What I learned from Mental Illness and Addiction

Dear Mental Illness and Addiction,

I want to thank you. I want to thank you for what you have taught me. Being around you throughout my life has taught me to relentlessly choose mental health, physical health, emotional health, and spiritual health. You taught me to never give up and to trust my gut that there is a better way. You taught me about my determination and how to use it in ways that serve me and others. You taught me how to love myself and to show up every day in a powerful way to commit to my whole health. You taught me to spread this determination with others and to provide motivation and inspiration to spark them to go get their own version of whole health for themselves. You taught me love, compassion and forgiveness. Those were the hardest lessons for me to learn because you also taught me fear, anger, frustration, anxiety, and confusion too. But then you taught me wicked curiosity, relentless seeking. And finally you taught me gratitude. I do not know what it is like to struggle with a mental illness or addiction. I do not understand the pain of either of those struggles….I truly cannot even imagine that pain but the images and the fearful thoughts of that pain that I carried in my mind for so many years taught me to live a healthy life. To fight for it. To seek it. To create it. You taught me that I get to choose better ways for myself to be healthy and alive. It makes me beyond grateful that I have never experienced the pain of addiction and mental illness and propels me to come forward and create a movement. Create a movement of positive healthy change.

With all my love and gratitude,

Angela