If you want to get to know yourself better, if you want to do internal work, if you want to start healing… getting into a solid, daily meditation practice is one of the best ways I know how! While it might feel uncomfortable at first, you will certainly lean into it over time and learn to use it as a form of cultivating some of the deepest inner peace you will ever come to know.

When it comes to healing trauma, the path is never linear, nor is there one specific kind of path. Right here, right now, I’m speaking from my own experience, and giving insight into the profundity of creating, and healing trauma through creative expression.

Truly nurturing yourself and learning to meet your most basic needs is what real self-care is all about. So that when it comes to something like a manicure and a face mask, or a weekend vacation with your boo, these feel more like a cherry on top of the cake, than using a defibrillator on a flatlining patient. Self-care should be preventative, and act on the offensive to anchor you in the storm of life. It shouldn’t be something you turn to only when the bough breaks, and the water is flooding into the boat.

Cultivating self-worth is not a linear process, and there will be setbacks along the way. Be patient and trust that The Universe has your back. Your worth comes from that place of love. Each step you take toward honoring your true self brings you closer to a life lived authentically, in a state of profound self-love.

Confidence like that comes from a silent, internal place that says, “I know who I am, I know what I like and what I don’t, I understand myself, and I accept myself completely. I show up as me. I do life as me. And if you don’t like me, then you are not for me.”

The dreams are your X, but the map is the journey. The map is the steps you need to take. The day in and day out. The baby steps. The milestones along the way. These are what make up the map. The journey is truly what is meant to be achieved.

It’s one thing to know something… to read a quote, or hear a sermon and think “Yes girl! Preach! Ain’t it the TRUTH!” It’s another thing to hear something and have it completely sink it, altering your vantage point for good.

When it comes to finances, it’s important to understand that if you’re not taking care of your money, or being fiscally responsible, you’re more likely to experience higher levels of stress, affecting your overall mental health. And, if you’re like me, you may even internalize a poor financial situation as shame, thinking, “I am bad,” for all of the turmoil it can cause.

Once you feel at peace with yourself, you trust yourself, you’re at home in your body, you’re grounded by your health practices, your cup is full, you are able to start pouring from your cup and giving back to others in a bigger way. This in turn further fuels your own sense of being fully well because it feeds your sense of PURPOSE.

When it comes to being healthy and well, the first things we tend to think about are diet and exercise. While there is so much more to being FULLY well, like taking care of your mental health, finding purpose in your work, engaging in joyful activities and faith or spiritual practices, good, solid diet and exercise are still huge slices of the whole pie!

In my own healing and wellness journey, I started exercising in support of my Mental Health. My therapist invited me to start a meditative walking practice, so I did, and it didn’t take very long to start feeling the other effects of regular exercise. Brain fog lifted, I slept better, my confidence improved, and I had more energy. This is when I started to realize the deeply rooted connection between the Mind, the Body and the Spirit.

When you’re not allowing yourself to rest and play before you burn out for instance, you’re unconsciously telling your system that you don’t deserve it. I’m here to tell you that you do deserve it. You do not need to earn rest. In fact, we must implement rest and play into our lives before we get to a place of burn out. Making time to have fun and relax in a proactive way can help us prevent things like burn out, and it can help us regulate our nervous system. Hello, living room dance parties with my dog!

I now firmly believe that if you’re going to do internal work, healing work, personal development and the like… you need a little Faith, a little belief in something, to ground you and anchor you in your journey.

When I started on my own healing and wellness journey, I started with mental health. Not because I knew to start there, but because I felt in my bones that I could no longer attempt to work on things like physical fitness and nutrition, financial woes, or finding my purpose until I had done the deeper work to heal my childhood trauma and find inner peace.

When I say “personal development” I mean… What are you working on learning? How are you growing? What are you reading? Watching? Listening to? Who do you follow? Are you doing therapeutic work? Do you journal? Are you trying to learn about yourself? All of it qualifies.

If there is one thing I swear by as one of the key elements of going on a healing journey, it’s meditation. Now, if you’re someone who is thinking, “I don’t know how to meditate”, or flat out, “I just can’t meditate.” Stay with me for a minute.

In my own wellness journey, I didn’t see this until I scaled what I would call my “first mountain”, which simply (and not so simply at all), involved getting to a place where I had created new habits in my life that support my mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

Full Circle Wellness is a variation of the “pie of life” where Three Core Areas of Wellness are in good balance.

What are the Three Core Areas of Wellness? Mind, Body, and Spirit.

You can heal, you can grow, you can move past the trauma, you can let go of the thing, you can put a stop to generational violence and drama, and choose a new path. That’s why I have to say, I don’t know you, but you know you, and if you’re here with me it’s because whatever backstory you have, has led you here. Maybe you’re here to see how someone else’s story played out. Maybe you’re here to see if I can help. I hope that I can.

When it comes to embarking on a healing journey, taking the path to Full Circle Wellness, and choosing to make changes in your life to improve your overall well-being… you’re going to need to set some boundaries.