Power of Showing Up. (#Mental Health)

Irrespective of how many friends you have, or how well people know you or the number of times you hang out with someone, there are battles that are your own and things within that you don't discuss with-out. This is not a modern day issue, but this is fast becoming a topic people are getting comfortable discussing on social media in today's time.

You may be a popular social butterfly or a jelly-bug, and yet sitting in a space where on the inside you struggle everyday to get out of your house to get to work, or make a trip to the grocery stores or get yourself interested in reading a book or doing an activity despite it being your favorite thing to do in the past. 

The struggle is real for many people and it has been very real for me as well. 

I have found that 'showing up' is a step towards recovery. This act of showing up is not as easy as it sounds. It has it's own pace and process. In my experience, at first, there comes a gentle nudge from someone who loves you and you may choose not to move. Then comes the push from the frustrated people around you and this may still not encourage you enough but god knows that you want to try. You will invariably in this process lose a few close ones that would give up and move on with their lives for they have their own fears of being dragged down with you or ambitions too strong to wait for a slow runner.

While you may think that all this external effort (or lack of it) from others has done no good, it in fact slowly waters your sapped will-power. The wilted plant with this water from others on a sunny day tries to straighten it's backbone again and stand up. Your sun could shine on a different day than mine but it does shine for everyone that secretly hopes for it to shine. 

Then comes the act of Showing Up. You can show up with crutches or on a wheelchair but please my darlings, show up and smile. Show up at your job, show up when a friend calls for a meetup, show up at that group dinner you are invited to- and SMILE. That's half the battle won and this will HEAL some part of you and like everything else in this world, if you repeatedly do something, you become good at it, it becomes your own and then at some point it becomes your reality. 

I am working on making that Smile a part of my reality (again). I hope you will too.