#2 From Depression to Joy: How choosing me saved my life

Natalie: 00:00:00

Let's dig in. Hey y'all, this is episode number two. I'm so excited and I'm not, this is the episode I really don't wanna do because it's incredibly vulnerable and transparent and it's a matter I hold close to the heart that majority of people don't know about me or they know very little. And I'm gonna be putting it out there in the world for anyone to hear, but at the same time, I know I need to do this.

Natalie: 00:00:34

I know so many other people won't share their story, and that's why it's important that I share mine. You never know who is going through something similar and just needs to know that they're not alone. I made it to this moment because two women shared their stories with me. One was a very dear friend and the other was a woman on tv.

Natalie: 00:00:56

That was being interviewed on a show that I happened to see. [00:01:00] I saw myself in both these women and they gave me hope that I could get to the other side too. It's through the exchange of stories, through being vulnerable, transparent, real, and authentic, that we connect with others, we heal ourselves, we learn, we grow.

Natalie: 00:01:17

I don't know how people are gonna react, and I mean like my people, my friends, my loved ones. Because let me tell you, I have a solid tribe of people around me. But even with that, sometimes you just have to deal with some stuff on your own. Real life isn't roses and rainbows. If you're not interpersonal stories, maybe skip this episode and we'll get back to more wellness specific content next week. But I think it's really important for me to explain why I'm so passionate about wellness based on my lived experience. So let's get started.

Natalie: 00:01:52

In case you didn't listen to my last episode about disruptive wellness, I talked for a bit about the person I used to be. I was at a [00:02:00] point in life where in some ways I thought I had it all together. I had my own side hustle, turned full-time business. I had just exited my full-time job and now was an employer. I had lots of friends. I had a lot going on. I was doing a lot of things. And you know, maybe that was kind of dangerous in the first place, right? This idea of you thinking everything is okay, and so you're living in this bubble and you know that thing that happens with a bubble, right?

Natalie: 00:02:29

It's just a matter of time before it bursts, and that's exactly what happened. I was six years into my marriage and my husband just out of the blue said he wanted a divorce. I did not see that one coming. I understood that every married couple has their ups and downs, and I figured if anything, we would just always get through it.

Natalie: 00:02:50

Divorce was never an option for me. I just knew I was gonna be married for life and now, right before my eyes, that truth was crumbling [00:03:00] and there was nothing I could do about it. In fact, Whatever I did to try and fix things only made things worse. We became separated, but I was in denial and I wasn't able to even acknowledge it. I still kept trying to fix things and felt that over time everything would get better, and I kept believing we would be together.

Natalie: 00:03:20

What made this experience even more difficult was that I was hiding it from basically everyone hiding your truth and living in shame and embarrassment and holding secrets. It's just a sure fast way to mental misery. It was awful and debilitating. I didn't want anyone to know we were separated because in my mind it was temporary.

Natalie: 00:03:43

The thing is no one would've expected this. We were the happy couple, the high vibes couple, the energetic couple. We were always laughing and being silly. We were chill and lighthearted, and we were down to earth, regular good old people.[00:04:00]

Natalie: 00:04:00

I was a go-getter, a high achiever, top of the class student, miss resilient, mis ambitious. So how in the world could I, Natalie, have my marriage fail? Like it didn't make sense to me, so I felt it wouldn't make sense to others, so I just kept it to myself. Pretending everything was normal while internally continuing to sink further and further into depression.

Natalie: 00:04:24

As my new reality became more and more set, this was the lowest point of my life. Me coming to the realization that my hopes and dreams for a future together with my husband were gone. Our future family, our future legacy gone.

Natalie: 00:04:43

And there was nothing I could do about it. I was not aware life could get so low. For the first time I understood what the phrase living hell meant. And honestly, unless you've gone through your own hell like situation, I think it's very hard to understand. [00:05:00] I've chosen to leave out the personal details because it's not necessary. But I'm much more empathetic now to people when they go through traumatic events because there is so much happening internally, so many emotions and feelings and things that just can't even be expressed. The state of being depressed is really powerful. The state of hopelessness, the state of Joylessness. I had never experienced anything like this before. The only thing that kept me going was my faith, and those two women's stories I saw they had gone into the other side. So logically I knew it was theoretically possible for me too. I was really starting to struggle mentally between depression, anxiety, shame, embarrassment, fear, and pretending everything was okay.

Natalie: 00:05:51

I felt like I was losing my sanity and I had a mental breakdown. I just couldn't do it anymore. I finally had to come to the point where I [00:06:00] had to accept the reality my marriage was over. I made the extremely difficult decision to leave Antigua by myself and return to Canada. I knew I needed to be around my family and the majority of my support system and just in a different environment in order for me to keep living, even though I cared deeply for my husband and wanted things to work out for my own life and my sanity, I needed to choose myself.

Natalie: 00:06:27

In that decision, I had to say goodbye to my husband, our home, my in-laws, my business, my friends, my financial security, my island life, and my future dreams. It was a lot of loss all at once. I had to let go and surrender it all. Now it was time to focus on me. Let the disruptive wellness begin. How do you start to build when you're at the very bottom?

Natalie: 00:06:56

Just a broken bunch of pieces lying in a pit. [00:07:00] I had to disrupt my then current reality of health with a completely different experience. Joy, that was opposite of my reality. But how do you find joy when you are in hell? It's not there on a shelf waiting for you to grab. I was stuck. I just felt there was no way forward.

Natalie: 00:07:21

And I remember one day, a really close friend who had been supporting me through the whole journey texted me. She encouraged me to choose joy, and she sent me the YouTube link for a song called Joy. And I remember in my head being like, thanks, but, how can I choose joy from hell? How is that even possible? This makes no sense, but I knew this friend was incredibly wise and I respected her so much, and I knew I needed something. I just couldn't stay in that dark place anymore. So I told myself I'd give it a try.

Natalie: 00:07:58

Life was so bad at this point. It was [00:08:00] basically impossible to get any worse, so I had nothing to lose. I made a commitment to myself that I would play the song every morning. That's it. That's all I could do. I started playing it every single day, scowling or crying each time.

Natalie: 00:08:15

Joy was nowhere on my radar. The song wasn't even a genre of music I normally listened to, but I kept listening once a day every morning when I woke up, and over time it became more, sometimes it'd be on repeat for an hour, and slowly but surely I found small, tiny things to be joyful for.

Natalie: 00:08:38

I rediscovered things about myself, things I had completely forgotten about. I rediscovered the thing that in the past had made me most joyful, which was traveling, so I booked a solo self-discovery and healing trip to Egypt eat, pray, love style. I was in what I call the [00:09:00] bunker period of my life. It was filled with silence, days of silence. I wasn't working, so I had a lot of time on my hands, and I used it to be still. I silenced the noise, people's thoughts, people's opinions, my own thoughts, my own self-talk. I spent a lot of time alone with myself because I didn't even know who I was anymore.

Natalie: 00:09:22

I was just this broken person. You took a ceramic jar and hurled it to the ground from the Empire State Building. I was just a bunch of broken pieces on the ground at the bottom of the pit somewhere. I couldn't look up. I couldn't see anything around me. I could only see myself, the broken pieces and the pit, and I had no clue who I was anymore.

Natalie: 00:09:45

I had failed. My marriage had failed, and my life was now a failure. I had to sit still in that pit for a very long time. I have the most supportive inner circle, and they tried to pull me [00:10:00] out and were always in my corner. But honestly, I needed to stay there in that pit, in the stillness. I needed to go through some metaphysical healing before I was ready to engage in conscious and subconscious healing.

Natalie: 00:10:15

That's an example of disruptive wellness, knowing and choosing what's best for you. Even if those close to you don't understand. I went on a deep journey of self-awareness and discovery. I had to figure out who was I at my core, not connected to anyone else. Who did I want to be? What kind of life did I want?

Natalie: 00:10:38

What were my values, my goals, my desires? I did tons of personal development. I bought books. I checked out books in the library. I signed up for personal development courses. I bought online programs. I watched YouTube videos. I started therapy. I worked with a wellness coach I signed up for and reached out for [00:11:00] basically any and every single resource I could access that could help me in my self discovery journey.

Natalie: 00:11:07

I was buried deep down under, intentionally and obsessively focused on learning. Unlearning, shifting, healing, growing, changing, and bettering my life to get closer to the vision I had for myself. This period led to my rebirth. By the time I emerged, I knew who I was. My identity, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, and self-love was restored.

Natalie: 00:11:36

I knew I would be okay regardless of whether my marriage was restored or not. This was the true turning point for me. That feeling of freedom was the outcome of my initial surrender. I was no longer shackled to my hopes and dreams, my failures and mistakes. I could just be free to be me and face the future.

Natalie: 00:11:58

And I saw beauty in the [00:12:00] future, though I didn't know what it specifically looked like. Do you know how grateful and blessed I am to tell you what my future looks like today in present time? It looks like me and my husband. Yep, that same one. Having just celebrated our 10 year anniversary and happily raising our amazing, wonderful, and perfect one and a half year old son.

Natalie: 00:12:25

It looks like me using that hell period of life and sharing my story to help others, to inspire others, and to motivate others. It looks like me now having a purpose-driven and meaningful career where through public speaking workshops and coaching, I'm able to teach women how they too can overcome their challenges, dream and desire better, and take inspired action to get there.

Natalie: 00:12:52

Now, let me be clear. I haven't arrived to my final version of myself. I'm not fully the person I want to be yet, nor do I [00:13:00] fully have the life I want, but I'm very happy and content with my current life and the person I am now and how far I've come. I'm also very excited for my continued growth as I look forward to the person I'm becoming. Though at several points I didn't know I'd get here, I'm glad to be on the other side stronger than ever, and a far better person because of it. That hell period of life did not kill me. I rose out of the ashes like a phoenix, and you can too. This my friends, is why I am so passionate about transformative wellness and putting yourselves first. It saved my life and my marriage, and gave me a future that I had at several points given up on. You only need the tiniest spark of hope to continue to dream big, take action and move the needle forward to your goals.

Natalie: 00:13:55

Just rest. But don't give up. Get support. Get people in your corner. And I'm so grateful for the people that were in my corner holding my hands, even when I didn't have the strength too. Get resources. Get tools, get whatever you can that helps you fight back and you climb one inch at a time you climb, and one day you will look back from that period of hell

nymore. You didn't break me, [: 00:15:00

Natalie: 00:15:12

In true teacher mode, let me bring this back to wellness and tie it all together for you. Let me ask you a question. What is your worst case nightmare? I ignored the signs until it was too late in my life, and I'm just very fortunate and grateful that I got a second chance. But you don't have to ignore the signs. It doesn't have to get to the worst case scenario.

Natalie: 00:15:42

What area of your life is being threatened? Because you won't prioritize your wellness. Is it your health? Is it your relationship with your partner or spouse? Maybe with your kids or family? Is it your sense of purpose and joy? What other early [00:16:00] signs that you're ignoring? Do your loved ones complain that you're not spending enough time with them?

Natalie: 00:16:06

Is your diet and nutrition suffering? Maybe it's that your physical body has ailments and is wearing down. Maybe it's hard for you to sleep at night and your emotions are always racing between stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. Maybe it's difficult for you to be present and in the moment

Natalie: 00:16:32

You won't know your goals or where you're headed until you gain clarity. You have to start with self-awareness and that comes in silence. It comes in rest. So for today's call to action, I challenge you to rest.

Natalie: 00:16:50

Choose one day between now and next Thursday where you devote one hour of awake time to rest. Choose the specific time slot on the specific date [00:17:00] for your hour of rest and add it to your calendar when the time comes, rest your body. Rest your mind. You might say, so, Natalie, what do I do during that time exactly?. My answer is nothing. Do nothing for as long as humanly possible. Just sit there or lie there and try to empty your brain. Release all your thoughts, pick them up and them out one by one and see if you can get to a place of space. Spacious rest. And once you get there, ask the universe to reveal what needs to be revealed to you.

Natalie: 00:17:39

Be alert and listen and look out for the cues and clues of where you need to focus on your wellness and what is at risk if you don't. I invite you to join with me in saying today's affirmation. I am open and ready to receive cues and clues that will help me better my life.[00:18:00] Again, I am open and ready to receive cues and clues that will help me better my life. In closing, I wanna thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there is someone you know who's going through a very difficult traumatic time, especially if it's a woman, please share this episode with them. They need to know that they can get through to the other side.

Natalie: 00:18:24

Next Thursday we'll be talking about the 12th elements of wellness. And why you have to look at wellness from a 360 degree perspective. So subscribe to From a Full Cup newsletter in the show notes to find out when it drops. This podcast is brought to you by Captivate, the best podcasting platform. If you're looking to start a podcast, I promise you this is the easiest way you can start a free trial by clicking the link in the show notes.

Natalie: 00:18:50

Until next time, continue to serve yourself, your loved ones, and your community from a full cup.