The healing process is just that, a process. You can’t just wake up one day and tell yourself, ‘I am going to be a whole person today’ and then be that seemingly whole person. Things just don’t work like that. Healing takes time, patience, and a lot of extra caffeine. It takes will power to pick up your phone and stay connected to the people you care about and who care about you. Healing is tough but it is a part of life; it is a part of a climb.

Throughout my healing process, I stumbled upon a spiritual memoir entitled, ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. It’s truly inspiring, especially for me, at this point in my life. ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ or EPL as I will affectionately refer to it from now on, is becoming one of my favorite books. (For those of you who know me, I know I say this about a lot of books, but in this case, I think it will be a permanent one). So go pick yourself up a copy…but not right now of course. Please read the rest of my blog and get a taste of what’s in store for you.

The first part of the healing process is the pleasure part. For me, this has always been a bit of my weakness. I find it hard to engage in activities I find truly enjoyable because either I have too many committments, or I don’t speak up, or I just don’t pay attention to the things my soul tells me I need to be doing. At all. However, during spring break, I took the opportunity to read outside, watch hours of grey’s anatomy with my sister, and drink coffee. These are all things that I can almost never do at school, but when I was at home, I found the time to do them. Gilbert mentions this in her book. She admits to the fact that Americans in general do not know much about pleasure. Really, we just can’t relax. And at least for me, this is true. I can’t relax sometimes. I worry about all the little things going on in my life and I stress about the fact I only have one life to live. But I’ve come to realize that I don’t want to live my one life worrying about the future. I need to do what makes me happy and I need to make time for that in my life. I mean, I know I will have a job and a family and will have to sacrifice some for the people and things I love, but I don’t plan on sacrificing my existence for anyone, unless that person is God (and he’s not even really a person). And now that I don’t have a significant other, I don’t have anyone else to worry about. I mean, now I can ask the questions Gilbert mentions in her book. ‘What do I want to do today?’ Notice I didn’t ask what should I do today but I asked what I wanted. In the hustle of a busy day, I need to learn to find spare moments where I can be me and be happy about my life. And this is where I started questioning who I was as a person. Who am I? Truly, I’m a confused individual right now. An individual that needs good friends and good food and some serious prayer time. That’s it. My favorite part of opening up myself to myself is that I am okay with being confused and if some people don’t like it, that’s too bad. I can’t please every single person in my life. And I can’t change how I feel.

And now, back to this amazing book. EPL is inspiring on so many levels. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but I am anticipating an end that jumpstarts me into a new chapter of my life. Throughout the past weeks and even months, I have learned much about myself. The most important thing I’ve learned-is that I can learn; I can perserve. I can mess up, fall down and practically break, or I can be at the complete top of game, but through it all, I am the same person. I am me. It’s that simple. I will come through all the break-ups and the stormy weather because I have a strong foundation. As long as I stay true to that foundation, I know that nothing can go wrong.

And to all my readers (the few and far between)-if you have any suggestions or stories of your own, please feel free to leave a comment. I’d love hearing from you

So I’m climbing. Right now, my life is steep but I think it will be downhill soon.