Nature’s Highlights:

Sometimes, when it’s hard seeing the light, look in its reflection.

This week, one of my good friends from Twitter asked me about something in my bio,

Where I say that I’ve been a “student of self-psychology for 8 years”.

And he said something along the lines of: “Bro, what the fuck, you came out of the womb with a book, or what?”

And I’ll answer that in just a moment, but first of all

What the hell is self-psychology??

It’s a term I created relating to any form of action whose purpose is diving deeper into the contents of our mind.

Basically, going to therapy with yourself.

Secondly, I say that I’ve been a student of this for 8 years.

But like, I’m just 17, how the fuck is that possible, right?

Whilst I don’t remember what I was exactly doing at 9 years old (17-8=9. Just don’t want you to feel confused)

I know that after my father’s death (when I was 8), I started working more and more with myself,

And with others as well.

And I often tried to uncover the mysteries of my mind, what was lying beneath the surface.

That’s where the subject of this article comes in, something that has helped me tremendously in my life, aka exposure therapy.

If you don’t know what it is, exposure therapy is when you subject the patient to experiencing his fears, sufferings, traumas and so on,

In order for them to be cured.

Or, in other words, diving so deep into the darkness of your soul that you manage to become its light. (or you’re able to reach the on/off switch)

And with the help of what I now know is called shadow-work (looking into the contents of your past to find answers for who you are today),

Pre-puberty boy me was desperately trying to cure his mind.

For a long time in my life, I thought that if you get to the root of your problem, if you understand where it’s coming from,

Then it stops being a problem.

And I was half-right.

While the shadow-work meant getting down to the bottom of the issue, it wasn’t everything.

The most important part was experiencing that pain, that sadness and suffering, over and over again.

That’s what I did about my father’s death.

I don’t remember how it worked when I was younger, but I’ll give you this year’s example.

I went into a room where I knew I could be alone and in silence.

Then, while listening to a song that reminded me of those times,

I was forcing myself to experience that pain again, to live through his death, through the pain of losing him.

And I cried for about an hour, without end.

I let everything come out of me.

And I did that multiple times over the course of a few weeks.

This is how I went from having panic attacks about his death, from having my mind so full of thoughts that my head hurt every day,

To looking back with gratitude for the life it has allowed me to live.

I always like to say that the experience itself doesn’t matter.

The fact that my father died isn’t exactly what I’m grateful for, it’s what his death allowed me to become.

That’s how you can truly be grateful for your traumas.

Don’t forget, though, that I’ve spent around 8 years suffering before I reached this level.

You first have to create the identity you can be grateful for.

Right now, I couldn’t be happier with how my life turned out.

Because I created a life that I love.

And I did this whilst having experienced around 6 deaths throughout my life, all from my family.

We don’t realize it (and we don’t want to admit it), but all the pain we have, all the traumas we carry,

Are the exact things giving us the power to rise above and become better than we ever thought we could be.

It is NEVER about what happens to you, but how YOU decide to respond.

You can either let your life and pain have control over you, or you can decide to sit on this horse, and take its reigns.

No matter what the world tries telling you, you’re the one who holds the power in your life.

And yeah, you can’t control around 90% of the things around you,

But yet, if you choose to respond with strength, you are the one who holds the reigns to your life.

Life is hard only for those dumb enough to not realize that their life is shit not because of others, but because of themselves.

And exposure therapy relates to this all in the way that, if you want to have control over, at least, your mind,

You have to start digging into its depths.

Trauma is something that will exist your whole life, I don’t believe it ever leaves us.

But its intensity and controlling power are only decided by you.

Changing your whole life is as easy as asking yourself one question:

Who do I let decide my fate?

Get your answer to this question, and begin the work.

And now get out of the chair that you’re reading this in, dress up, and go for a walk, right now.

Don’t wanna keep you any longer, so I wish you all an amazing week (and walk. Seriously, go take it right now) <3.