Smiling through the pain is a category where you find blog posts related to healing, recovery, self-care, and overcoming obstacles in life.
I feel honoured to have had my article ‘How walking has helped me with my PTSD recovery‘, published by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI is America’s largest grassroots mental health organisation dedicated to improving the lives of the many people affected by mental illness. In the article, I describe how walking has helped my …
How Walking Has Helped Me With My PTSD Recovery – NAMI Guest Blog Read More »
With Valentine’s day, the season of love is here. We tend to be quite romantic when it comes to ideas for celebrating the day and spoiling our partner. But what about ourselves? You deserve love too, and not just from others. It needs to start with yourself. So how do you care for yourself during …
5 Simple Self Love Ideas for the Perfect Valentine’s Day Read More »
I remember welcoming this year with optimism and hope on the basis that it just can’t be any worse than last year. After the pandemic started in 2020, many asked if this year would be the year of recovery. As it turned out, we still have a long way to go, but then, who knows …
I was getting nervous. It was just over a month before the first anniversary of my trauma that I started getting more emotional, anxious and overwhelmed. I was familiar with those feelings. I’ve always felt similar around the day that my mum passed away for years now. That’s when my mood usually starts to change, …
Traumaversary: Ways to Deal With a Trauma Anniversary Read More »
You may have read my post about Autumn Anxiety and Seasonal Affective Disorder. Since writing it, people have asked me what the best way to beat it is. As mentioned in the post, there are several ways to combat autumn anxiety. A poll of more than 1,000 respondents suggested that over 70% of them found …
Autumn season has arrived and as the leaves begin to fall from the trees, my stress level is going up. Home from our summer holiday (staycation this year) and back at work. Looking back at the holiday photos it’s hard to say goodbye to summer, it’s even harder if summer is your favourite season. But …
Autumn Anxiety: Reason Behind Your Higher Stress Level Read More »
If you clicked on the link to open this post, then PTSD probably isn’t totally unknown terminology to you. I can’t say that I was ever particularly thinking about PTSD until it affected me personally. As I discussed in the previous post, I was diagnosed with PTSD at the beginning of this year. I suffered …
How to Overcome Fears? Dealing With PTSD and Anxiety Read More »
I wrote this letter to heaven nine years after she’s gone. A letter addressed to my mum in heaven. She has been looking after me from there with such love and care, as always. A letter to heaven “My dear mum in heaven, there hasn’t been a day that I didn’t miss you. I miss …
During my recovery, I realised how little patience I have with myself. I have to honestly admit that hearing that I need to ‘take it day by day, step by step’ from all angles was an annoyance after a while. And yet, patience continues to play a critical role in my recovery. Why is this …
I remember saying to myself “This is going to be a great year, it’s going to be unforgettable”, as we celebrated New Year’s Eve 2019 at a beach party in Zanzibar. And indeed, there were so many unforgettable events last year. And whilst not all of them had a happy ending, it wouldn’t be fair …
