My three stages of healing
“Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives. ”
Last week I shared more about my own journey with depression and anxiety than I ever have publicly before. Not only on the blog but in the podcast interview with Pocket Mastermind that came out last week and my series of Instagram lives. And it was in one of those Instagram lives where I reflected on my healing journey and I came up with 3 stages that were key to getting to where I am now. So today I’m going to share them with you.
Firstly, where am I now? It was during a conversation with a friend last week that I really reflected on where I am now. And I realised that after what has actually been around 20 years of depression, I am for the first time in my life not depressed and actually feeling really good. It’s been a gradual healing process and this realisation has also been gradual. I’d like to share an analogy with you that I’ve heard recently in a business context but I think applies equally well to my healing journey. When you plant a garden, you plant the seeds and you spend a long time watering them with nothing to show for it. But you keep watering the seeds trusting that it is doing some good. And one day further down the line a beautiful flower will bloom. I neglected my garden for a long time, and I’ve been watering it consistently for a few years and now the flowers are blooming.
So the three stages of healing that I went through, and this is from my personal experience. I’d love to know what you think though and if it resonates for you: lift, inner work, moving forward.
Stage 1 - Lift
When I’m depressed I feel empty, numb. I don’t have the energy to do the things that I know will help me. I read back an extract of my diary at this time which I think sums it up perfectly, ‘I know what to do, but I don’t know what to do.’ Theoretically, I know the things that will help me boost my mood but I can’t make myself do them. I can’t wrap my mind around actually getting up and having a shower, let alone going for a run. So before being able to do those holistic things that can boost mood or tackling the root of my own depression, I needed to lift my mood and energy levels enough to be able to do those things.
For me, this looked like medication. This might not be true for everyone but I honestly don’t think I’d be where I am today without my antidepressants. And there is still a lot of stigma around taking medication for your mental health. But here’s how they helped me. They lifted the fog so that I could start to do the other things on a physiological level that would give that mood boost - exercise, eating in a more nurturing way (i.e. not comfort eating), sleeping better, connecting with others. I won’t get massively into the brain chemistry here but this was all about balancing out the level of chemicals in my brain so that I could function. My own personal view of antidepressants is that they don’t ‘cure’ depression but that they allow you to function. So that’s what this stage is all about.
Stage 2 - Inner Work
Once I was able to start re-engaging with the world, exercising, seeing people etc. I could start to think about what was actually going on for me because for me there was a root cause to my depression. And I’d sum it up as this, I hated myself and I wasn’t living the way I wanted to. I wanted to change but couldn’t. So I felt trapped. I had spent so long people-pleasing and was so wrapped up in what other people thought that I had completely lost touch with who I actually am. My life was being ruled by fear of being judged and rejected. I felt I was not enough. To be able to move forward and really live my life I needed to let go of some of these beliefs and to find myself again.
So that’s what I did.
It looked like a lot of self-help books, listening to podcasts, talking about my experiences, reflecting on my beliefs and values, spirituality, mindfulness, learning about mindset and how to shift mine. It doesn’t just happen. I had to do the watering - absorb the ideas from all of these places over and over again until they started to sink in. One of the most powerful things I did at the beginning of 2019 was my change from New Year’s resolutions to asking myself some questions that I would spend the year answering. I had always set resolutions or vague intentions and never managed to stick with them. So I had taken a different approach. I would spend the year asking myself two questions:
‘What happens if I don’t give up?’
‘What happens if I stop caring what people think?’
This was the start of my experimental living, just trying and seeing what happens. I got comfortable with failing and learning from that. I believed that I could get through things and pick myself back up and keep going. After all, I’d been doing that for years hadn’t I? Midway through 2019, I started working with a Business Coach who gave me my third question which has honestly been the most powerful yet simple one:
‘Why not?’
Every time I tell myself I can’t do something I ask myself this question. ‘Why not?’ Usually, there is no reason why. So I try it and see what happens.
“Let the ‘why not’ philosophy be your life principle.”
Stage 3 - Moving forward
So that brings me to where I am now. Now I know I am enough. I can look at myself with kindness and love. Not all the time and not in a big-headed I’m amazing way, but I can appreciate my strengths. I have built resilience, self-belief and I now think about nurturing myself. I try and be my own best friend. Although I’ve seen some people thing about treating themselves the way love would or as if they’re in a relationship with themselves. However you want to view it for yourself, try turning kindness and love inwards and see what happens.
Now I’m thinking about moving forward. My life hasn’t been the way I wanted because I held myself back, I was afraid. I still am at times but I can handle the fear - I can feel it and do it anyway. So this stage has been thinking about what I really want out of life, visualising my ideal life, because now I really believe it is possible for me. I’ve learnt who I am, I’ve worked on accepting myself and now it’s about really living my life and making it the daring adventure I so want it to be.
And actually this process is exactly what my online course is about - wanting to help other people through this journey. I can look back to the Hannah of two years ago who was so desperately unhappy and empty and I hadn’t realised how much I wasn’t living. Now I feel like a completely different person but more like myself. When you’re depressed you can lose the hope that one day things will get better, you can’t see how you could get there or that it would ever be possible for you. But hearing stories from others who’ve walked the path before gave me these tiny buds of hope that I clung on to. And now I’m here and I feel truly alive for the first time in my life. And the garden is beautiful. That tiny glimmer of hope kept me going and I hope that by being open and sharing my own story I can offer that same glimmer of hope to someone else.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
