Healing – It’s Personal
HEALING – we’ve probably all heard about it at one point or another. But what does it actually mean? I believe that healing is personal. It means, looks, and feels different for each person. But one thing is consistent, it’s a worthwhile uphill journey.
I’m going to get a little more personal with this blog, so tighten your seatbelts.
I was 17 when my first really hard life experience swept me off my feet, leaving me feeling like I was drowning in unknowns, shame, and loneliness. This was part of what kickstarted my passion for mental health and supporting others through their own recovery and healing journey.
I remember thinking that at 17, I could just pretend it didn’t happen. I could push it to the back of my mind, ignore the negative, distressing emotion and push forward like it never happened. I worked incessantly on repressing, suppressing, and band-aiding the emotional reactions I was having due to experiencing this life-altering situation. I was riding horses really competitively, doing well in school, working three part-time jobs, and trying my very hardest to make the world-altering situation disappear without having to actually feel it through.
After years of storing and trying to avoid the negative emotions from the past experience that turned my life upside down… I turned towards a maladaptive coping style. This maladaptive coping style took me down a dark path, filled with self-sabotaging decisions, people with poor intentions, and decreased lust for life.
I hit a wall, a breaking point if you will. I came to a point where my maladaptive coping skills became more painful than facing the distressing emotions themselves. I went to counselling/therapy a few times inconsistently, and never really found a person that I really connected with. I tried all the different medications, Trintellix, Zolof, Ciprolex, Seroquel, and Wellbutrin to name a few. (Medications work wonders for some people, and I’m in full support of this! My adversity to medications just goes to show how personal each person’s recovery and growth really is). I felt like nothing worked. I remember feeling completely lost and helpless. I wasn’t succeeding in school, I wasn’t able to get myself out of bed to go to the barn (my passion and place for healing), I didn’t go out to see friends, I lost contact with the people I cared about. I stopped going to work. It flat-out sucked. I was miserable and questioning what the point of continuing life was. I remember feeling like I was going to need a miracle to get to where I needed to be.
That’s when I made some really hard decisions that almost cost me my life. I was admitted to the hospital on a form one, under the mental health act. I spent time in the hospital reflecting on my life as a whole and what it meant to me. Once I was released from the hospital, I reached out to an individual for help and she provided me with a therapist that helped me create a life worth living. For me, the biggest part of my recovery was choosing to recover. Choosing to reach out. Choosing to pursue happiness. Years later, piece by piece, and step by step with failures all along; I have built a life that is not perfect, but it’s a life worth fighting for and one I am incredibly proud of. I promise you, it CAN get better if you put the work in day in and day out.
If you had told me years ago that I would be happy, healthy, and in love with the life I was living and creating, I would have laughed at you. I have fulfilled my dream of being a business owner, a licensed counsellor, having a supportive group of friends/family, a loving partner, and the ability to engage in my passion. I have also achieved my goal of attending university and making the dean’s list.
Here are just a few things about healing I have learned throughout my journey.
1. Healing requires rigorous honesty with yourself and those around you. Our brains are designed to run from pain before seeking pleasure. It can be uncomfortable to accept and take ownership of the fact that we might play a large part in our problems. Therefore, it’s really easy to find justifications for poor thoughts, decisions, and behaviours. But, you have to hold yourself accountable and take responsibility for your emotions and actions because only you have the power to create your own happiness and health.
2. It might feel like you need a miracle to get where you want to be. But in reality, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other in the right direction. You’ll make it to where you want to be, quicker than you think. Consistency and discipline are key to this. Sometimes we lack motivation, so having the discipline to stay on track and reach toward personal growth was necessary for me. Doing what needs to be done, even when you don’t feel like doing it requires discipline.
3. Love yourself. Love yourself enough to be committed to your healing. This may sound cliche, but it’s true. We need to be able to love ourselves enough to stand by hard but necessary decisions for the betterment of ourselves. This doesn’t mean allowing ourselves to continuously make poor decisions for ourselves and stating it’s okay because we love ourselves regardless. This means loving ourselves enough to hold ourselves accountable. Self-love can be established through living in accordance with our morals, values, and beliefs, learning to accept ourselves, healing from past trauma, and more. This is where I personally found psychotherapy incredibly helpful.
4. Find a passion in life, something that sets your soul on fire and makes your heart tingle. For me, from a really young age this has been horses and horseback riding. I have ridden horses since I was 3 years old, I feel more at home on the back of a horse than I ever have my own two feet. I still have my horse, Izzy. Throughout my therapy, I recognized that a large portion of the skillset I was using to work through my emotions, heal from past trauma and create this life, was developed in the barn. I learned to be gentle but assertive, hard-working, disciplined but most importantly passionate. Horses taught me how to be fiercely passionate. The type of passion that creates this willingness to persevere through whatever may come, hell or high water to get to where you want to be. These are skills I use to manage my mental health, and my day-to-day life. Hence, why my business is called White Horse Counselling Services!
5. Learn how to be accepting of your emotions in the moment. If you store your emotions, your distress, trauma etc, it can create a really negative environment in your mind and body. Learn how to identify what you’re feeling, why you’re feeling it, and how to respond in a way that supports your sense of self. This is easier said than done, and again therapy really helped me learn how to do this. We store emotions if we don’t validate them and accept them for what they are. Emotions are often at the forefront of our decision-making, and our decision-making can either empower us or diminish us. Therefore, being able to identify, and effectively regulate emotions without using maladaptive coping mechanisms is essential in personal growth and development.
6. Healing, recovery, and personal development are never “fully complete” we are all works in progress deserving of love and acceptance.
These are just a few lessons I have learned in my own recovery journey. We are all our own individual puzzles and we all have our own individual puzzle pieces that fit our personal puzzle. This is the beauty and difficulty of healing. Each person has their own unique strengths, weaknesses, life experiences, and perceptions bringing them to the point of healing. Therefore, healing is unique to each individual, what their goals are, and what their experiences are. It takes time and honest self-reflection. It takes failed attempts, discipline, self-love, support, and accountability. Healing is scary in the beginning messy throughout and beautiful in the end.
Whatever your healing, growth, and recovery may look like… it’s real, valid, and something to be proud of.