My Dark Days
3 strategies for breaking free of your self-made prison
This is your invitation to surrender to the present moment, let life unfold, and find contentment in your journey toward better health and happiness.
Navigating through physical and mental health challenges, this post details a particularly difficult day that led me to a profound realisation. In the midst of experiencing persistent symptoms and emotional struggles, I began to question the effectiveness of modern medicine and, instead, came to explore the impact of my mindset on true healing.
I’ll introduce three transformative practices that helped me break free from self-imposed limitations. These practices, centered around awareness, exploring the origins of beliefs, and cultivating gratitude, became my compass in the healing process.
I also share a beautiful poem by Roger Keyes, encouraging us to embrace curiosity, acceptance, and a deep connection to life.
Fear. Anger. Pain. Sadness. Exhaustion. Fatigue. Reflecting on all the things I used to feel on my bad days. On one of my darkest days, a few months back, I finally came to the painful realisation that I had almost given up on myself. There was no strength left inside of me to even do anything about the pain, the bloating, the diarrhea. I just wanted it to stop and let me live my life like everyone else － like a normal person.
When my digestion gets worse, I usually try to support my physical and mental wellbeing even more so － gentle Yin Yoga, calming breathing practices, or a walk in nature, for example. But that day was completely different. I was lying in bed, crawling under the duvet and wishing for my symptoms to disappear. Every time my partner asked me if I was okay, I just wanted to cry.
The feelings weren’t anything new to me, and yet I was super angry, trapped in pain, and wallowing in self pity.
I remember turning on a kids series on Netflix about teenagers that go on horse riding adventures every day. It sounds a bit weird, but I actually do that sometimes to distract my mind and find comfort in a different world. All I wanted was to rest and hide from real life.
Yet, the whole time I couldn’t stop thinking about what was happening in my body. And then, in a moment of clarity, I realised just how scared I was. At that point, I’d already had health issues for several years and still didn’t experience many days where things were getting better.
I’d spent so much money on different medication and supplements, visited several doctors, changed my attitude towards my body, started a completely new diet, and given up what was normal to me before. But up to that day none of it had helped much. The discomfort of illness seemed to be my new normal and I was too exhausted to change that.
I paused the kids series and began to wonder where I was going wrong. What else was I supposed to do? Were any of the things even helping me or was it all for nothing? What if I didn’t give my body the treatment it really needed? What if I constantly damaged myself, day in and day out? What if the doctors missed something? Why, of all things, was this happening to me?
And there it was again － this deep fear.
It now became clear to me that the symptoms were the usual bad on that day, but what made me feel even worse was the way I talked to myself about it. It was my inner voice that told me how painful, exhausting, and tiring it is. It was my mind thinking that I should be scared, frustrated or even angry.
So what was really standing in my way to experience true healing? What was holding me in this endless cycle of struggle － or what I like to call my self-made prison?
I began to wonder if our imbalanced minds could be the biggest factor preventing us from true healing. If we continuously identify with the negative self-talk, we only end up standing in our own way. Imagine how different life could be once we learn to accept what is, instead of endlessly fighting it.
What I learned throughout this journey is that there’s so much more to our wellbeing than just spending a lot of money, time, and energy on doctor visits or medicines along with waiting for a magic fix. I discovered that we have to work on our mindset tremendously to move out of our own way and live in harmony with our body and mind.
In her book Meant For More, best selling author Mia Hewett talks about healing our inner struggles in order to live our fullest potential. She said that if we don’t heal the emotional side of ourselves, we limit our intellect because we can’t think greater than how we feel.
So, when we experience fear or anxiety, for example, we can only think as big as those feelings are － which is rather small, right? If you tell yourself repeatedly that you can’t pass the next exam, then what are your chances of actually passing it? And when my fear tells me how sick I am or that nothing is helping me, how can I expect my body to move in the opposite direction and heal?!
There are more than 7.7 billion people living on this planet and, out of all of these people, I am the only one standing in my own way. That’s ridiculous, right?
So, what I’ve learned from those bad days is that we can only be as big as we allow ourselves to be and often get trapped within our own limitations. There’s really no reason to escape into some kids movies and their adventurous lives instead of enjoying my own adventure to the fullest.
There are very good practices available that have helped me through some of my darkest days. They’ve also taught me how we’re holding ourselves confined sometimes. I think our bodies and minds have unimaginable capabilities to make us thrive in life, if we could only move out of the way.
The following three practices are some of my favourite strategies to become aware of my limiting thoughts and break out of my self-made prison. I invite you to pick at least one of them whenever you feel stuck or make it part of your daily routine, find a quiet place and give it a try.
1. Become Aware Of Your Own Limitations
The first way out of the self-made prison is to become aware of the limiting thoughts that keep us trapped in there. It begins with accepting EVERYTHING about ourselves and our lives without judgement － which doesn’t mean that you have to like everything, but rather look at it from a neutral perspective. This practice is based on a part of Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth － Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose.
The next time you sit down to relax or even meditate, bring your full attention to the feelings and emotions inside your body. Focus on them directly instead of looking through the filter of your negative self-talk, or what Eckhart Tolle describes as Your Unhappy Story. Then, try to fully accept that whatever you’re feeling in that moment is exactly what you feel and there is nothing you can change about that fact. Can you allow those feelings and emotions to just be there instead of wanting them to be different from the way they are?
I find this practice both really powerful and also quite challenging. It becomes easier the more often I take the time to go through the process. You could even write your feelings and emotions down or tell a loved one. Once you shine light on them directly, rather than through the filter of Your Unhappy Story, they lose the power to control you.
2. Discover Where Your Limiting Beliefs Originate
This one goes deep and has taught me so much about myself already. I learned it through the healing programs from Hale Pule Ayurveda & Yoga.
This is a practice to connect with our inner child and become aware of subconscious patterns that keep us trapped within our own limitations －the self-made prison. It helped me to see more clearly what I’m holding on to in life, how to forgive myself, accept what is, and let go.
All you need is a quiet space and some writing utensils. You start by asking your inner child a question and write it down with your dominant hand － such as ‘How are you feeling?’, ‘What do you need right now?’ or ‘What makes you happy?’. Then, grab the pen with your non-dominant hand and try to answer the question from deep within you. Don’t think about it too much but rather feel the answer inside of you.
I often imagine sitting in my childhood bedroom together with my younger self. We spend time with each other in a place that made me feel comfortable and safe as a child. Try to see it as developing a relationship with your inner world along with shining a light on trapped and repressed emotions and feelings.
Here is a simple guide to this exercise along with suggested questions that always help me to get started. Most questions come to me naturally, once I get into a flow.
3. Think Bigger Than Your Own Limitations
We spend our lives searching for something that is actually deep within us and can be found if we would only become aware of our own limitations and accept what is. The above practices open us up to that loving awareness and to the ever-changing flow of life. The third practice takes this even deeper.
A daily practice of gratitude can help us understand that life is a gift and that we can grow beyond our limiting self-talk to thrive in each moment. On my darkest days a simple gratitude list can move me to a state of great abundance.
Every evening I spent a few moments reflecting on what I have as well as the things I enjoy about my life. It can sometimes be as simple as ‘a phone call with my mum in Germany’ or ‘food in my belly’. I write down at least three things and send them to my sister which holds me accountable to actually make it a daily practice. It’s also a fun way to hear about her day as she sends me her own gratitude list in return daily.
Maybe you can find someone to join you with this simple practice or simply write them down in your journal. The more you express thanks for what you have, the easier it gets to find things to be thankful for.
Being grateful doesn’t magically fix my bad days, but gaining another perspective allows me to break out of my self-made prison and get a clearer view of my situation.
I want to end this blog post with a beautiful poem by Roger Keyes － poet and American professor of East Asian studies. It’s called ‘Hokusai says’ and captures the relationship we have with our innermost selves. It touches on one of the main lessons that I’ve had to learn throughout my journey towards better health and happiness － surrender to what is and “let life live” through us.
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
Hokusai says there is no end to seeing.
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,
every one of us is ancient
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find
a way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive —
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
or write books.
It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
