#MentalHealth: A Documentary

When I launched London Mind Fit my goal was to illustrate to those who need to hear it most that you can recover from mental health conditions. Not only can you recover, but it is important that you tell yourself that you can and that you will.

While not all mental health conditions are made equal, we are all human beings with will power living in a world where miracles happen everyday. My recovery from my mental health issues has seen great successes and true progress that I am so grateful for. All of the hard work that I have put into my healing process, including making this documentary, has been worth it because of where I stand in regards to my health today.

I am stronger than before, I am wiser than before, and I am disciplined about my mental health regimens. While every day is a new day to tackle obstacles and experience growth, sometimes decisive action is what need, sometimes rest is exactly what we require, and sometimes expressing your truth is what we need to move forward. Learning how to listen to your body, mind and intuition and respond accordingly is how you can best learn how to take care of yourself. At the end of the day, we all have our own very specific, wants, desires and needs.

Remember the saying, “where there’s a will there’s a way?” Remember that the next time it feels like your path has lost light and you cannot see the rest of the way. Ask yourself, can I see the next step? And if the answer is yes, take baby steps and crawl until the lights come back on and you’re sprinting down a clear path of reality again.

Watch #MentalHealth: A Documentary today on YouTube and please share this documentary with your loved ones, especially if you believe that there is someone that it can help.

Baby Steps Are Essential

Baby steps are the best place to start when you are trying to climb out of a difficult spot. While regular steps tend to involve the more arduous heavy lifting, baby steps are a necessary part to beginning any journey.

“Baby steps” are sometimes the most nerve-racking steps to take, because they are typically the first ones. Everything at this stage is unknown and you are a novice, but once you find a momentum, those baby steps will eventually be eons away. You will eventually be making great strides. What is important is that you start, and what is important is that you believe that you can recover and reach your end goal.

Sometimes you have to start and stop, just to re-begin again when you are in a better place. There is no shame in that and the end result will be the same. We all have different stories and experiences that shape our perspectives. How we feel when we hit the depths that push us to finally do something about it has a lot to do with when baby steps can begin. It is often from hitting rock-bottom that things somehow can become clear again. And for everyone, this moment looks different.

In my mental health journey I have had to start and stop just to re-begin, more times than once. Actually more times than I can technically count. But there was a key “baby steps” moment in my life when I was “in the thick of it” mentally. I reference this moment on The Eric Ibey Podcast.

The instance I am talking about right now was when I couldn’t write. I was in my mid-20’s and I was highly depressed after harsh hospitalizations, overmedicated and trying to process trauma. At this point I could barely speak, and I definitely couldn’t write. This was especially alarming for me because I am a writer. I had no idea how to dig myself out of the hole I found myself in, and the mental health professionals didn’t seem to have the answers that I needed.

So one day I purchased a Van Gogh notebook and decided that it would be my second book. I called it “I & I”. At the point when I got the notebook, I couldn’t even write a sentence let alone a whole book. I knew that writing an entire book would be ambitious at that point but that was my end goal at the time. And so I told myself, “Okay, first I will write a word. And then, the next day, I’ll write a sentence. After that, I’ll write a paragraph. And from there, a page.” And so on, and so forth. “I&I” didn’t survive as a book, but within a few months of starting it I would write an 80,000 word book helping me process my trauma.

That process would lead to being published on multiple writing platforms online, writing numerous manuscripts, and finding the confidence to pour myself into songwriting as well. But none of that would have been possible without the baby steps at the beginning.

If you’re in a place where you have to take baby steps, please be patient with yourself along the journey. Most things do not happen overnight but with layers of bricks laid to create a solid foundation over time. Find your rhythm and put in the work; the results are always worth the effort and time where your mental health is concerned.