How can you find your way out of the dark?

• Take full responsibility for your own health and happiness – you are not a powerless being. You are powerful and you have the capacity to heal yourself from your suffering when you know how.
• Accept that your experience of anxiety or depression is an internal nudge that you need to make changes in your life. You have veered off course and this is the wake-up call that you need.
• Avoid temptation to become dependent on something outside of yourself to cope with your negative thoughts and feelings. We can easily become dependent on people, food, alcohol, and drugs (legal and illegal).
• Ensure that you surround yourself with people that will speak life into you. This includes family, friends, professionals, media and what you read. Make sure that you avoid people that live in fear and do not provide you encouragement and hope.
• Listen to those who know. There are many people that wish to tell you how to live your life and yet they have not successfully achieved it themselves. Listen only to those who have successfully achieved what it is that you want. Experience is the best teacher.
• Follow your heart. You have all the answers that you need inside of yourself. You need to learn to trust your feelings over and above what any other person tells you. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself.

And when the dark times come………

• Learn to accept and feel what you feel. You are doing yourself a huge disservice when you do not confront these feelings head on. You cannot hide from yourself for long. Our deepest feelings will continue to nudge us until we listen.
• Be honest with others around you about how you feel. When you are honest with others you become more authentic. You will find in others you receive much needed support. We are inter-dependent – we need connection with others to survive.
• Take care of yourself more than normal during these periods including, sleep, diet, exercise, relaxation. This is not selfish, it is SURVIVAL. You owe it to yourself and those that you love.
• Slow things down and embrace the quiet through meditation. It can be tempting to speed everything up particularly if you are stressed. However, it is stillness and quietness that will allow you to hear yourself. This is when you will receive the insight that you need.

Most importantly never allow yourself to believe that you cannot come through the challenging times in life. We are stronger than we realize even if we do not yet know it!

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