FREE FROM SHAME

Hey there friends,

I’m beaming in to you, fresh from our most recent Goddess Circle, which was simply BEAUTIFUL.

Apart from the usual magic that was created through all who attended, I shared unexpectedly about my journey with my mental health.  I felt safe, held and understood in that space, and un-judged.

I shared that I still have to take medication for my condition.  And this is something that I have held a lot of shame and secrecy over since embarking on my life coaching journey a couple of years ago.

I felt that to be a life coach, I had to be 100% perfect. That I “should” have my “sh*t together”, and that I “should” have healed my own depression.

But the fact is that where I am now in my life, I have to take my medication.  I was diagnosed with “manic depression” way way back in my 20’s.

Now, I could speculate, knowing what I know, that I quite possibly and probably had ADHD from a young age, plus endometriosis, hormonal fluctuations and BAM a recipe for depression!

I fought my depression for YEARS. I discovered yoga, which helped, and I would also self medicate with recreational drugs. I went through life in a rollercoaster of emotional states.

And I was never able to move forward in my life. I left a trail of unfinished degrees, qualifications, jobs, relationships behind me.  Even when I started medication, I was still stuck in my old patterns.  I even abandoned the therapist I had started with, and never looked back.

It was only when I began to take responsibility for my mental health, and my wellbeing that I actually started to implement change.  Baby steps at first.

In fact, I think it was the powerful culmination of making a CHOICE to change, and from there, working with a coach to guide and support me, that has brought me to where I am now.

I still have to take medication, but that is just a chemical crutch.

It’s the deep, inner work that I do, every single day, the same inner work that I teach my coaching clients, that helps me to be the most me, the best version, the most compassionate version of myself that I have ever been.  It is THIS work that is helping me fulfil my potential, that has kept me moving forward, creating magic, growing, expanding and evolving.

So yeah, I might have to be on medication forever. Then again, I might not! I will consistently keep testing myself, to see if I can come off it, but I won’t be ashamed of it, if I can’t.

If an epileptic felt ashamed about the medication they have to take to keep their chemicals stable, you wouldn’t ever suggest that they don’t take them. And it’s exactly the same.  Sure, it could have been extraneous events in early childhood that may have changed the chemicals in your brain, but does it really matter?

What matters is who you CHOOSE to be, and how you can make the MOST of this life that we have been gifted. Whether it’s medicated or not.