Some 27 years ago, I was sat in the kitchen of my friend. The kids were on a play date in her garden. I remember talking to her about this black cloud that just seemed to follow me and that in any moment it could engulf me completely and I could lose hours, days, even weeks in a melancholic cloud.

She looked at me with an expression of … what?

I went on to explain that there was this feeling of nothingness, no desire to do, to have or to be.

I saw clearly in that moment that she had no concept of what I was talking about, none, zero, zilch.

“This woman was the first person I had felt a real connection with in years after moving to Scotland and she didn’t comprehend what I was talking about.”

Our friendship didn’t last much longer after that.

From that experience my learning was compounded into it being safer, better to not share my thoughts and feelings, as it would send ‘good stuff’ awry.

I remember one day waking up a few years later and feeling like the cloud had lifted. I realised I had been ‘de-pressed’, for years. I’d been working on my mindset, my energy and my conscious responses to the world around me, and this shifted the haze.

At the time it was put down to post natal depression, but I now know it was more than that.

It was a process of years of not feeling seen and learning that being seen wasn’t safe anyway as it drove people away. Being seen often meant standing out and that didn’t always have nice energy around it . I was always the happy, chatty, funny, positive, motivational person.

How could I possibly have been depressed?

Depress is to lower or press something down.. lower the level of value, activity…. FEELINGS. there it is!!!

If we spend so much of our time depressing what we feel because we can’t discuss it, make sense of it, bring it into the light.. it becomes part of our everyday life. Depressing who we are to ‘fit in’, be accepted.

The conversations I longed to have but never did, the feelings I had but never shared. The questions I had with no one to answer them in an ‘open’ way.

I think back over the years that my healing journey took.

The ups and downs. The insights.

Lightbulb moments and the huge shifts and understandings that each and every situation has brought. Including in more recent years realising I have ADhD. I am grateful for every single spark, understanding and aha moment.

But it took sooooo long!

I jumped on and off ‘lifts’ with coaches and therapists who helped me get through mud mires and climb some pretty steep mountains.

I was tagged by some, and made sense of by others but I knew there was something else inside of me that was ‘off’.

Without the going for the help I seeked out, plus the healing I searched for inside of myself, I’m not sure where I would be today. But I do know the key has been learning to see, accept and like myself before anything else was ever really going to stick.

It’s time to de-press the depression.

Acknowledge the needs of the smaller younger unheard versions of ourselves and fully embrace them. Become fully you, on YOUR terms.

I’m leading a group of travellers to heal their inner child, get to know themselves completely and deeply. And build relationships with themselves and those around them based on deep unshakeable self love.

You want to join us? If you have always been there

for everyone else, putting all their stuff before yours,

this is the perfect place for you to begin your journey to self.

If you are truly ready to give yourself a big hug and feel seen, heard and loved..Join us in The Journey