The Only Way Out…Is Through
RESILIENCE AND RETRIBUTION IN MODERN DAY
Sometimes silent battles become so loud that your presence is inevitable, and there’s no running. Where you are forced to face fears that change the trajectory of your life. Sometimes you are faced with the unpredictable. Life or death. Protecting yourself or saving others. Fighting back or staying silent. No one asks for these circumstances, but when you’re faced with something that you can’t escape from, the present moment can be so jarring. Time doesn’t exist, and you are forced to experience a nightmare that you never asked for. It can be paralyzing. I want to open your perspective to some ways you can prepare yourself for the unpredictable, and how to use resilience to overcome any obstacle.
Unless you have prophetic abilities or something there is no predicting everything in your future. This is a scary thought, but here’s how you can use it to your advantage. The lowest frequency on Earth is fear. Many religions and scientific theories/evidence touch base on this, and I would even argue that they prove it. On the other end, love is the highest frequency. I understand it’s easier said than done when you’re faced with something that absolutely terrifies you. But if you can come to a point of neutrality or contentment in how you view the situation, it transmutes a lot of the heavy emotions and can help you see things clearly to make the best decisions in the present moment. I wouldn’t say you need to “prepare for the worst” , but putting yourself in uncomfortable situations and being able to make quick decisions can really benefit your long term thinking skills. Uncomfortable means a lot of different things to people. Doing what is tolerable and safe, but also challenging is the most beneficial way to try this out. Many people do cold plunge baths where they see how long they can tolerate the freezing temperatures. Some people like to challenge their physical bodies though workouts, running, sports, etc. Others enjoy learning new languages, or challenging themselves to a new skill. The point is to keep doing things that put you out of your comfort zone because when you get through the “uncomfortable” on a daily basis, it becomes less uncomfortable. A personal example I have of this is living in NYC. I didn’t realize how much I used my car and how that shaped my everyday routines until I moved to the city. I feel like it’s definitely a MISSION to do everyday tasks, and it wasn’t something I was used to at first. I’m going to be so real right now I was kind of lazy before living in New York. The convenience of driving everywhere definitely made it easier to do whatever made me feel the most comfortable. Sometimes I would drive to the gym and when I got to the parking lot I would sit there and convince myself out of it. In NYC when I leave the house there’s no going back. Especially in the colder months, it’s not really an option to change my mind because once I’m out the door I don’t want to walk back up the flights of stairs LMAO. Once I found a routine that worked for me it made it easier for me to follow through with tasks that were uncomfortable. This built up my confidence, and even if something unpredictable happens I have worked on my response to those things, and can react quickly. Another example of this is when I first solo traveled. It was scary going out of the country alone for the first time, but it prepared me for real life situations that I wouldn’t have learned in the safe little communities I lived in Minnesota. I talked about this a bit in my Cancun post, but I had a few scary experiences while being there and revealed too much information because I wasn’t prepared. This put me in a dangerous position because this was my first time solo traveling. I had to make quick decisions to feel safe again, and even though I didn’t want those experiences to happen, that is the risk of traveling alone. I didn’t solo travel to purposefully put myself in danger, but now I’m really good at quick decisions and problem solving. Sometimes you have to get creative with certain people because some people are literally psychopaths and can see right through you trying to protect yourself. In conclusion, going out of your comfort zone can help you to expand your confidence to make faster decisions, and better problem solving skills that can be useful when you are faced with a challenging, unexpected situation.
Resilience and retribution are the fundamentals of surviving the world’s worst. Your confidence needs to be so strong and unwavering that no matter what happens you know that your truth will never be able to be taken from you. Even if they tried to, what’s done in the dark always comes to light. It’s quite literally the laws of physics. Energy can not be created nor destroyed, only transformed. Transmuting your heavy, dark emotions by raising your vibration will ultimately clear the way for you to experience the light. This is kind of shown in religions, because when people go through something dark, they will pray. When you pray you let God handle it and this transmutes how you view your situation because you have unwavering faith that everything will work out.
In quantum computing, qbits of information translate to either 1 or 0. Now hear me out…this sort of relates to how light can’t exist without darkness because they both compare two different energies or outcomes. 1 could represent “light” and 0 could represent “dark”. Similarly to the Yin and Yang in Taoism beliefs. That might have sounded a bit confusing, but life is always going to happen. The good and the bad. They cannot exist without the other in our human experience. But knowing that, you can shift your energy to find balance in whatever you need. It has been proven that thoughts can shift your reality (which also relates to praying if you are religious) so by focusing your attention on what it is you want to experience, and acting as if, transmutes the unwanted. For example, I’ve been in situations where I had to learn how to stand up for myself because no one else would. I needed a lot of strength to do this, but I felt weak. I created an alter ego (stay with me now LOL) that would help me, and with practice I became strong. I have a lot of religious trauma, so for awhile I gave up on praying. Whenever I needed strength I would act as my alter ego to get through what I needed. If I was faced with a problem I would try to go to my vision of how my alter ego would react to the situation, and then I would shift my actions to match that. It was hard at first but the more I practiced, the more confident I felt. It took the pressure off of reacting as “myself” and instead gave me courage to be the person who I wished would protect me. I also like to think of my situations through my childhood lens and how I would protect my child self in the present moment. Because sometimes things happen and I feel like I’m a 4 year old again going through that trauma. By using an alter ego that is protective, resilient, and safe, it helped me to shift my perspective and made me stronger than I could’ve ever imagined.
In times of great fear, you have the opportunity to choose who you want to be. Never forget your ability to transform <3
FIGHT, FLIGHT, FREEZE & FAWN
Understanding how your body reacts to trauma will help you tremendously on your journey to better health. It connects parts of you that you wouldn’t have noticed before. It brings clarity to your present moment, because you finally have some peace of mind about what you are experiencing, and why you are reacting that way. A lot of times we dismiss our bodies warning signs due to the nature of society, and how we are "expected" to show up in the world. It can often feel isolating, and confusing, experiencing things you are told are your problem. Today I hope to shine some light on the different trauma responses people can experience. I also want to note that you don't have to have a complicated or intense past to have trauma. Anyone can carry trauma with them, and it effects everyone very differently. There's a saying that goes "you are not responsible for what happened to you, but you are responsible for how you choose to heal"
So what is fight, flight, freeze & fawn?
When your nervous system is overwhelmed, or perceives a threat to survival, your body will release hormones that send you into a specific state. Your amygdala sends signals to the hippocampus that triggers these states. Also known as fight, flight, and freeze. (and most recently discovered: Fawn) You can get into these states from various circumstances, but some of the most common are life stressors, environmental issues, and sometimes even your diet/health.
You have two main parts to your nervous system, and you stay in a singular part depending on your current state. Your freeze response is directly related to your parasympathetic nervous system (your dorsal vagal nerve), and your fight/flight are directly related to your sympathetic nervous system. In the parasympathetic branch you have a ventral vagal nerve, that responds to cues of safety, and a dorsal vagal nerve that responds to danger cues. We will get to the fawn later. To get back into a safe state again, your ventral vagal system is the most ideal. This is when you feel happy, safe, and healthy! Your body can fluctuate in between states, and in some cases you can be in multiple states at the same time. Sometimes people can stay in these states for months, and even years. Myself included. I mentioned in another post that regulating your nervous system is extremely beneficial to your healing, but it truly is the best way to finally heal.
Now that you have some background, let's break down these systems, the warning signs and how they affect us:
FIGHT: (sympathetic dominance) I would describe this state as you are always "on guard". Adrenaline is rapidly being released, and defensive responses will come into play. It is almost like your body is looking for any possible threat. You may think everyone is out to get you. Your body is trying to protect itself, but your responses can be intense. Your body can’t tell the difference between severe and minor threats, so even small triggers can make you feel rage. You act out in social settings, or with people you care about. You may take anything personally, and as a threat to protect yourself. You may put yourself in dangerous/unfortunate situations, so you can act out. Road rage is a great example of this because it shows you put yourself in danger for the sake of taking out your anger on someone else.
Warning signs: Anger, rage, frustration, road rage, passive aggressiveness, defiance
FLIGHT: (sympathetic) This state can be described when your body is trying to "run" away from the trauma. You are constantly on the run from your problems/issues and overcompensate by overworking yourself, or putting yourself in positions that take a lot of your time/energy. Your decisions are based off of fear and you often fall in the trap of perfectionism to avoid traumatic experiences. You are always on the run and it’s hard to stay in once place. You constantly overthink, and develop intense feelings of anxiety, fear, and worry.
Warning signs: Anxiety, fear, workaholic, paranoia, panic, worry/concern, OCD
FREEZE: (parasympathetic)Dorsal Vagal State of Shutdown of the Nervous System. This is when your body cannot cope with the trauma you are experiencing, and it is so exhausted it completely shuts down. You can become bed ridden, and have no energy to do anything else. You may be extremely exhausted, and start to oversleep. Its almost like your body stops functioning how it used to. This can be the most confusing state, because people label a lot of these symptoms as being "lazy" or "not doing enough/anything", when in reality your body is so tired from years of trauma that the only way it is trying to save you is by shutting down some functions.
Warning signs: Depression, bed ridden, unable to do self care, unable to go to work, doom scrolling, oversleeping, addiction (can be from anything), extreme exhaustion
FAWN: (hybrid) In this response is you experience a hybrid of flight and freeze. The main takeaway of this response is you are actively pushing away your own needs to keep the peace within relationships/connections. You may thrive off of people pleasing because it "secures" experiencing no conflict.But it still effects you down the road because you almost lose yourself while trying to maintain having no conflict. This may be familiar with people who experience codependency.
Warning signs: prioritizing others before yourself/your needs, people pleasing, difficulty saying no/setting boundaries, OVER APOLOGIZING (i do this so much), difficulties identifying your own needs/wants, trying to save others
Let’s Talk Hormonal Imbalances
A big part of my health journey is coming to terms with how my trauma has impacted my physical health. I know a lot of people struggle with similar issues, and I would love to share more of what I learned through doctors, experience, and my own research. Personally, my nervous system is out of whack due to 22 years of being in fight or flight. My goal is to regulate my nervous system, and my hormones.
Times like these I miss my pop pop the most because he was an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic and sadly passed away before I could come to him for my own hormone issues. But, I have been doing extensive research on my own, along with doctors and wanted to share some information I found that could be helpful.
The biggest issues I have involve my cortisol levels. I have had extreme trauma that I have endured over 21 years. Luckily I was able to enter a safer environment when I was 20 but the effects of the trauma still reside in my body.
A little backstory, I have been on both ends of the eating disorder spectrum. For me it fluctuates and it can be hard to realize I’m in it until I notice my body changing. I also have struggled with severe acne, and other issues like hair loss and extremely low energy levels. I also struggle with body dysmorphia so it can be hard for me to realize what is healthy for me. I used to dance and do other sports every single day without fail. I was active and had energy despite my circumstances, but the older I got the more taxing it got on my body and that’s when I realized my hormonal imbalances. I had bloodwork done and was able to see everything that was wrong.
If you struggle with losing weight, gaining weight, or any other hormonal issues and you aren’t getting solid answers from doctors this might be something you would want to look into. I just want to preface that I am not giving medical advice as I am not a doctor definitely speak with a licensed professional if you are having issues, but I want to share as much information as I can because these topics can be beneficial if you feel like you have gotten no answers or help.
Here’s what I found:
One of the biggest reasons you are struggling with high cortisol, poor sleep, chronic inflammation, hungry all the time despite eating, you might be leptin resistant. You can also be leptin resistant if you are insulin resistant.
Leptin is a satiety (master) hormone that communicates with the hippocampus in your brain that determines how much fat storage you have to calculate how much energy you’ll have for the next day. It lets your body know when to stop eating. It tells your brain when to slow or speed up your metabolism. It tells your brain how hungry it should make you the next day, and how much to make you move the next day.
When you are leptin resistant it means that there is no communication happening between your hormone and your brain. It makes your body believe that it’s fat storage is low. This results in your body conserving energy making you want to do nothing all day, burning less calories, and making you more hungry. Your body now thinks it’s in danger, and so you start to crave quick energy sources (aka SUGAR). Over time your body continues to crave Carbs and that makes you insulin resistant over time causing issues like PCOS, Diabetes, ect.
So how do we become leptin sensitive again?
One of the biggest things to focus on when trying to heal your body is going to be managing your stress. Chronic stress and inflammation will block the communication between your brain and hormones, creating even more stress in your body. Just like when your body is in fight or flight, you don’t typically realize your body are in these stressful stages until it catches up to you physically. It is so important to implement daily activities that bring you out of stressful states. I have struggled before with finding peace, especially when I was constantly being surrounded by things that upset me. I started taking daily walks that have been great for me recently. Listening to music, being in nature, cooking, or literally anything that brings you peace will help to lower your stress levels. Try to make it a priority to live as stress free as you can. You deserve to feel safe in your own body🩷
Next up, TRAUMA WORK!! I believe that mixing trauma work with other techniques can be so beneficial to any medical issue that you have. Trauma is stored in the body, and if you do not release the stored trauma it accumulates into physical symptoms. Shadow work is a great way to start doing this. You can do shadow work by writing down prompts and answering them with full honesty. (The purpose is to recognize the trauma, to accept what happened, and then to release so it is no longer in your space). Or you can do shadow work in your head. I personally like to write them down and to rip/burn them because it creates a visual for me that it is released but you can do whatever feels right for you. Definitely don’t force anything you aren’t ready for yet, But take necessary steps to acknowledge your pain and to release it. Your body will thank you!
Raise your protein intake! This helps to repair your metabolism and to help the communication process. Try to eat protein for every meal. The more consistent you are, the quicker the benefits will come to you. It is also beneficial to consume foods high in fiber and high in fat. A combination of these 3 nutrients will help your metabolism so much, making it easier for repair.
I’m still on the hunt to find things that help hormonal imbalances, and overall healing in general, but I’m soo happy I gained the knowledge that I have, and that I can share it with you all! Remember to do your own research, and to cater everything to fit your needs!
With love,
Marley
Heal at your own pace
This is more of a self note but I thought it would be helpful advice for people going through similar experiences. It’s not easy opening up online but when I was younger I had to deal with a lot of heavy situations alone, and if I can help at least one person that’s all that matters to me.
I feel like with any given situation people can have their own understanding of how to deal with things. For me personally if I am going through it and I tell someone, I often get caught up in how I should move on. If you have had experiences before where you weren’t believed, you understand. Especially with deep, complex things, I would rather just keep it to myself because the idea of someone judging me for how I decide to move on makes me sick to my stomach. I have struggled in the past to recognize that everyone heals at their own pace, and there are no set rules on how you should move forward. If you take years to recover, or if you take days/hours, it’s all unique to your experience and no one should have the right to judge you for it.
For example, a lot of situations in my life I have been forced to move on fast for the sake of my mental health. It doesn’t make what happened to me any less real. It was just what I had to do to survive. And there have been situations where it’s taken me years to do something I love again because I still haven’t healed that part of me yet. Both are normal, and both are okay. If you’re like me and tend to overthink every possible thing in the world, it can be easy to get caught up in other people’s perceptions of you, instead of your own. The perception you have of yourself is the only one that matters in this world. Because in situations where you need to be there for yourself, thinking about other people’s opinions will only bring you down. There will be times when people don’t know your full story and will make assumptions based on their level of understanding and that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up over the things you can’t control and start focusing on you.
Not being believed when you are practically begging for help is one of the worst feelings in the world. Not only does it destroy your sense of safety, but it creates this void of isolation. You start to go through things alone, and stop trusting completely. Building trust is also such a hard thing to do when you’re already so low. So today I’m going to give you some tips on how to build trust with YOURSELF again. I believe trust with yourself is so important to how you carry yourself.
When I started building trust within myself again I started by journaling. I know I always talk about journaling, but it truly is a great way to get deep with your subconscious, and to start understanding yourself/patterns better. I would start off with a simple prompt like “why do I not trust myself?” “What are things I don’t trust?” “What are things I don’t trust about others?” and journal everything that came up. This is a great way to get everything out. If you don’t like to journal another thing I do is either record voice memos or literally just talking out loud. It sounds weird as hell but if you struggle to open up to people, this is so helpful. Talking about what actually happened, to release the overwhelming feeling is so important to the healing process. If you keep it to yourself the stress just builds up. So I always start by releasing.
The next steps I do to building my own trust again is taking everything easy. I will start to listen to what I need, instead of what other people are telling me I need. I will limit any set routines, and just take things day by day. ( if routines make you feel safe then continue to do so, this is just what works for me). I get back in touch with my inner child and watch childhood movies, eat fun snacks, do things I love, ect. But the most important thing to note is I do things that I want to do. In this process of my trusting phase, I am really just listening to myself and taking actions that reflect that.
Another thing that helps is building a healthy relationship with your intuition. I will start off by saying if you were ever taken advantage of, things like this can be hard to navigate at first. Because sometimes you can feel like everything is okay and fine, but then randomly it’s not and it feels like it’s your fault. But im here to tell you that being taken advantage of has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the person. It can be a struggle to trust yourself because you think things like how could I let this happen to myself? Why couldn’t I protect myself? And the thought of trusting yourself again can be very hard. You could have the purest, most accurate intuition in the world, and being taken advantage of would still have everything to do with the person who did it to you. You can’t control everything in life, but the healthy relationship you have with your intuition, will help guide you to more positive experiences. It helps you to understand your wants and needs, and actively choosing the things that bring you happiness. It helps to to recognize unsafe patterns and people, and can help you to know when to leave. As a chronic overthinker, I sometimes have trouble figuring out if it’s my intuition or my anxiety. One of the biggest tips I learned when distinguishing between my intuition and anxiety, is to tune into the energy of what you are feeling. Anxiety feels restrictive, fearful, bad. Intuition feels expansive, clear, and calm. An example of this would be, let’s say I’m on a plane and randomly get a thought that the planes gonna crash and I start to get super anxious because what if that’s my intuition? Because the thought feels fearful and restrictive, it would be anxiety. It doesn’t feel clear, it feels chaotic and cloudy. A good example of intuition would be when you’re toxic relationship that you know isn’t good for you and you start to think things like “this person isn’t good for me anymore” or “I know I shouldn’t hang out with this person again”. This feels more calm and almost like a gut feeling. The more I practiced distinguishing between my anxiety/intuition, the more in touch with myself I got. It is definitely a constant practice, but by implementing this daily you’ll see a lot of improvement.
I want to end this by saying that you can do everything right in this world, and still be hurt by people/experiences/places. The world is very unpredictable and unfair. But how you choose to go about your pain is what matters. Moving forward is what matters. Your experiences have shaped you, but they don’t make you. You have the authority to change your life for the better, and to overcome any obstacle that’s thrown at you. It’s never going to be easy, but over time your strength with guide you. Also note that your pain is your pain, and only you understand exactly what it’s like. No one should ever have the authority to tell you how or when you should move on. You don’t need peoples opinions to distinguish how much you sacrificed just to survive. Only you know how much it took to get to where you are today, and for that no one will ever have the power to tell you how to live.
If no one told you today I believe in you, and I love you. I am also thinking of putting together a survivors/mental health group where people can open up with stories, tips on healing, support, ect. It would be great for people without access to therapy. so if that is something you would be interested in please let me know!
a guide to letting go
To everything I’ve ever lost: thank you for setting me free
Letting go is a constant practice. I feel like I am always learning new things about myself and about healing. Finding healthier strategies has been my main focus recently. I’m going to be explaining how to navigate through letting go, without being a disservice to yourself. Letting go can be such a beautiful thing, if done the right way. I will be sharing my experiences, as well as techniques I have been implementing into my daily life. I hope this reaches the right people, especially if you struggle with trust and letting go.
To note: I am mainly talking about people who continually treat you badly. It’s important to differentiate disrespect from life struggles. People can still have good intentions for you, but could be caught up with life or something like that. It’s the people who knowingly disregard your feelings and boundaries that dont deserve your presence.
I want you to know that no matter what your situation is like, you deserve only the best. By going back to people and situations where you have been wronged is such a disrespect to yourself. Think about it, what do you truly deserve? I hope that is happiness and abundance, because no one should be treated like they aren’t worthy of happiness or love. Wether it’s friends, relationships, family, jobs, ect, if you are not happy… why bother? Why waste your precious time on people who CHOOSE to betray you? You only get one life to live. Please don’t waste it on people who don’t deserve you.
Since a child, my idea of love has always been associated to pain and betrayal. To keep sane, I would have to let go of people and things that happened to me to the point of dissociation most of the time. It has been a tool to keep me sane in the most horrible times imaginable. But, it has also negatively impacted me when I’ve struggled to let go in the right way. Growing up i was never blessed with a sense of safety, and letting go of loved ones was very prominent in my life. Sometimes it would come in the form of a mental note. I would sit there and internally accept I would never receive the love I deserved. I knew this at a very young age. Although it’s unsettling, it’s how I was able to cope. I longed for their (healthy) love, but it was unattainable. So I did what I had to do. It took me years to accept what happened to me. I’m still trying to accept parts to this day. But the only thing that kept me going, was letting go.
Healthy relationship and boundaries with yourself will help you grow so much. Never let the absence of people control your emotions, because then that means they have more power over your emotions than you do and we can’t have that here love!! It’s very hard to do, but one of the most rewarding feelings because once you start setting boundaries, you feel unstoppable. I feel so resilient within myself that nothing and no one will ever come between what I have going on for myself. It is so freeing having an abundant mindset. It saved my life actually. I had a really harsh reality that even my own family betrayed me. My friends have betrayed me. My boyfriends/situationships have betrayed me. But with an abundant mindset I was able to see past the betrayal, and finally choose myself. With a lack mindset you might think “this is it for me” “I’ll never find friends/relationships like that again” “they are my family so I have to stay”. But with an abundant mindset there are endless possibilities. I notice I think things like “I don’t need to tolerate disrespect to feel less lonely” “there are so many people in this world to meet” “I will always find love, because love is abundant” “I will have my own family one day”. I swear my life has changed the second I looked at life a little differently. I heard something one time that went along the lines of “ once you get so uncomfortable with being stuck, you will have no choice but to change”. This stuck with me because my biggest challenges has been trying to get out of a constant victim mindset. I reached my all time low and became so uncomfortable with being stuck in this state that I started implementing habits to change my mindset and behaviors. The only person who can change you, is you! Loving yourself takes time, but if you are patient with yourself you will see so many benefits.
On the other hand, I have let go of people too intensely. Sometimes my own insecurities get in the way, and I project that onto others who had no intention to harm me. Developing discernment is so important for evaluating people’s intentions. Not everyone is out to get you. Sometimes people get caught up in their own lives, and don’t have the capacity to be open to people. Everyone handles life differently as well so It can be tricky trying to uncover if someone is being intentional or not, especially if you struggle with trust. My advice would be to evaluate the situation in detail. Have they done this before? Do you see a future in the situation/relationship? How badly did they hurt you? Make a pros and cons list if you have to! If you don’t see a future, you can either give closure in a healthy way, or you can leave peacefully. Personally, leaving peacefully gives the other person time to think about the situation. If they were a real person in your life then they will take the time to respond eventually. If not, then you left for the right reasons love (this applies to some situations; not all) Especially if you made an effort to resolve the situation in a peaceful way. I wouldn’t recommend blowing up on others, no matter how much they have hurt you. Sometimes it’s justified, but why waste your precious energy on the same person who hurt you? I used to explain myself in long paragraphs, trying to get people to understand how they hurt me. But the truth is people only see the world as far as they’ve met themselves, and sometimes it’s better to just let go.
If you are stuck thinking about what happened to you, it’s traumatizing yourself over and over. The only thing that’s “real” is the present moment. When you stray too far away from the present, the past/future overtake your mind, making it extremely difficult to let go. Something that really helped me was writing letters to people and situations I wanted to let go of. I would write everything I wanted to say to them. Sometimes I would rewrite these letters over and over again. Then I would rip up the letters and throw them away. This helped me to stop overthinking scenarios of interacting with them again. A lot of the time I overthink receiving apologies from people who have hurt me, and what I would say back to them. By doing this technique I was able to get all of my thoughts on paper, and then release them by tearing up the letters.
Also note : YOU CREATE YOUR OWN LITTLE FAMILY IN ANY WAY YOU DESIRE!!
You don’t need immediate family to feel at home. Friendships and relationships (and my little baby Olive) have opened my heart to experiencing family in different ways. It’s OK to not have an “ideal” or “normal” family. You can’t change what happened; but you can create the life you deserve by having an open heart to new experiences and people. I have felt more at home with people I became friends with, than my own blood family. You deserve to have a family that gives you real love and that makes you feel good about yourself :)
If you’ve read this far thank you so much!! In my next health post I will go over more techniques that have helped me reach this level of mental clarity. I love all of your commentary and appreciate any feedback!
With love,
Marley
how to change your life through healing
**TLDR AT END**
Note: I am not a licensed/medical professional. I am only speaking on what has worked for me, and what I’ve learned through my healing process <3 also I’m not claiming to be a perfect person, I’m still trying to unlearn habits and negative patterns from my past, but acknowledging mistakes is the first step to change and I’m happy to share my experience
TW: mental health disorders/issues;trauma
Last post was written so sloppy I’m sorry, I was way too eager to publish my first blog lol. I’m really open about my past just because if I knew someone that had gone through what I went through growing up I feel like it would’ve helped me so much. That’s my point with this post is to kind of inspire others and to help people understand their power, and that you can overcome anything you set your mind to.
The first step for me in my healing journey was recognizing everything that was hurting me. I started by journaling everything that was upsetting me, and everything that I was still holding onto. This helped me to come face to face with my traumas, and it helped me to gain more insight on what I needed to do to get better. Throughout my childhood and teenage years I became very defiant in my healing. I almost refused to get better because I had so much going on in my personal life that I felt like if I opened up that part of me again, I would’ve just been a mess even more so than I already was. I didn’t start journaling again until I had found a safe environment to live in. Now journaling can be difficult if you are already in an unsafe environment, and I totally understand. I was in that place once too, but if you can just start by recognizing your triggers, and everything that is affecting your life in the present moment, then that’s a great first start. I think healing should always be at your own pace, and you should never force anything you aren’t ready for because I have done this in the past and I ended up re-traumatizing myself. That made it even harder to continue healing, because everything shifted and it was really overwhelming. I recommend taking things step-by step day by day.
When I was experiencing different triggers throughout the day, I would immediately do shadow work in my own head. For example, if I was really upset about something in the moment, I will ask myself why am I mad about this? What is the deeper root cause of how I’m feeling? When was the first time I felt this emotion? and I would just keep asking myself questions to get to the deeper meaning of what I was going through. The point of this is to face your traumas Head on. If you continually push away your trauma, it actually stores in your body and this has been scientifically proven. It’s really interesting to research because the mind/body connection is wild. If you aren’t releasing what you’re upset about even if it’s something you deem as insignificant, it will still affect you physically down the road. Stress raises cortisol levels, and affects the adrenal glands. When your stress hormones are hyper active, everything else in your body is affected by it including your well-being, mental health, sleep, eating habits, etc. If you can start by recognizing what triggers you, and doing shadow work whenever you’re having a trigger, this helps tremendously in lowering your stress levels because you’re not overthinking and you’re almost releasing all of that trapped negative energy.
This next tip is something that I am still struggling with because I have had an ed in the past and sometimes it’s hard for me to do this consistently, but something that helps mental health so much is eating. Eating healthy, whole foods that make you feel nourished. Not foods that would also bring down your health, and your well-being. A great tip I recently learned is if you eat something small every two hours it actually helps your body feel a lot better during the day. The purpose of this is related to how your mind and gut are one. If you’re in a constant state of hunger, your body doesn’t recognize that you can eat whenever you want so it’s automatically going in a fight or flight response. This drastically impacts your mood, and it can make you feel worse. Most of the time you are unaware this is happening, but your nervous system picks up on it and it will affect your physical health. By eating something (even if it’s small) every two hours, it will train your body into feeling more relaxed because it’s not in the state of thinking it needs food. Personally my body tenses up when I’m hungry, and I notice when I try this technique I’m able to think more clearly, and I feel more relaxed. If you research how the mind and body are connected, and how eating can help your mood, those articles might be able to explain it better hahhaha I kinda suck at explaining things but in general eating well will drastically improve your mood. [Along with good sleep :) ]
This next one is really important to me, and I think it made the most drastic difference in my life and that is finding a hobby that you truly enjoy doing. This can be literally anything. In high school I loved to do different sports and I actually had a lot of hobbies that I stopped doing once I got to college. I think my environment impacted my mental health a lot, and I lost track of who I was in a way. I was living in Mankato and I started going to minneapolis a lot. I was trying out different restaurants and I started doing a lot of things alone because my issue was not everyone in my life had the time to hang out, and I was also a pushover so whenever I would get together with people, I would just do whatever they wanted to do. So I started going to all these restaurants and places alone, and I fell in love with it. So your hobby doesn’t have to be a specific set in stone hobby. It can be literally just going out to dinner by yourself, or trying new things trying new foods, and once I started trying all of these different things by myself I took my first solo trip to Cancun. Now I would say traveling is my hobby, because that’s what really feeds my soul. I would say make a list of everything you love and try to come up with ideas on how you can implement that into your daily life. For example, I love to travel, but I can’t always go on a seven day all inclusive vacation whenever I want lol. But making small road trips, or even just going to an event in a new town still feeds my soul, because I’m still making an effort to do the things that I love to do. No matter what your circumstances are like, you can really build from what you love and it opens doors to different opportunities!
I have noticed that when I isolate myself too much I miss out on opportunities, experiences and friendships that could’ve been so amazing. I believe that people should be able to re-charge, because I personally absorb a lot of energies around me so I totally understand isolating. I love the saying that goes too much of something can turn out to be unfavorable in the long run. Because it reminds me to reassess what is holding me back. One way I have helped myself get out of isolation ruts is by pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I actually joined a lot of FB friend groups. I never really used fb like that, but they actually helped me practice how to get out in the world again because I was isolating myself for so long. I also learned that everyone is so in their own world that nobody really cares. It sounds harsh but it’s true. When I started going on solo dates alone I would pretend like someone was coming with me and act like they never showed up because I was so afraid of being judged for eating alone. I eventually stopped that after I kept going on dates with myself, because I realize that nobody cares. Same with the Facebook friend groups. For a whole week I pushed myself into trying one thing to do out of my comfort zone everyday. I have made a lot of new friends, and it was such a great experience. Everyone is human and the more you push yourself out of your comfort zone the more you will surprise yourself with what you can do.
Another important thing to take note of is what you get angry about. For the longest time I was at a point in my journey where I was angry at everything. To be fair I did have a lot of reasons to be angry, but I just recently discovered that being angry all the time and getting mad over little things can affect your stress levels. Something that has really helped me is belly breathing. There’s this cute app called belly bio and when you put it on your stomach and start to do the deep breathing techniques, it plays music from your phone. This is just a cute little tip to help you practice the breathing, but I believe that deep breathing in general does really help. I used to be the person to look down upon breathing just because I thought it was kind of stupid honestly, but it does help to relax your body because when you’re breathing like that, it lets your nervous system know that you’re okay and that you’re not stressed. Like I was talking about before, your body can’t tell the difference of what’s going on in your reality. Even if you’re upset about something small, it can still make you go into fight or flight even if it’s not a threat to your physical danger. This is something I struggle with on a daily basis, especially with road rage. I’ve learned to just keep my health in mind when I get mad about stuff and to work on releasing all of that anger/negativity. The more you let it build up, the more you’re likely to blow up at the people you love over little things. This can lead to worse problems, so just keep yourself in mind the next time you get mad. I like to tell myself “if I wouldn’t care about this in 3 months, then it doesn’t matter”. I heard that somewhere and it really stuck with me!
I’m still working on trying to heal myself, and it’s going to be a very long process, but there are steps that you can do along the way to help ease your state of being so you’re not constantly in a state of fight/flight. My goals right now are to make my life as stress-free as possible, so I can manage my PTSD symptoms that dysregulate my emotions. To work on how I blow up at people in arguments, I am really focusing on lowering my cortisol levels to where I’m in a calm state even if something unfavorable happens throughout my day. Life is life, and things are gonna happen but if try to lower your stress throughout the day, it would really benefit your mental and physical health. Thanks for reading I love u and wishing you the healthiest year!
TLDR: calming your nervous system will benefit your mental/physical health. Start by journaling about your triggers. Ask yourself why your triggers upset you. Implement deep breathing in your daily routine/when having triggers to calm nervous system. Put your health first the next time you get angry as anger raises stress levels. A good tip is to eat something small every 2 hours, this has been proven to help your mental state. Find a hobby you enjoy doing. Pushing yourself to try something new can help with isolation.