Hello you! Yes, you.
So you are here. That means you know a thing or two about self-healing. Or you want to know. Either way, I’m glad you are here and genuinely hope this will be of help.
I am AJ, an aspiring writer and a domestic abuse survivor on a healing journey. Oh, and a lawyer by the day.
Let me tell you a story.
2017
I started college. It was supposed to help me figure out what I wanted to do, but I was more confused than ever. To the extent of hating Law (my degree), starting two businesses, working part-time, and, being severely depressed. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I tried anything and everything but ended up feeling lower each time. I knew something was not right, but I did not know what. I tried forcing myself to do better at everything, hoping to feel better.
I needed a quick fix. I needed to feel better quickly. So I started traveling. It did help me distract myself from the constant pain and stress I was going through. It actually made me happy. So yeah, I found my quick fix. But when I got back to my regular life, the depression and not feeling enough never stopped. Even writing about that now feels like scratching my heart.
By this time, I had fortunately gotten to know people who were pursuing happiness and peace in life. But I never thought of myself as a person who had the option to do the same. For some reason, while contradicting thoughts were there paining my existence, I still found different ways to feel better.
Thanks to the kind and genuine souls I met, I tried yoga, inner dance, meditation, and many other approaches. They did work. For some time. But when I could not continue any of those consistently, I was full of shame for my inability to be consistent. Nobody had to judge me because I was doing a great job myself. There were days I couldn’t muster the courage to get out of bed to attend lectures. This continued.
2019
I started learning about my family dynamics. I don’t remember how, but I was realizing that my upbringing was not what is considered to be normal. In fact, it was highly dysfunctional. I came across The Holistic Psychologist. Her work was hitting the nerve, to say the least. My eyes were opened to what was happening and the reasons behind how I was feeling. Still, I was not sure what was happening. I researched and studied more and more about childhood trauma, trauma bonding, generational trauma, self-healing, the inner child, and all that. I had the information, and I was sitting on it. Obviously, given the self-critic I was (sometimes I still am) feeling ashamed about not doing anything about it.
Life flowed with shame, self-judgment, not feeling enough, people-pleasing, anxiety, and depression.
2021
And then 2021 happened. We (my siblings and I) refused to be a part of the dysfunctional family and got ourselves out of the situation. It was an impulsive decision made out of desperation with no money and no proper plan about what we were going to do. All of this while I was sinking deep in depression, feeling suicidal, and preparing for my bar exam. But we survived. I survived.
2023
Still had all the information about healing from my childhood trauma, but I did not realize I actually had to internalize the information and start practicing it until I had a few anxiety attacks at work, in a different country away from people I was close to.
I started actively thinking about healing myself this time. Now I am in the process of teaching myself minuscule things about how I can learn and unlearn many thoughts, patterns, and ways of life that I thought were who I was. So yes, it is a work in progress.
Over the past few months, I have made progress.
For example, I knew I liked writing, but never thought I deserved to be a writer (at some point). Honestly, it sounded like a very joke. Whenever the thought of writing something came to my mind, I used to brush it off by saying to myself I wasn’t good enough to do that. Or that I’d miserably fail.
Well, here I am writing a blog. So isn’t that progress? I still have those doubts, and I know that they don’t just vanish. I have accepted that and I have accepted that I can try and see how things go. There is really nothing to lose. (Still, trauma responding, but better ☺ )
Why this blog?
I know there are so many great professionals, bloggers, YouTubers, and other content creators who already do great work on healing. But I want to share and journal how it is to heal, while you are still in the process. And how it is to heal as someone in their late 20s, who is working on learning about a whole new world. I want to share my experience. And I want to let you know that there is hope. There is always a possibility to change.
I want to let everyone who is struggling know that the struggle is okay. It is okay to feel like shit. And that is part of life. Life is not always about laughing, celebrating, and being surrounded by your loved ones. The struggle is life too. The wanting to be better is life too. Being alone is life too. I want you to see that you don’t have to achieve things to be happy. You can be happy now. Even more than that, I want you to know that you can have peace in life. Everyday.
When I scoured Google and social media for help, the most inspired I felt was when I heard stories about how people overcame their struggles, more than (the great professional) advice shared by professionals. I am not saying they are not helpful, of course, they are! But the struggles people went through, the challenges they had to face while trying to get better, and the resilience they had always remind me that I am not alone.
In this blog, I talk about tips, and tools to navigate life with more awareness and clarity through my healing experience.
I have learned that clarity is not something you can gain overnight. It needs practice, even when you don’t think it does. Some of us are conditioned to think that we need to be able to figure things out right away. While the thought is tempting, the real world with mindfulness doesn’t work that way. I will break down simple things to be simpler and easier to understand. Like how you can do 1 thing per day that will make you happy. Yes, that simple.
So this blog will be more than just some blog posts. This will be the journal of my healing journey which I am looking forward to sharing with you. This will be a ray of hope for someone who wants to know if they can be better. This will be a living example of that.
So what can I say, other than Thank You for being here!
I would love it if you could join me on this journey.