. Love (romantic, familial, and platonic) is truly blind. 

I believe the problem of many empaths and highly sensitive people is that we feel deeply, we fall fast, we love hard, and we do not like to let others down, even if it means betraying ourselves. 

We see the best in people and cling on to the amazing potential we feel they have and will one day embody, even if they do not see it in themselves. 

Therefore, practicing self-awareness and establishing unwavering boundaries for ourselves is an integral key to avoiding getting entangled in unhealthy and unfulfilling relationships.  

5. Breathe and give yourself grace. 

All this to say, give yourself grace and always remember you are a manifestation of perfection and divine love, and there is no standard definition as to what that looks like. 

When negative or painful memories creep into your mind and seep into your soul, I am not going to tell you to ignore them, because those of us who know, know it just is not that simple. However, I will encourage you to breathe and work on rewriting the narrative of those memories or thoughts. Replace them with affirming and loving memories and thoughts. Practice this consistently and you will begin to see increments of positive change in your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellness. Although we cannot change the past, with hard work, consistency, and persistence we can change energies that influence our physical, mental, and emotional health and how we respond to hurtful events from the past. 

Healing is not easy it is demanding work and can take a lot of time. However, in that time never forget that you are worthy of love, worthy of respect, and worthy of acceptance from others, and yourself.