“Be patient with yourself; Self growth is tender; its holy ground. There's no greater investment"

I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, events that have crippled, blinded and rocked the very core of my being. Things so horrific I questioned the point of my existence. I cried, wallowed in self-pity and had complete melt downs. I let myself feel all the emotions that came with each situation and let the flood of despair wash over me in waves. And when the waves subsided, I dragged myself from the pit of despair, pull myself together and centered my thoughts on moving on. I placed that new found energy into breaking the cycle of pain and using the event as a lesson to rebuild and strengthen my will to persevere no matter the problem. Did the dominoes fall in the order they were laid out? No. There were days when I felt I was back at square one, reliving the horrors of the event and fighting back the tears threatening to drown me once again. The truth is the road to recovery is even more difficult than the event that brought about the pain in the first place. You are dealing with all the feelings from the event, depression and maybe other mental and physical disorders while mustering up the courage and motivation to never give up and to put one step in front of the other.

Being patient with yourself will allow you to heal permanently. Being patient with yourself is being conscious of your humanity and remembering you are imperfect. Being patient means self-acceptance and choosing to focus on progress rather than perfection. It means allowing yourself compassion rather than withholding it. It means being kinder and more empathetic to your feelings and reactions. Being patient with yourself is not easy as our natural reaction is to shun the parts of us, we don’t like. We don’t want to feel pain, so we avoid facing the issue head on. However, if you are feeling pain there is a valid reason for it and it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you. So being patient with yourself gives you the time you need to feel and heal. You do this on your own terms and at your own speed.

You set yourself up for failure when you are impatient with your progress. You set high expectations and when you fall below the bar, you judge yourself harshly and become unkind and unsympathetic to your own feelings and needs. You deny yourself the healing you deserve and the support you need to get through the phases of recovery. Being impatient strangles your inner strength and willpower to adapt and persevere.

The Journey to recovery

We want the recovery process to be quick and we expect to feel better after the last tear fall but recovery is a long process. It takes time, its takes patience, it takes everything you’ve got. We do not hit rock bottom overnight so we cannot expect to recover overnight. Recovery is not just getting over the hurt or pain, it involves permanent changes and solutions that you need to adopt over the course of your life. You will experience challenges, and many of us relapse when dealing with the most painful parts of the experience. The journey to recovery includes everything; the easy steps and the difficulties. The trick to overcoming the hard parts is to view the process as a blank canvas ready to be painted with the beautiful lessons and accomplishments you will earn along the way. This holistic approach will help to heal everything; mind, body, soul and spirit.

“I know this is hard. I know you’re struggling, but I believe in you. I have faith in you. You can get through this.” As I am speaking to you, I am also speaking to myself. Reminding myself to trust the process and be patient with me.