17: Moments in Realizing Healing Isn't Linear
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Considering what has gone down today, I'll just give you the rundown on that before I like really get into it.

But basically my energy was just off like yesterday and today it was just off and I don't totally know why but but like I just felt a little weird and it was one of those things where everything around me is going fine like everything's going great but you just like can't really control why you're in a weird mood. Yeah it was that and then I was hiking earlier and I parked my car and I was with Meredith and Ellie and I was like you know maybe I shouldn't park my car here because I know that sometimes like

I just thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't park my car here. But I didn't do anything about it. I was so excited to hike. I was in a good mood because I was going on a hike. And we go do the hike. Everything is great. It was such a good time. And we come down from the hike and I go to get in my car and we realize that the parking lot is locked. Like I can't get into...

I can get in there with my feet, but I can't drive the car out. And it's the only car in the whole parking lot. And I'm like, crap. Okay. So we're asking around, seeing if anyone knows how to unlock the gate or how to open the gate or if we could call anyone.

I called 911, non-emergency. I was like, hey, like, I'm really sorry. I know this is my fault, but whatever, whatever. They're like, yeah, I'm so sorry too. Like our officers don't even have the key to get in, only like the school faculty and staff. I was like, okay, whatever. It happens. I wasn't even mad about it. I was in a great mood still. We were just laughing about it. And I think that those are the best moments ever when something really unfortunate happens, especially if you're with a group of people. And instead of letting it ruin everyone's day, like everyone's just –

goofy about it and we were like dancing around with the speaker that we had and just having a good time and realizing that you can't do anything to change it it's it's gonna happen it already happened just move on get over it you know make it a good story not a bad day

And then I get home. I'm like, all right, whatever. Hannah comes and picks us up. She rescues us. She saves the day. I'm like, okay, I guess I'll have to go get my car in the morning, which was a little unfortunate because I had plans tonight to go hang out with other Hannah and I couldn't drive there because I don't have a car. But that's okay because since I couldn't do that, I get to record this right now and I'm feeling really grateful to do so.

But I'm home I'm cooking I'm cleaning everyone else went out to dinner But I was like no I'm gonna stay home and like just get some stuff together and like fix everything I have going on and record an episode So that's what I did. And then I went to go take a little clip with my camera and I was like, oh my god Where's my camera mind you guys? This is my brand new $2,000 fancy camera that I saved up for and was so excited to have I'm like, where is it?

And I'm sitting home, no car, no form of transportation, and I have this flashback to putting it on the parking lot floor and saying, okay, I'm putting this here. I can't forget it. And then, of course, me and my ADHD forgot it. I forgot the camera. And I was freaking out a little bit, but I was also like just being my delusional optimist self. And I was like, oh, no, people are good people. Like nothing's going to happen to it. I'll just see if they can stop home on the way home from dinner and check for it. I was like, you know what? I'll also see if my friend Christian is around to go look for it.

and he goes for me and the camera was still there so really moral of the story everything works out it always works out um I am having a dilemma right now because I wrote this really whole long outline for this episode I was really excited to use it but my iPad isn't working so we're totally going into this with with nothing and I'm not even mad about it honestly I'm

Everything that was on that outline is probably still fresh in my brain. I'm not gonna lie. Sorry, I just totally gave you guys a whole story time. I hope you enjoyed it. That was kind of my evening. You know what's so cool about the podcast? I feel like I can connect with you guys on such a different level. I don't even like saying you guys. Like I really just feel like this is a whole family and we're all best friends and it's really cool. And it's one of those moments where I'm recording this episode and I'm sitting in my room. Guys, I'm not in my car. Isn't that weird? It's really weird to me.

I'm just feeling grateful. You know, this podcast has brought me not only a lot of opportunity, but just a lot of connection. And it's been really rewarding because I feel like everything that I've been passionate about sharing my whole life, I finally have an outlet to do so and a platform to do so. And I'm just, thank you. Thank you. And I haven't even told you guys what this week's episode is about, but I'm calling it Moments in Realizing That Healing Isn't Linear.

Because you guys know, literally not last episode, but the one before that, I was on a high. Like I was like, wow, life is so simple, beauty and simplicity, just be content, you know, everything is good. And I was doing a really good job at taking my own advice. You know, on every platform, everything I –

post and share, I was taking all that advice for once in my life and truly being that best version of myself, the one who I used to like look for and search for. And I was really proud of that. And I still am really proud of that. But I noticed the past couple days, there's been a lot going on, not just with myself, with like my friends and just a lot of different things. One of those weeks. And I kind of started to notice that I was feeling really familiar feelings about

that I felt when I wasn't in a good place last time I was out here. And I don't really know how to explain it because everything is good. Everything's been great. It was just familiar feelings. And my body wanted to react to them immediately. Like instead of wanting to take it one step at a time and really process what I was feeling, I was jumping to conclusions thinking I was going back down this crazy spiral. Yet I was so aware of what I was feeling. And it's just a really difficult thing to explain, but it really opened my eyes and helped me understand

how not linear healing is. It's like one day you have it all together and the next everything just feels kind of like it's going all over the place. And this episode is kind of just to tell you that that's okay and to remind you of why that happens because I know it sucks and it's so complicated and you want to understand it and you always want to get to a point where everything just feels good and it only feels good.

I hate this feeling of feeling good, but then in the back of my mind, subconsciously, so deep-rooted, something is trying to get out. Some sort of anxiety, some sort of stress, some sort of just being overwhelmed is trying to come to the surface. And it takes so much effort to push it down. And for a little while, I didn't feel that at all. I just felt good for once. In a really long time, I just felt good. And then those feelings came back and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Why are we doing all this? What's going on? So I journaled and I wrote down a lot of stuff and I want to read you what I wrote. I also have this idea that one day I'm going to do an episode and it's going to be called Moments in My Journal and it's going to be a very vulnerable episode because I write a lot in my journal. For some reason, I think I'm like some poet, but I have fun with it and it helps me.

Besides the point, one day I want to do an episode on that just because I do think there's a lot of valuable information in there and it is really cool to see yourself grow through different parts of your life. It's cool with a journal because you can very clearly see the waves, the good ones and the bad ones in the way that you write because you know yourself and you'll read it back and you'll be like, whoa, what were you going through? Or like, wow, you were really on top of the world. And that is the one thing I love about journaling.

that's why I think that we should all do it don't get me wrong there's days where I don't even want to journal whether it's a really good day and I don't want to journal or a really bad day and I don't want to journal but trust me when I say it's so worth it mostly just to see how you change over the years over the months over just day in and day out but anyways I was talking to my mom and I was writing this thing and I was talking to Lissette and lately I've been talking to my mom and Lissette a lot and

And it's been really nice because last time I was out here, I had a hard time with that. Like I kind of isolated myself and I did notice myself doing that for a couple days. And I was like, dude, come on. We're not going to fall back into that trap. And it's a really cool awareness thing. Wow, I just keep getting a little bit distracted. I'm all over the place tonight. Clearly I am. I left my camera on the parking lot floor. Nice. But after I got off the phone with them, I started writing this journal entry and I was like, a letter to myself.

So I'm going to read you the letter that I wrote for myself. You also might have already heard this because I did post it on TikTok and I did post on my Instagram story. But in case you missed those, here it is again. I know how you're feeling. I know that in some moments you take all your own advice. You live in the now, you focus on the good, and you just trust right where you are. And I know that every so often you backtrack. You dwell on the hurt, the stress, and the anxieties that are out of your own control.

You put more on your plate than you can handle, and you get yourself down when you can't complete it. You think everything must be perfect. You think everyone must like you. You feel like you're never doing enough, but also like you're doing too much. You focus so much on finding balance that you lose the balance completely. You lack self-control. You get in your head, and you simply get lost. And when this happens, it feels like all the progress you've made is also lost.

but look how much you've grown. Look at what you've accomplished. Look at how much you've healed. This is awareness. It sometimes feels like a curse because you can so easily understand what you're feeling, but find it so impossible to see the solution. But not so long ago, you couldn't even do that. You spent month after month feeling heavy, feeling hurt, and not knowing why. Awareness is a blessing. Awareness is growth.

You deserve to feel proud of this. You are human. You are okay. Everything is happening as it's supposed to happen. Healing is not supposed to be linear. We are supposed to keep learning each day. I love you. Be kind to yourself. From me. Wow, reading it again just puts a little bit of a chill through my body. And it's so interesting to see because even right now, I'm feeling that contentness again. And it just goes to show how much of a freaking rollercoaster life can be.

And I think that the one way to really get through all of this, all the good and all the bad, is to just accept that it's a roller coaster. Not try to find satisfaction in it or not try to fix it or not trying to think it's always going to be perfect. Life would be so freaking unenjoyable if it was perfect. And if you knew everything that was going to happen, I'm telling you,

As I was writing this is when I kind of decided that I was going to do this podcast episode because I was writing and I was writing all these things that I didn't even know I was thinking. I didn't even know I was feeling. I didn't even know what I was struggling with. I couldn't put my emotions and my feelings into words and that's something I've always had a really hard time doing. I've never really understood why. But again, I'm just accepting that I don't have to understand why. We never do.

But I was writing it all. I was like, okay, well, clearly you're very much more aware than you realized you were. And I think that that's why this is a good exercise for anyone who's listening to this or anyone in the world to do. Because sometimes when you write, all those subconscious thoughts and all those weird things in the back of your mind just surface somehow, some way. Something about a pen on paper or even typing it in your notes, they surface more than when you're just trying to think. Like this taught me,

that I put too much on my plate than I can handle. And I've always kind of known that, but I've never really realized it. Like I will do this thing where I'll set these extreme goals for myself and don't get me wrong, I believe in having extreme goals. But by extreme goals, I mean telling myself I'm going to wake up at 6 a.m. every day. Yet what I fail to recognize is that if I'm going to bed at 2 a.m., it's unrealistic for me to sleep for four hours. That'll drain me, that'll crush me.

and I don't need to wake up at 6 a.m. I think the whole waking up early thing for me is very ego-based like I simply want to wake up early to say I'm able to wake up early also to get things done and to go watch the sunrise but I don't have a problem admitting kind of where I don't really know how to word it I can admit that I'm human and sometimes I have an ego and sometimes I want to do things for the wrong reasons and I think anyone who can't admit that

is definitely lying. I promise you, we all do it. We literally all do it. But I recognized that setting a goal like that when I know I'm going to bed at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. because of whatever I'm staying up doing, whether I'm going out and partying with my friends or whether I'm sitting in bed just journaling until 2 a.m. That's what it was for me last night. I don't have to set those expectations because then what happens is I can't meet them.

And I crush myself. I destroy myself. I am so hard on myself just because I didn't wake up in the morning. And you can imagine how that sets the tone for the rest of your day. When you start your day being hard on yourself or calling yourself a failure,

You kind of carry that out through the whole day and I I know that you can turn a day around trust me I've watched this day turn around probably seven times Like it was great and then it sucked and then it was great and then it sucked and then it was great and then it sucked Now we're here and it's great and I feel calm and I feel peaceful and I feel I'm saying this again Extra excited to be recording this right now I don't know something's in the air, but everything is kind of just flowing through my mind and i'm loving it

But all that being said, this is another thing that I want to share with you, another thing I've learned about myself that I think can resonate with a lot of people. Morning routines. Unpopular opinion. No, I don't like them. And here's why. Like I just explained, if you don't wake up at the time that you tell yourself to wake up or that you want to wake up, you're automatically just setting yourself up for failure. You're setting yourself up for just some negative energy that's unnecessary. And the thing with morning routines is if you are someone –

who's capable of keeping a schedule and like doing things like that, then go for it. I am all for it. I'm saying for people like me who have the brain of a squirrel, who have to have something different every single day, who can't keep consistency for the life of them, those people, I'm talking to you, you don't need a morning routine. You can have like some goals, like some ideas of what you want to accomplish and what you want to do, but you can't have these

you must do this kind of things because it's not good for you and you don't deserve that. You're here to be alive, not to make the most perfectly aesthetically pleasing oatmeal and post a picture of it and not to be able to drink 32 ounces of water the second you wake up. You know, if you wake up hungover and you don't drink water, you just eat a big fat bagel with a lot of egg and cheese, like dude, that's fine. That's okay. Don't be so freaking hard on yourself, okay?

I'm feeling really passionate about that right now and I don't know if I'm just talking to myself through you guys or what's going on but don't be so hard on yourself. You're accomplishing so much and you're doing so much. I don't know why we always are just convinced that we're never doing enough. I mean I know exactly why. It's what the media has taught us. It's what we've been fed for year after year since kindergarten. You have to do this to be successful. You have to do this to be good enough and

When you can't quite meet that standard, you tear yourself apart. And it goes just so much deeper than that surface level, like go to college, get a job, have kids, get married, all that stuff. It goes into every little thing that we do because of how consumed we are by the media. I know, I'm sure a lot of you guys have seen The Social Dilemma. It's been out for years, but I remember watching it and just having this whole new understanding of the way that it works.

It feeds you exactly what it wants you to see. And that's not always good things by any means. Actually, it's more so bad than good. It takes a lot more effort to find the good in the media than it takes to find the bad in the media. I don't really know how I got onto that topic, but we're going to move on. I'm still looking at my list here of things that I was struggling with.

The next thing like I talked about was that everything must be perfect and I always feel like I have to be liked and I actually never really knew that that's how I felt but in the back of my mind I guess I did. I talked about this literally I think in the past two episodes but you are never perceived the way you think you're perceived. Like the way that you perceive yourself is completely different than the way someone else might perceive you and it just gives me a lot of

understanding and a lot of peace when I think about that because I don't know why I'm just such a people pleaser sometimes and I put myself on the back burner I stopped kind of caring about taking care of myself and I just kind of do whatever it takes to make me feel like I'm doing things right or I'm being likable and I

I do think that I've learned a lot and I'm not so much like that anymore. And for the most part, I'm pretty good at understanding that you can't please everyone. No matter how perfect you are to someone, you might still be the worst person in the world to someone else. And you really just have to be yourself because the people who stick around for you are the people that you actually want to keep around. You want to be yourself.

Because you want people around you who love you, not an idea of you that you're trying to create or a version of yourself that doesn't really exist. Because in the long run, you want true friends. You don't want people who just like that one version of you or that one side of you. And as hard as it is, sometimes you have to lose people along the way because they don't want to like you. And it's such a hard pill to swallow and no one wants to really accept it. But sometimes that's just how it goes, you know?

And that's okay because there's 7 billion, however many people are in this world. I promise a lot of them love you a lot and appreciate you. When you do lose people in your life or you do have to move on or you do have to cut people off, you have to see it as a blessing. You got to know that person. You got to know the version of yourself that you were when you were with them. You got to experience these things. As cheesy as this quote is,

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. Ew, I could not even say that. Wow. But seriously, appreciate experiences even when they suck. It's always a memory. It's always a story. Don't make it something negative. You don't realize it, but you do have the control to change that. I'm going back into my little talking about my past Hawaii experience spiral, but I'm

I now am able to look back on that time in my life when it was so dark, I was so depressed, I was so anxious, and I can look back on it with just gratitude. I can understand why I had to go through that to feel the way that I feel now. And I don't look at it in such a negative light where when I think about it, I get chills. It doesn't happen anymore.

I can talk about it freely and openly and that's why it really took me so long in the first place to be able to do that because it's a hard thing to talk about when you're in a low. You can't talk about it for months because you have to process those emotions and you have to understand them. And then finally, once you understand them, then you can talk about it. You can share it. You can learn from it and grow from it.

And I'm sure that a lot of times people around you won't understand that. They won't understand why you're at a low when you're at a low. They won't understand how it all works because a lot of people just don't get mental health. And even people who do get mental health, they weren't in your shoes. They didn't experience what you experienced. And I also just want to say that everything that you felt and everything that you struggled with is not something to be undermined.

And I am proud of what you've been through and what you've gone through. And I want to be the person who overpowers the other people who say, oh, it wasn't that bad. You were just sad. Or just do this and it'll get better. I want to be the person to tell you that I understand and I get it. And you don't owe anyone an explanation of why you did things that you did. Unless you like really hurt someone's feelings. I mean, then you should probably apologize. But that's not what I mean. I just mean you're not alone.

It's okay, and it's just going to keep getting better most of the time. Most of the time it gets better, sometimes it gets worse again, and then it gets better. I'm just in such a weird mood, you guys, and I don't know. I'm just understanding that it's a roller coaster, and I'm so sure that we've all felt it, and that's why I feel really confident in this episode, like resonating with a lot of people, because we've all had moments of feeling really good and then feeling really crappy, you know?

I also will say, since I don't have an outline, I might be talking all over the place and I might be repeating things. It's the squirrel brain. I don't really have that much control over it. So bear with me. Stick with me.

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Quick little intermission, you guys. We all know how important it is to prioritize the right things in our life. And maybe for you, that's prioritizing doing leg day at the gym or making sure you go for your hot girl walk. But how often are you prioritizing your mental health and making sure that therapy is a part of your weekly routine? If it's something that you've been open to, if it's something that you've been considering, I highly recommend BetterHelp. And thank you so much to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode. And I'll see you in the next one.

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I also have another really cool thing that I'm going to tell you guys about in just a few minutes. But before I get into that, I want to get back into this. I want to dissect this letter to myself a little bit more. And this episode is titled Realizing That Healing Isn't Always Linear. And I know I'm talking a little bit more about my healing journey, but I do think that a lot of us can relate to it. So that's why I'm going so deep into this letter. And also because when I posted it on TikTok, a lot of people were feeling the same way.

So I'm sure we're all feeling it. It's not something that any of us really talk about. That's the thing with mental health is that it's so normalized until you kind of need it to be normal and then it feels like no one's really talking about what you're feeling. So I'm happy to be that person because, I don't know, I've just gone to a point where I'm really comfortable sharing all the crap that is weird and hard to talk about and hard to understand. And I honestly think that that's because you guys have made me feel so safe and

And I talked about this before, but I am just so grateful for this podcast because when I first started talking about all this mental health stuff, I didn't really know how it was going to go. Like I didn't really know how it was going to come across. But the response that I got from it when I first started talking about my struggles was so comforting. Like when I tell you I got so many DMs of people saying, oh my God, I feel the same way. Like I thought I was the only one who felt this way. Just helps me heal.

And even more than that, whenever I was struggling, you guys pushed me through some of the hardest days of my life without even realizing it. Your support, your kindness, just your words of wisdom. Like I literally love you guys and I'm just happy that we can both be – I forgot how to speak English. I'm just happy that we can both be there for each other because we all need a little bit more of that. We need a little bit more love, a little bit more friendship, and a lot less –

drama and crap and you guys get it. Moving on. This next one is a little bit deeper for me and it's still very current and I still feel this one a lot. When I wrote to myself, you feel like you're never doing enough but also like you're doing too much. And this works in a lot of different parts of my life but when I wrote it, I meant more so when I struggle with deciding whether I should like

go out and socialize or if I should just stay home and work on myself because lately in the past couple years I've really been in touch with like my introverted side and I think a lot of this stemmed from like social anxiety that I got in college or that really started in college because I

I had such bad social anxiety that sometimes I would just not go to things or not go to events because I was nervous. I mean, if you've ever struggled with social anxiety, props to you. The girls that get it, get it. It's not fun.

But I would just stay home because I was too anxious to go somewhere. And I fell in love with that alone time. I really, really just got a grasp on how much I enjoyed being alone. And I made a funny TikTok the other day. Not the other day. It was probably like over a month ago at this point. But it was pretty lighthearted. It was like one of those audios. And I said something about social anxiety turning me into an introvert.

and it got some hate in the comments and i don't know if you guys saw that but i was like whoa whoa i just mean i learned how to love being alone and i ultimately just became introverted in my social anxiety stem dot so it was another reason to be grateful for going through bad experiences because i would have never learned how to love alone time if it wasn't for that bump in the road you know and bringing that all back to today

I love being alone. I love being an introvert and I love being out here with all my friends, but it gets hard because living where I live, it's an area where everything kind of feels like college and there's parties on the weeknights and the weekends and it's like, oh, should we go out to dinner and should we go hang out with blah, blah, blah and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, I love that a lot.

But I lose the balance often because I know what I need and I know what I want in my heart. But I also am still human and I still do get FOMO. And sometimes I force myself to go when I don't really want to go. And it's not just because I'm scared of FOMO. It's because I don't want to let my friends down. I don't want to let people down. Like when people want me to be around, like I want to be around. And it's just such a hard thing for me because when I do go out and honestly, I've gone to a point where

This is kind of random and I don't know. I'm just going to say it anyways in case someone else has ever struggled with it. Like when I used to go out, I had to drink. And now that I'm 21, I really have no problem talking about this. But like I would drink, drink. And I would have to be pretty drunk if I was going to be able to socialize and talk to people without being nervous about it. And I've slowly been learning that I'm capable of going out and not drinking. Like the other day, I was the driver to the party. That's not normally me.

I never normally volunteer for that position and I was able to socialize and I was really doing okay and I was doing well. But even then, we still got home late. I still woke up a little bit stressed about it the next day because I was like, oh, I could have been doing this or I should have been doing this instead. And then I'll take a night off and I won't go do something and then not that I'll have regrets but I'll be like, dang, like maybe I could have gone. I should have gone. I'm young. I should experience things.

It's just a really weird thing for me to navigate. With this one, I don't really have too much advice because it's something I'm still struggling with currently, but I do think I'm coming to terms with the fact that I know what I need. I know that I sometimes am a lot happier when I just stay home. I love my friends. I love my circle. I'm not at a point in my life where I feel like I need to go make new friends. If a new friend is going to come into my life

I think that it's going to be organically and naturally, like if I'm hiking or something, not like I'm going to go to this party and have surface level conversations and make some new friends. And I don't know if that's bad of me to say, but I'm just really content with who I have in my life. And I think that that's okay. And I'm confident in saying that. And it's a whole different story if you are at a point where you want to go make friends and meet new people, by all means do it. Like I think that that's a beautiful thing. I'm just not right now, not currently thinking

At that point or in that place, are you guys picking up what I'm putting down? I hope I'm saying things that make sense. And then that being said, the next line is you focus so much on finding balance that you lose the balance completely. I'm learning that it really defeats the whole freaking purpose of balance to be so focused on balance. When you chase something down so hard, it's not going to come to you. You're never going to be able to catch it. When you attract things towards you, that's when you can really do it.

I remember for a little while in the fall, I started saying that affirmation, I don't chase, I attract. What is meant for me will simply find me. And I was saying it like days in a row, like probably for a few weeks. And all this really crazy, incredible, amazing stuff was happening in my life. And honestly, I blame it on that affirmation. So I think that I need to get back into that. And if you haven't started doing that, maybe we should just all do it.

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So I'm going to be completely honest. I just had to pause that recording because I had to answer a text and I completely forget what I said last. So we're just going to move on. Just kidding. I remember we were talking about the affirmation. Yeah, start saying that. I don't chase. I attract. What is meant for me will simply find me. You repeat it a few times every day. I was saying it in my Snapchat memories or saying it in Snapchat and then saving it to my memories every day. And yeah, let's bring that back.

And let's stop trying to force things to be balanced because that's not balance. Balance is something that happens naturally. And I just did a journal entry in my notes the other day about balance and how I felt like I finally felt it. But balance is one of those things where if, you know, one thing puts a little bit more weight on one side, you lose the balance. But you can always bring it back. Just be patient with it. Just trust it.

Life is a shit show sometimes, excuse my language, but life can be a freaking disaster. And I think there's a lot of beauty in just knowing that and just being aware of it. I also talk about in here, I'll read it again. Look at how much you've grown. Look at what you've accomplished. Look how much you've healed. This is awareness. It sometimes feels like a curse because you can so easily understand what you're feeling, but find it impossible to see the solution.

But not so long ago, you couldn't do that. You spent month after month feeling heavy and hurt and not knowing why. Awareness is a blessing. Awareness is growth. You deserve to feel proud of this. And it's just so freaking cool. It's just so freaking cool when you get to a point in your life where you've healed and you still have bad days and you still have really, really crappy moments of mental health, but you're aware of it and you're aware of why you're feeling it. And it's not that you know how to fix it, but you just know it's going to be better because you get it.

And you know that it's going to pass. Just like you know it's going to come, you know it's going to pass. And it's just being okay with what is going to happen. And I know you guys probably get sick of me saying all this stuff. And if you don't, thank you. I just am really big on repetition. And I repeat that too. But we need to hear things until we freaking finally take them in. The amount of times my therapist has told me some of this stuff

since I've been talking to her for the past like six or seven months, some of it just started clicking. Some of it just started making sense. And she's told me this week in, week out for months. So I'm here to be that person. I'm not like, you know, a professional therapist or anything. I don't have any degrees, but I have had my fair share of personal experience. So I'm just here to tell you about it. Just here to share it. Just here to make sure that you don't feel alone in whatever it is that you're going through.

Because you are human. You are a beautiful, unique, living soul who gets to live on this earth, this massive rock floating through the universe. Just be okay with what's going on around you. Just be okay with knowing that some days are going to hurt more than others. And you don't have to make it a huge deal. You just have to feel it and you have to let it flow and you have to let it go.

And trust me, if someone tried to tell me these things when I was at a low, I would feel angry. I would feel mad. I would feel like they just don't get it. And I know that I don't get it. I don't know your situation. I don't know what you're going through. And I'm sure it could be really heavy. But I'm just telling you, eventually it will pass. And the grass will get greener. You have to water it though. Put in the work. Take care of yourself. Journal. Do all that fancy jazz.

And you'll be able to watch it unfold. I promise. So I'm really, I'm just grateful. Thank you for being here. It's one of those nights. I am totally going to go journal about gratitude. But before I do that, I'm telling you again about the journal exercise that completely blew my mind. And if you did it the first time, you could probably just stop listening here because I think it's the last thing I'm going to talk about. But journaling one year from now, like writing a journal entry for the date that's a year from now.

And writing it like it's the present tense. So you're envisioning like your dream life and where you're at, but you're writing it like it already happened. In the one that I wrote back in August, I wrote that I had a podcast and a van and neither of those things were really a thought before I did that entry. Like I knew that I always would like kind of want to start a podcast. I knew that I always wanted to travel in a van, but nothing was real. Nothing was put out into the world. It was just something that I thought in my mind.

And I wrote that and that started happening and a lot of other things in that journal entry started happening too lately. And I'm just, I don't know. It's really cool. So I want you to do it. And I want you to trust me when I tell you to do it. It's going to feel stupid at the start. Mine was so cringy in the beginning. I was like, I just woke up. I just had a coffee. I'm sitting with my mom.

It was cute. It was cute. But by the end of it, I was like crying. I had chills. I was like, whoa. I didn't even know that that's what I wanted. I didn't even know that those were my goals. And again, when the pen hits the paper or you start typing something, all your thoughts come to the surface. So that's what I'm going to leave you with. If you asked me one thing that I talked about in this episode, I probably couldn't tell you. I really feel like I was all over the place. But I hope it reminded you that the healing journey isn't going to be linear.

But you are going to heal. And you are going to gain an understanding of why you're feeling what you're feeling. And you might not be able to fix it immediately, but it'll make a little bit more sense. And it'll put you a lot at ease. And if you guys have been listening to this since the beginning, you probably can even tell in my own thoughts and in my own mindset that this shift has happened, which is a really, really cool thing. But I love you guys. And I'm grateful for you. And I hope you know that you're doing amazing things, that you're right where you're supposed to be,

And I want you to keep being positive. Keep the mindset where it should be and just trust. Okay, I'm getting repetitive. I'm getting annoying and overly positive. So we're going to end it here. I really enjoyed recording that episode. So I love you guys. Hopefully there's going to be a guest on next week. I'm sure that there is because I have a couple people that I want to record with.

And yeah, so I think everyone's going to get back from dinner soon. And I think that we're going to have some friends over. So I'm going to make tonight a good night. And if it's a daytime for you, I want you to do the same. If it's the night for you, I want you to get a good night's sleep. I love you. I'll talk to you soon. And I hope you're smiling.