Hi friends-first off, thank you for being here. I genuinely appreciate it. It’s been over a year since my last blog post, I thought I was ready to open up more about my PTSD but it’s a very scary and overwhelming thing to open up about. It’s now been about 3 years since everything went down. I was actually in Mexico on October 1st 3 years ago and although I was in a beautiful place, I was miserable. Going frantic inside my head and not in a safe enough space to feel how I was feeling. I went through the motions on that trip and it was not something I enjoyed.

Now, that time has passed, I am in a much better head space. And I really do want to open up about my experience with PTSD. I’m going to kind of work my way backwards and start with how I got my mindset to what it is now and then dive into the more nitty gritty stuff within other blog posts.

We’ll dive deeper into triggers at a later point, but just for context, if you’ve ever seen a character in a movie or on a TV show have PTSD and they become triggered, it’s similar to that, but often times worse than what’s portrayed. 

For a really long time, I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve been through a lot of darkness throughout my life and I want to talk about what I’ve done to navigate through darkness to find light again. A lot of this can pertain to different situations in life, anytime you’re finding yourself in darkness or negativity refer back to this 5 simple ways to help you find light within that darkness.

1. Feel Your Feelings.

This is the biggest thing that helps me to find light in dark times: allow myself to really feel my feelings. Anxiety, a trigger, sadness, anger, confusion, all of it. Instead of ignoring it, hiding it, internalizing it or projecting onto others, I make sure to always carve out the time I need to feel everything. And process why I’m feeling the way that I am, what got me there, pros and cons of each emotion. By doing this, nothing is pent or bottled up which may push me into a breakdown or unnecessary stress. Feeling my feelings in the moment really does make a huge impact, even when it may not feel like it all the time. We are human. We have emotions. Often times big emotions, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s how we go about dealing with and handling those emotions that will directly make a positive or negative impact on our daily lives & potentially others lives as well. So don’t be afraid to face your emotions head on, it may feel heavy and uncomfortable at first, but I promise you learning how to sit in that uncomfortableness and simply feel will contribute to you successfully coming out on the other side of those big and heavy emotions. 

2. Give Yourself Grace

Whenever I’m trying to navigate through darkness, I realized I am insanely hard on myself. We are all our own worst critic right? So throughout the years with lots of practice, I’ve learned how to give myself grace. Giving yourself grace while being in a tough spot allows you to GROW. It helps you to get into a more empathetic mindset as you are handling big emotions that likely come along with whatever situation that you are going through. Go easy on yourself and recognize that simply trying and putting effort into giving yourself grace is no easy feat and you are strong.  

3. Be Open To Learning

This one is simple. Learn from it. You will never grow if you aren’t open minded to learning as you are navigating the experiences life throws at us. Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back on any hard experience I’ve had in life thus far, I can say that I learned something from every single hardship. Take the time to sit down and ponder about what it is you are learning, or what it is you are wanting to learn from what you are currently experiencing. 

4. Make an effort to do the small things

When you feel like your life is imploded by darkness, it makes living hard. It can make you not want to do the small things or put effort into really, anything. You have to realize that the small things are wins too. Putting effort into absolutely anything when you feel like your life is in shambles is such a hard task. Start with the small things, shower, write out a positive thought, eat food, watch a show or listen to a podcast, go on a drive, do something small for yourself. Sometimes my small thing was getting out of my bed and going into the living room, sometimes my small thing was going on a walk or going and grabbing a food I was craving. Some days I had the energy to do ‘bigger’ small things, sometimes I only have the energy to do the bare minimum, nonetheless effort is effort! And it matters. By doing the small things and putting in tiny amounts of effort it won’t be as overwhelming and it will compound over time as you make it more of a habit, thus leading to getting you out of a funk. 

5. Change your perspective

This part might be the hardest, but it is well worth it. After taking time to reflect, evaluate your perspective on whatever situation you are facing and start to chip away at it and work on changing your perspective surrounding it. Even if it’s a simple ‘for every negative thought I’m going to write down two positives’ Once you’ve navigated your emotions on it and are in a good head space to learn and put in effort, you’ll be able to more clearly shift your perspective. It’s no easy feat and it will take time, but being able to do this and take a look both inward and outward, from different points of view will help you get out of that seemingly never ending tunnel of darkness and you’ll start to see the tiny spec of light that will eventually grow bigger and bigger and you’ll realize that you’re finally out of the dark you’ve been dreading for so long. 

By implementing the 5 things above into my life during multiple times of despair and overwhelming darkness I was able to start seeing some light back into my life again. And I wholeheartedly hope they will help do the same for you! There are so many different situations and scenarios that can throw us into a darker mindset, but being able to navigate through that darkness and find light again. To be able to breathe and feel uplifted is all worth the work of implementing these behaviors. It will be hard work but your future self will appreciate you for it. 

Last but not least, I wanted to get my creative juices flowing for this blog post and I did a photoshoot at my studio to help me represent the dark and the light. It’s been a long while since I’ve modeled and done something creative for myself and it felt SO good. I will be creating content that aligns with each of my blog topics, sometimes I feel silly for doing that type of stuff but it brings me so much joy and allows me to express myself and incorporate my passions of modeling and writing into one! Once again, thank you for being here! I appreciate you for allowing me to be vulnerable, I am grateful you are taking the time to read and I hope this is helpful for you!!