Do you feel lost? Do you feel like there is something missing in your life?
And you can’t quite pinpoint what it is that you’re missing. You just know that something needs to be done. Something needs to be improved.
And yet you are at this point in your life where you’re feeling extremely debilitated in one way or another.
Well, first thing first, as difficult as it may seem, keep asking and seeking for the truth. Because without it everything would seem short-lived.
As this essential quest could last a lifetime, in the meanwhile…
For you, I created in the shade of this gnarly old tree, a space where everyone can just sit, sip a cup or mug of hot chai latte, lie down, and take a rest, reflect, learn new things, share, and help each other out!
Take a rest – as difficult as it might seem or be. Find the courage and will to take care of yourself.
Learn something new. Do something you’ve never thought of doing. Congratulate yourself for being brave enough to do those things.
Feel empowered little by little, gain that power to thrive once again.
Really – you are welcome to use this as your relaxation space, learning space, sharing space, you name it!
Here, with this blog, we’ll extensively talk about 2 topics, namely ‘Skin Care & Formulations’ and ‘Self Care & Growth’.
I believe balance is an important thing to have and keep as we live our life here.
Both “too much” and “lack of” will, most of the time, need adjustment and then improvement.
Some people may see skin care as something a rather superficial, but you’ll see that it’s actually not.
Taking care of oneself is not an easy task, more so when there is a lack of self esteem, which might have been caused by lots of things.
There’s significant degree of growth and improvement required to be able to do just that, from the point where all you want to do is just disappear.
So you see, these two seemed-opposing-aspects we’re talking about here are indeed much more intertwined to each other than some of us might think.
Through this blog, I hope you’d see the beauty of the inside-out approach in navigating through many challenges this life has to offer.
As for myself, for years…
I immersed myself in the world of science. Nanotechnology, in particular. But right after I submitted my portion of this published research project, I felt unbearably heartbroken and empty, as opposed to feeling relieved and content. I ended up taking a long break one year following that very moment. Now I know that the stresses caused by the significant changes in all aspects of my life had been gradually taking over my life from about one year prior to that sudden heart-breaking moment. I didn’t know. And I didn’t recognize the importance of taking care of myself at the time. I didn’t slow down. I didn’t pay attention to my desperate-self. Acnes began to fill up my once-relatively-smooth, looked-after-by-dermatologist face. I resorted to binge eating any foods; healthy and nutritious weren’t important criteria at the time. Meal times became the only times I enjoyed in my everyday life. I consequently gained 20 kg in just about 2 years, and my acnes seemed to give multiple births to other new acnes – which exacerbated my already-low self-esteem issue. And I did NOT know. Still! I just kept going with my stressful, but at the same time, meaningless day-to-day life: deadlines, frequent sleep-skipping, repressed feelings, anger, needs.
Well. Depression finally came knocking at the door during my long break. Maybe I had been depressed all along, but I didn’t acknowledge it. Who knows? That epic, sudden break was the only thing that pushed me to finally feel. Anyway, I took some courses and projects, learn new things, built rather impromptu, short-lived small businesses. I kept jumping from one thing to another. I couldn’t see any future ahead of me. Looking at my past hurt so bad. And I hated my present life at that point in my life. I was stuck. I started feeling ill and sick most if not all the time, from both diagnosable physical illnesses and those less tangible mental ones; had to experience being vulnerably open to the wrong therapist before finally finding the right one for me.
I think it was that first-ever yoga workout class I attended with my younger sister during that frustrating period of my life, that got me started taking care of myself. I began doing yoga workout, working out by myself, eating healthier, less processed foods and losing some weight. I began feeling my feelings, I started looking inwards and being aware.
Welp. After some time, my unstable, depressed “Hulk”, angry-self started to see things outside herself. I still feel bad for my family and partner who had to deal with me – the girl who got triggered by everything – from time to time. Believe me though, healing was not easy: sleepless nights, nightmares, days spent lying on my bed, looking at ceiling, occasional tears, negative thoughts, self-sabotage, emptiness, worthlessness, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, self-made depressing songs, numbness. I’m really grateful for those who still believed in me and gave me their unending supports, both financially and emotionally.
I then enrolled myself in a 3-year organic skincare formulation course in a quest of understanding my own skin and the world of organic skincare in general and its formulation in particular – all of which led to my skin condition improvement. I completed the study and received 8 of their diplomas and ended up also becoming one of their licensed tutors at the end of 2019. There I began to pay even more attention to taking care of myself, being more selective about what I put on my skin and into my body. My skin cleared up gradually – such an encouraging tangible improvement, which made me feel more empowered since I put all those efforts to take care of myself.
In the meanwhile, in 2017, there came a time when staying inside the shell was just too unbearable to my “zombie”-self. I decided to pick up where I left off and wrap it up once and for all. So there I was, being as brave as I’d never thought of becoming, facing my biggest fear at the time. Those months were intense, but I had never felt so alive and capable before I did just that; surviving almost every bit of it with the help of faraway (as well as closer) support system. Again, as a coping mechanism, I learned new things – yes, those things I’d never thought of doing if not because of the given circumstances. I met new people, reconnected with friends, made new memories, experienced all those positive things that can happen in life only if we’re open to them.
By the end of this particular chapter in my life, I started to believe in myself again. Things started to have deeper meanings. I knew how to be more grateful. Joy was not that abstract word anymore. I gained new perspectives. I started to see things differently. I smiled at little things. The narratives in my head were not all-negative anymore. And I began to appreciate myself and the life I’m living in much more.
And guess what. I lost almost all those 20 kilograms, and my problematic skin cleared up the most since the last time I asked the help of a dermatologist those years and years ago. All of which made me think that of course, we can choose to run from our biggest problem until we’re ready to stand face-to-face with it once again We just need to remind ourselves time and time again that, at the root of things, we truly are supposed to tackle it, anyway, if we want to be able to accept what already happened and make peace with ourselves and everything else.
I believe that we are all gracefully gnarled; we’ve been broken and disheartened again and again, only to find ourselves weather the storm once again each time, bouncing back from every pit, becoming even stronger, wiser and more joyful – every time.
It is the courage to take the very first steps that doesn’t come easy when we are at the darkest bottom of the pit.
Don’t beat yourself too hard.
Take some rest when you need to – don’t keep pushing until it’s just too late.
Get to know yourself better.
Allow yourself to heal.
Share your thoughts and experiences with one another, and before long we’ll find ourselves helping each other out!
How beautiful is that?
I hope my writings could help you regain your power back bit by bit. Always remember that if I could go through this, so could you!
WELCOME – AND LET’S START SOMEWHERE!
Love and best wishes,
Ella
