It’s been several months of feeling quite well. To me, that simply means waking up every day without the sensation of a heavy weight on my chest. Progress!

I’ve been focusing on my mental health for over 4 years. And during that process, I’ve realized how caring for myself, the world, and all living beings are deeply interconnected. The realization started by reading about yoga philosophy and the science-proven benefits of its practice, and upon this discovery, I’ve studied yoga in India and gotten certified, became a vegetarian and then a vegan, just recently started to apply low waste changes in my life, and overall developed awareness to be more compassionate towards others and especially towards myself. The practice of compassion is a daily exercise and I still have a long way to go. Sometimes I get in ruts and I start focusing on bigger picture issues as opposed to looking inwards and caring for myself first.

Self-care and compassion are part of a long healing journey and sometimes I can get overwhelmed by it. Part of it is me being a perfectionist and forgetting that this is a practice and not a goal. The other part is the self-saboteur that resides in me, waiting for an opportunity to take over. As we know, knowledge is power, but when you’re dealing with mental illness, the more you know, the more your self-saboteur also knows, and that’s when things can turn to shit.

During this process of feeling better mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically, I’ve realized that although exercising, eating nutritious food, avoiding toxic environments (both physically and energetically), and perpetuating joy are the main pillars of my well-being, exercising is the main one or, at least for me, the one that catalyzes all the other ones to fall into place. Without exercise, I start losing motivation to cook, be creative, meditate, and overall keep my healthy habits going. Ironically enough, exercise is the first thing to go when I start feeling the blues.

Finding balance is a daily practice and I try to take it day by day. Just writing this right now is confronting and at the same time reassuring as my healthy and self-loathing habits become more obvious. I find it ironic that knowing exactly what helps me thrive and what makes me sick can be both the greatest tool and the biggest weapon. I always wonder if ignorance is, in fact, bliss.

I have to confess I haven’t exercised for a couple of weeks. I’m switching my approach to it and rearranging my physical activities, both financially and schedule-wise, and along with that reconfiguring, I’ve found it easier to make excuses to not move at all. Today was a productive day, a learning day, and a creative day. I’m feeling good about that. I’m feeling good, period. I’m ready to get back in track. I’ll keep you posted.