Welcome to my little blog where I document my journey towards better mental health, a confident self and a more positive mind.  Over the past 2.5 years I have gone from having incredible social anxiety, a dead-end job doing the same old day in and day out, to this wonderful place where I am now brimming with confidence in myself and my own abilities. 

It wasn’t always the case, there was a time when I really struggled to make sense of the world, I was negative (although I liked to call myself a “pessimist”), I felt incredibly lonely and my career was going nowhere as I just didn’t have the confidence in myself to put myself forward at work. 

For most of my life I always felt I was on the outside, looking in. The best way to describe it is to imagine you are walking through a dark forest, and in the distance you see a light, when you get closer to the light, you realise that there’s a cabin, with warm light shining from the windows, smoke billowing from the chimney and laughter and happy noises coming through the walls.

But you are still standing outside the cabin in the dark, getting colder and hungrier and lonelier.  You can see all the happy people on the inside, sitting around a dining table, eating delicious food, there is a fire going in the fireplace and children are playing with their toys in front of the warm fire.  Music plays from a speaker in the corner. Everyone on the inside is happy, warm, content, they love each other and they are LOVED.

But I was only ever on the outside, looking in.  Nothing I did could get me inside, I was stuck feeling lonely and afraid and unloved.  My social anxiety was such that even if I had managed to get inside, if I had managed to get someone’s attention and they invited me in, where it was warm and full of joy, I would still have felt like I was outside, being unable to talk to people, or enjoy their company, or make small talk, relax in their company, or just generally enjoy myself.  Social situations were a nightmare for me and no matter how lonely it was outside, I would not be happier inside.

I dealt with my lack of confidence, my social anxiety and my isolation in many ways.  I exercised more, ate more healthy, I spent a lot of time understanding and researching and working on my physical health. I found that routines and habits made me feel safe and relaxed.  So every morning my routine to get ready for work would be the exact same thing, steps performed in the exact same order, over and over and over, no deviation. The same for getting home from work.  My work in general was exceedingly stressful and having routines alongside a lifestyle that isolated myself from society helped to reduce my stress and anxiety.  

But it was awful.  I really struggled to make friends, and when I did, meeting them socially was a problem, and it still is. I am not any more social than I was 5 years ago.

But I have improved. I have become more adaptable, less rigid, more positive, my mental health is much better and I have gained confidence in myself and my own abilities.  Now, when something “bad” happens, I can let it go instead of becoming fixated on it or obsessively think about it or examine it to death by replaying a moment over and over.

This happened over a period of years, and I have learned many coping skills.  But most of all, I realised that I was not alone, that my problems weren’t that unique.  What I have and am experiencing others have suffered from too.  

It occured to me that perhaps I could help others by sharing some of my hard learned lessons.  In spite of not being social, I have always enjoyed helping others with their emotional or mental health problems, helping them work through it, lending an ear or a shoulder to let off steam, guiding them towards a better decision or simply letting them know that it’s ok to put yourself first.

I feel that mental health is such an important part of our lives, yet even today, with greater awareness, it’s still a taboo topic for most. Instead we spend time in the gym, obsessing over calories, how much we drink or smoke, or getting our 5 a day of fruit and vegetables.

If we could spend only a fraction of that time on our mental health, just think what we can accomplish.  

Instead of trying to drink less, maybe I can help you identify why you drink so much in the first place, help you to work through the issues that might be lurking in your subconscious mind and leading you to make the wrong decisions for your own life.

What if you could understand why you think you are not good enough for a promotion at work, even if you are the first person to declare to everyone within earshot that you could do the job better than the person currently doing it?  Yet deep down you still don’t think you are good enough so won’t ask for a promotion and the idea of a salary raise makes your anxiety sky high.

For years I have wished for a mentor that could help me, guide me, give me advice, remind me of my own power, remind me that it’s OK to have those feelings, it’s OK to talk about those feelings, I am not broken, I am not different, there are many people like me, not everyone will dismiss me for being “not hard enough, too soft”, there are many people like me out there that have been led to belief that they should just shut up and suck up but no more.  I would like to be your mentor, to help you and remind you that you are amazing, and that a bad day here or there means nothing more than you have had a few bad days. For so long I was too afraid to speak up, knowing that society preferred it that we cry alone in the dark, that to be “emotional” was to be weak, so I kept things to myself, and that just made things worse, isolated me more, made me more lonely, more depressed, I didn’t understand the point of life. If only I had someone that could tell me that it’s ok, that it will be ok, that sometimes you have a bad day, or a bad week, or a bad year, but that’s ok too, there’s nothing wrong with you. You are whole and you are amazing. 

I want to be there for others, be their mentor, help them accept themselves more, stop hating themselves, stop blaming themselves, start loving  themselves. 

I want you to be your best CONFIDENT and HAPPY self, with a resilient and positive mind that can overcome anything, and a self-belief that is unparalleled, because you ARE amazing!