Hold the Vision, Trust the Process

Have thought about writing this for a while, probably because a) the situation is one that has been and is so challenging for a lot of people, but also b) it has taken some accepting of the fact that I am not quite where I thought I was or want to be mentally. This period has been a big eye opener, and one that I know is even more important for me to treat as an experiment. Testing myself now, in very unusual circumstances, I know will help to make me stronger when we come out of this.

Hold the vision, trust the process.This phrase is something I have reminded myself of daily for a while now; it has become even more important whilst in isolation. And in all honesty, I believe it speaks volumes, in so many different ways. 

Whether it be a vision of something you may want to achieve in your job, a skill or sporting achievement, or to do with your recovery. Whatever that vision is, that is what you have to hold on to. Your job is to just persevere with the process of getting there, all else that happens along the way we just have to trust. That one focus is to work towards your vision. This doesn’t mean it won’t be challenging, or that it will be completely linear; yes, things will happen along the way, but we need to treat them as part of the learning process. We need to be able to accept, trust and move past these to then continue our journey towards our vision. 

Very quickly our ‘normal’ lives completely changed, and for anyone all of the uncertainty, isolation and restrictions meant everything was very surreal and could be quite unsettling. For people who are or have struggled with mental health problems, it is a time where the possibility of relapsing may be higher. The vision and direction of where you want to be may gradually start slipping. Appointments may be cancelled, we are restricted to being in our houses, and are living very separate, isolated lives with dramatically different routines if any, leaving a lot of time for ruminating. It is a period in which we have no control over what is going on around us, so has the potential for us to attempt to control the things we know we can, even if they may be damaging.

As for a lot of people, my ED stems from this feeling of being out of control. At the beginning of lockdown, there was so much else going on and so many issues that were much greater in the world, I didn’t really think about what may happen for something I believed I was very on top of. I gradually started to feel a little off and become aware of little rules and habits creeping in, but I kept it to myself. This built up and I reached a bit of a breaking point, I hadn’t felt like I did or had any of the thoughts I was having in a very long time and I was absolutely petrified. I lost my own vision altogether and all thoughts I was having became completely irrational. I knew what the right thing to do was, but for some reason I just couldn’t do it, there was absolutely no trust and the last thing I wanted to do was talk to anyone about it. This was mainly down to two reasons, my problems were tiny compared to the pandemic and I knew by speaking out people would try and stop me from doing what was actually making me feel most comfortable and at ease, even if deep down I knew what I was doing was wrong.

So first off, please don’t let this be a time in which you struggle on your own. This is not a time to try and be brave, if anything this is a time where you need to reach out more than ever, as I have learnt. It is a place in which demons can crawl back in and very quickly takeover. The earlier you accept you aren’t coping and tell someone that you’re struggling, the quicker you can gather some support and get back to working on your recovery journey. 

Accepting and acknowledging. The speed at which the ED or any negative mindset can takeover is alarming. It has taken a lot of accepting that I personally, am not where I thought I was mentally, and actually there are still things I need to have in place to ensure I can continue moving in the right direction. I am very open at the fact that I still attend therapy for my ED, and not having this in its regular slots has probably added a little bit of stress to things. We have to accept and understand that there will be times in which the voice may be louder than we want. By acknowledging that the ED mindset is there doing something that it believes is the best for you and works at trying to protect you, just goes about things in a slightly wrong way, is what helps us to stop fighting it and begin to start trying to move past it. This acceptance and acknowledgement, I believe, is a big step in taking hold of your recovery. It is proof that you are trusting the process you are on.

Recovery is hard, and the current uncertainty can make it easy to fall back on ‘old ways’ in a hope of giving some form of direction, as I found even just a few days in. But, holding onto the challenges tackled in the past, this is just another challenge to work at and prove to yourself that you can overcome. Reaching out for the help that we need to do this takes bravery and courage in itself, but by holding onto the vision this will all be part of your process that you just have to trust. 

I am currently on a period of rest, so no training which in itself is something pretty big I am trying to tackle but I have decided to use it as a challenge. I want to come out of lockdown knowing there are things I can take away which have made me stronger for the future. Being resilient is one of them. Resilience is about being flexible and adaptable, being able to recover quickly from difficult conditions. There is no better situation in which resilience can be improved in numerous different ways, we don’t know what is going to happen and how long lockdown may last so being able to be flexible and adaptable to the situation is going to be important. The past few weeks have definitely been a little turbulent in terms of my ED, but I am aware of this and each day am working on getting back on track. 

Change still doesn’t sit that well with me, so breaking rules or habits that have managed to creep their way in again is hard because it is different. By holding onto my vision, I am going to experiment with them and aim to break each of them over the next few weeks. I want to prove to myself that the reasons behind why I do them are not necessarily true and what I think may happen if things aren’t done how I want doesn’t necessarily happen. I know what my vision is, and I do trust that by doing this it is going to make me stronger and more resilient for the rest of my journey. 

So, use this week as an experiment. Depending on what your vision is, do something to challenge yourself and make progress towards it. Trust that what you are doing is a step in the right direction. No matter how big or small that may be, everything adds up and overtime will get you to where you know you want to be. All you have to do is hold your vision and trust the process.