A year of healing

It’s been exactly one year to this day since I took the life changing decision to go back to therapy. My life has changed pretty drastically in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I started, but I guess that’s therapy right? When I finished therapy six months later, I asked my therapist if it was possible to have a copy of my therapy notes, with all the themes that popped up and things that I worked through. It felt like I had covered so much ground and I didn’t want to forget a thing. As I reflect back on the year and all the changes, there’s one thing that stands out to me the most, it’s been a year of healing. Healing from the loss, healing from the pain, healing from the trauma, healing from relationships that ended, healing from the grief, healing from the shame. I started this newsletter with a blog titled ‘A year on loss, grief and identity’ and well it seemed apt to end this year with this years theme. In a way this newsletter has been a series of blogs capturing my process of healing. I wanted to share my experience of healing over the past year and the top ten things I've learnt through the process, in no particular order. It’s a little long but it’s the last one of the year! 

1)    Healing happens in discomfort

When I started therapy a year ago I was super naïve in thinking that it would just be a bit of offloading and talking with a qualified stranger. Even though this wasn’t my first rodeo in therapy, I honestly had forgotten how much bloody work gets done in the process of unravelling the root of my problems and then making the changes that need to be made in order to feel better. Putting it in black and white, healing is uncomfortable. It can be upsetting, painful, difficult, sad and all those icky emotions but I promise you it’s worth it. 

2)    Healing happens in the body

In 2019 I had really spent a lot of time focusing on self-care as a theme for the year and so I took that into 2020. I found ways to heal through the body with not just with bubble baths, but with ecstatic dance and with energy healing and with embodying music and with lots of things that soothed my soul through my body. If there was anything that became more apparent than ever, was that healing wasn’t done just through the mind, it was done through the mind, body and spirit. 

3)    Healing happens through writing 

Earlier in the year I wrote about the healing power of storytelling and running a writing workshop to reflect 2020 for my clients yesterday reminded me of how powerful writing is as a tool to heal. However the biggest thing I’ve taken away from writing this newsletter this year, is a reminder of how cathartic it is to write these often times difficult stories but also to release myself from carrying these stories and letting them out into the world. Also known as  the release of digital doves that sometimes happen to land right in front of the right person. 

4)    Healing happens with a professional

I can hands down say that I wouldn’t be where I am today had I not gone to therapy and seek out the help of professionals. Sure I would have probably gotten there in the end, with my level of self-awareness and geekiness about psychology and reading self-help books but the speed in which it happens would have been a lot slower. I would also probably have missed some of the signs that indicated where things were going wrong in my life and so I 100% advocate to get the help you need whether that’s with a therapist or any other trained professional.

5)    Healing happens with the right people around you

This one might not seem important but I kid you not, it really is! On pretty much all occasions of going to therapy, I’ve received numerous shitty comments about my therapy and healing journey, often from the person that most dominated the conversations of my therapy sessions. Healing means changing and often people don’t like to see you change because you’re leaving who you were behind and often that also means them. Having a support network, like friends or family members that are open minded, encouraging and willing to support you on your healing journey is important.

6)    Healing happens when sharing your story

I have been so moved, touched and honoured to have received your stories of your mental health journeys through the comments, LinkedIn messages or submissions for my project to collect mental health stories (see end of blog). I’ve seen how sharing my story has helped some of you heal from your stories and I’ve felt that reading your stories has also helped heal me back in a beautiful full circle of healing. That’s the beauty of vulnerability and the power of stories, that together we can heal through each other and how f*cking awesome is that?! Which brings me onto my next point. 

7)    Healing happens collectively 

When I started seeing help to heal not just through therapy, I worked with other practitioners on a 1:1 basis (I’ll be talking about this in the New Year). However it wasn’t until I started to attend group workshops and retreats that I realised the power of healing with a group. There is something so special about baring witness of someone’s healing and growth in the presence of others. Not only that but I think that healing is contagious, no joke! I’ve seen how my own healing has healed some relationships around me naturally without much effort. 

8)    Healing happens on your own

I have been healing throughout the whole year but it wasn’t until I moved to Berlin and lived on my own that I didn’t start to deeply and I mean deeply heal. In the tarot deck, there is a ‘major arcana card’ that is called ‘The Hermit’ and it really has felt a bit like I went into hermit/introvert mode, obviously due to the nature of the world we’re living in but also because I had lots of wounds to tend to heal. There was a lot of loneliness as I mentioned, lots and lots of tears and a lot of processing that to be honest I knew I needed the space and the time to be on my own to do. 

9)    Healing happens in unexpected ways

I haven’t talked about this yet in the newsletter and it’s my experience of seeking alternative ways of therapy and healing experiences. Lets just say it’s played a huge part in my healing journey and I haven’t written about it partly because I’m still wrapping my head around it all and partly because I’m a little scared to be honest. My audience isn’t really used to be talking about woo woo stuff, so I may be slightly stalling in coming out of the spiritual closet but I promise there will be lots of juicy stories about how I used spiritual practices to heal in the New Year. 

10) Healing happens when you’re ready

I definitely think that there is the element of timing and choice to consider when it comes to healing. You need to choose that you want to heal and given that I talked at the start about discomfort, choosing to heal takes courage. As said earlier, it’s not easy and sometimes we need to wallow in our shit-show for a bit but we also need to decide that it’s time to move forward in order to continue living fully. Sometimes we’re not ready but other times we are and it’s a question of taking that first bold step on the path to healing. 

My friend Hayden asked me earlier this week in one of his posts, what was the most courageous thing I did this year and I have to say it was starting this ‘From Trauma to Triumph’ newsletter. Along with being the thing I’m most proud of it was also one of the most scariest things to do. I always have these crazy ideas, but it’s no until the idea sees the light of day and hear from you through your comments and LinkedIn messages, that I know if what I’ve shared with the world was a good idea and of value. This project has honestly changed my life in a way that I can’t quite explain how right now, but I can tell you that this is just the beginning of a new journey and that I can’t wait to share with you lots of exciting things that are happening behind the scenes in relation to this newsletter. None of which would be happening if it hadn’t have been for LinkedIn giving me access to this feature and to the almost 25,000 of you that subscribed to follow this crazy journey of healing. For that I am so very very grateful. Thank you so much for your support and words this last year.

With love and care,

#AuthenticAlex x

Due to the importance mental health stories has played in my own journey of healing and hope, I'm going to be collecting stories of peoples mental health journeys. I want to grow From Trauma to Triumph so you're not only hearing my voice and my stories. If you would like to share, please email me less than 1,200 words with a title. You also need to specify if you want it to be shared anonymously or not. Please email it to me at alex@authenticalex.com by the 31st December.

If you like what you read please hit like, comment, share and subscribe to continue being notified of my online therapy journal. If you think this might be helpful for someone that you know please do share or tag them in the comments. The more we talk about mental health, the less of a stigma it has.

I teach people how to tell their story in the same way I do for myself in this newsletter. If you're interested in learning how to explore and write your story, the next Story Marketing Course is due to start on the 14th January. The 6 week course is £399. Please get in touch if it’s of interest, you can find out more about it here. There's only one spot left for the 14th Jan, the next co-hort starts March 11th.

You can follow more of my musings and antics here @imauthenticalex or sign up to my newsletter that covers topics such as finding your purpose, telling your story and growing your presence https://mailchi.mp/1d671953165c/authentic-alex-newsletter

About me: Hi I’m Alex, after experiencing a quarter-life crisis I decided to leave the corporate world and create my own definition of success. On the day I left that job I wrote a post that went viral on LinkedIn. 

Since then I've been named LinkedIn Top Voice UK twice and have worked with companies such as Deloitte, Shell, Dyson, BP and Fiverr all through building my own Thought Leadership on LinkedIn

By day I help people grow their presence on LinkedIn, helping them find their sense of purpose and tell their own stories. By night I turn into a superhero keynote speaker and blogger under the hashtag #AuthenticAlex, knocking down one stigma at a time! 

I'm also the co-creator of #LinkedInLocal, the biggest hashtag campaign on LinkedIn that