Overland Track. Part 2. Starting to Believe (I'm worthy).

On the evening of 23 June 2022, we were at Kia Ora hut where Dave Buttifant and Nick Farr kicked off our evening meditation/mindfulness/discussion session.

Butters then rolled out his affirmations...

I'm loving

I'm lovable

I'm considerate

I'm kind

I'm forgiving

I'm grateful

I'm worthy

He repeated these a number of times as we sat with my eyes closed as I concentrated on his words.

Every one resonated with me but the "I'm worthy" really hit me hard, in a good way.

After the completion of the session, I sat there pondering when the last time was that I truly liked and valued myself. The result being, I think it was sometime around 2004 to 2005. I know it wasn't that long after my triggering incident on 8 April 2003.

The following day throughout the vast majority of the trek to the next hut, I repeated Butters' affirmations but concentrated hard on the "I'm worthy" part. It was really sticking with me and made for quite the emotional journey that day.

You see when you are depleted of self worth, the road back to even stop hating yourself to starting to like yourself, let alone love yourself, is a long and difficult path to navigate.

The internal imposter is forever letting you know that you are a fraud, a failure, useless and other not so pleasant thoughts.

Having no self worth is something that is incredibly difficult to describe and probably one of those things that only those that have lived it will ever truly understand the horror that it is to live within it, or more to the point, without it.

The emotion that came that day came from me realising that after a pretty long and intense self reflection, I realised that I am starting to believe that I am enough.

Having people tell you that you are enough is incredibly important (and those that have told me, very grateful) however having that actual belief within yourself, that is the challenge.

After somewhere around the 17 to 18 year mark, having this belief is something that is pretty hard to grasp as it is so foreign, but like everyone else that is walking their own respective mental health journeys, we are all a work in progress to get back to the people that we want to be and I for one, are starting to believe, that yes, I am actually enough.

The re-building and learning continues.

Be Well.