Thank you for indulging in my year of discussing how mental health issues showed up in my life and how I’ve managed to become a healthier version of myself. I wanted to close out the year with a few resources that supported me over the past six years just in case you planned on working on yourself in the future. *
Oprah & Deepak Miraculous Relationships 21-Day Meditation: I remember doing this meditation like it was yesterday. I’d sat down to figure out how I could have better relationships with everyone in my life. At that time, I wasn’t speaking to one of my favorite cousins because he hadn’t introduced me to his then fiancée, had missed my doctoral graduation, and had begun drifting away from me. Two of my goddaughters hated me; one of them, according to their father, didn’t even want to vacation in Florida because then, they’d “have to visit Kathy.” And my marriage was a hot mess. When I sat down to do this meditation, I thought for sure it was going to offer a prescription for how to be better at relationships. Instead, it focused on the relationship I had with myself. It truly was miraculous, and I recommend it for anyone who has so-called relationship issues.
Mindvalley: It’s hard to explain what Mindvalley is, and I don’t even remember how I stumbled across it, but many of the videos and podcasts that the founder, Vishen Lakhiani offers have helped me develop a new perspective of the world and everything in it. For example, Lakhiani created a term called brules, which stands for bullshit rules. In short, these are cultural norms that we all learn that limit who we can become. One brule is “your success should look like someone else’s success,” something that I think we can all agree isn’t true. Mindvalley offers information from people you may (or may not) have heard of, such as Lisa Nichols, Michael Beckwith, Jim Kwik, Marisa Peer, or Neale Donald Walsch. Each person has a specific message about a topic intended to increase your personal growth. I especially suggest listening to the podcast whenever you can.
Mirror Work: 21 Days to Heal Your Life: Louise Hay, the author of this book, is an internationally and well-known healer. But before I praise the contents, I do want to say, that of course, no one can heal themselves, no matter the issue, in twenty-one days. However, this book is a great example of something that can jumpstart the process. I enjoy it because it provides you with four things: 1) a short explanation of the day’s concept, 2) the day’s mantra and mirror work, 3) a journal prompt, and 4) a free meditation you download from Hay’s site. With the exception of two, I spent approximately fifteen minutes per day doing this mirror work. Even though I’d done a lot of introspection and healing over the course of six years, this book was very helpful in showing me where I still needed to heal and grow. It highlighted people with whom I still held resentment and anger and provided me with healthy ways to acknowledge, accept, and move forward in processing these emotions.
Other resources that I won’t explain in great detail:
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is like a self-help book masked as literature. The overall message (for me) seemed to be that all of our lives are spiritual journeys and how we walk them is up to us. Essentially, we can do what we want here on this earth.
“The 7 Essene Mirrors” explained by Gregg Braden shows how we’re all, essentially, mirrors of one another. Everyone with whom you’re close to is showing you something about yourself. This video is two long hours, with no glitz or glam, but it helped me process possible reasons for why I judged those close to me.
Get Over It!: Thought Therapy for Healing the Hard Stuff is a self-help book that is a little woo-woo. If you believe that perhaps your mother’s mental state and overall health condition during the time you were floating around in amniotic fluid impacted you in some way, then this book is for you. It’s mostly centered on cognitive behavioral therapy concepts, which loosely explained, demonstrates how thought processes can lead you to a better way of dealing with past trauma.
As we enter 2021, I hope we remember that no matter what’s going on around us, we still have a responsibility to name, heal, and process what’s going on inside of us. Each of these resources have helped me to deal with my mental health in some way, which has also shifted how I function in most relationships.
Please feel free to add anything in the comments as I believe you never know what may support someone else.
*Disclaimer: I have not been paid to market any of these resources. Statements are my personal opinion.
I’d decided to do a relationship meditation hosted by Oprah and Deepak. I thought the meditation would help me have a better relationship with my husband, father, cousins, and in-laws. What was surprising is the meditation really focused on the relationship I had with myself. This was achieved through chanting mantras and answering journal prompts. One of the questions asked this: What, if anything, are you afraid of finding out about yourself? Or something like that.
Afterwards, I stopped stifling tears and emotions. I began using honest communication in most situations. I refused to follow family and society’s made-up rules of engagement. From that day forward, I knew it was better for me to share emotions than it was to harbor resentment and damage myself further. This ranged from answering simple questions, like “How do you like working here?” to harder ones, like, “Why haven’t you invited me to your parties?” with truth. With many people, I ceased hiding my emotions, and subsequently, protecting theirs. I don’t mean to say that I trample on others’ feelings; that would be insensitive, but rather, I don’t hold back for fear of what others will think. I don’t owe anyone a lie or a watered-down answer because they’re ill-equipped to deal with how I feel or because they’re not used to hearing a different opinion.
In the early part of 1998, I had a miscarriage that resulted in a 
As soon as I read about each chakra, I related immediately to how the explanations represented different parts of my life, which had slipped out of alignment. For example, I knew my throat chakra, which is associated with self-expression, was too open because symptoms included gossiping, arrogance, and condescension. For those of you who only know me through this blog, it may seem uncharacteristic, but at one point, these described me perfectly. Conversely, once I began chakra-based meditations, I began to speak a little differently and learned to communicate in kinder ways (i.e., this blog).
First, I alerted everyone I could through social media so that people didn’t think I was ignoring them. In this social media age, people’s feelings are hurt quite quickly if they don’t hear instantly from you. This worked for the most part. For family, like Grannie, who are not on these platforms, I simply left a message on her answering machine asking her to please wait until July 1st to speak with me, unless of course, there is an emergency. For others like my father, who sent photos of his grandson’s kindergarten graduation, I replied with the photo you see here. And for my cousin who called with news of their newborn baby, I begged Dwight to call him back so I could listen, but not respond.
Along with these fourteen silent days, I also decreased my sugar intake. This isn’t new to me. About four years ago, I did a 21-day detox that excluded all sugars. This time, I followed the recommendation that women have no more than 25 grams per day. Initially it was challenging, and I hovered around 24-50. But overall, it was a success. When I remove sugar, my brain becomes clearer; subsequently, my thoughts and dreams are also lucid. And combined with silence, it’s like a veil was removed, revealing the direction in which I needed to travel.
