Closer and Closer to Launching My Biz!

What a week this has been and it’s only Wednesday!

Yesterday I decided to splurge a little bit and buy a few pieces of absolutely amazing looking jewelry. The pieces are from a company called The Vintage Pearl and when I saw their designs it was love at first sight.  Their work is exactly the kind of jewelry I adore.

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The first item I got is a spinner ring, which I have been looking for EVERYWHERE.  The fact that this is custom made and I got to decide the writing on it made it a must-have for me.

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I got the copper one but in a hammered style and I’ll wait to share my word choice with you when it arrives A lot of their jewelry has names on it so you could give it as a gift to a grandparent or a mom with the names of grandchildren/children on it.  There are even some for pets (a paw print necklace is the one I saw).

I also decided to get this beautiful bird’s nest necklace with three aqua stones.  The trinity/triumvirate is representative of different things. One interpretation represents my dogs, Buddha and Angie, and myself. Another represents my connection with myself, with others, and with my higher power/spirituality.  And the last reason is because 3 stones was the most aesthetically pleasing to me.

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I am very excited to get these in as they are going to be a recovery gift to myself.

In other news, I am tantalizingly close to being done with one project for my business but I want to have a few projects done before launching it.  I feel these surges of motivation throughout the day and try to ride that wave before it dissipates.  What has really inspired me is former Goddess Leonie’s work (the Goddess Workbook & the Business e-Course have been the most helpful), but in all honesty the way she now markets herself and her business just isn’t resonating with me anymore, and that’s actually been really disappointing for me.  There’s this tension inside me because I absolutely LOVE her workbooks and ecourses and they have honestly and genuinely been VERY helpful, motivating, inspiring, & comforting for me.  It’s difficult when other people change and we don’t identify with those changes, but I am still making use of her products and focusing on what she has written that does help me.

I feel a little weird about disclosing that much, but that’s the reason that I no longer have the badges for the affiliate links on my right side bar.  Would I recommend Leonie’s work to others still? Absolutely.  There’s no doubt that I have personally gained so much from her work, and if you haven’t checked out her workbooks and e-courses then I’d say take a look and see if it resonates with you.

In other news, I’m experiencing some unusual anxiety about what/how much to post on the blog.  Some days I really like being so raw and vulnerable because it’s therapeutic for me and I hope that it resonates with others.  On other days, the rawness and vulnerability scares me and I worry about negative feedback.  The truth is though, this is who I am.  When you read my blog, you’re really getting me.  I’d say that the one thing I don’t share with you all is my sense of humor, because I don’t know if it translates well in writing.  In person, I love to joke around, laugh, and be my blunt, sometimes difficult to understand self.  A lot of my jokes have very obscure references and if people don’t know me well, they easily get confused and just think I’m really bizarre.  I hope to find a way to incorporate my lightheartedness into my blog posts because it’s something that has helped me be a happier person.

I would like to share with you all a little bit more about my business besides the vague “it’s going to be aimed at helping people.”  As you may or may not know, advocacy is something that I really want to be a part of and my blog is only one attempt at that.  The point of my blog is to chronicle my own journey through recovery and show life through one person’s eyes who happens to struggle with mental illness.  I will also soon be posting videos about all sorts of things and I hope that those of you who are more visually oriented will enjoy putting a voice behind the words.

Next month I’ll be celebrating 9 months in recovery from my eating disorder and it is something that I never thought I could do.  The idea of going 9 days or even 9 weeks without symptoms was once unimaginable to me.  It was a far off, pie in the sky idea.  I kept thinking, “Do people actually get better? Does recovery really exist? Is it like winning the lottery and you just get lucky if the odds are in your favor? Or can anyone achieve it?”

I took on recovery as both the fight for my life and an experiment with the objective of discovering what it takes to be able to go a day without eating disorder and self-harm symptoms.  I’ve looked at recovery from all sorts of angles: philosophical, spiritual, scientific, etc and I’ve come up with a formula that works for me.  I should say though that this formula is really more of a recipe, because it changes as things in my life change and that’s one of the biggest and most important things I want others to know about the process.  What works one day in recovery might not work in a week or a month and it’s all about finding that sweet spot.  I really want to help people do this and share what I’ve learned.

My plans for now are to take the next year to continue intensive therapy and DBT, with the hope of applying for graduate school or a post-bac program for the Fall of 2013.  It might be a year later but I would like to further my education so that I can share even more information with others.  I want to inspire others and show them that things can get better! You CAN recover and life doesn’t always have to be a black hole.

I’ll still be honest about the fact that not every day is amazing for me.  I have good days, ok days, not-so-great days, and downright shitty days, but guess what? That’s part of being human! No one can escape the human condition while still being alive and recovery isn’t about having every day be absolutely wonderful.  It is about making different choices that will help you deal with difficulties that everyone else deals with AND things that only those with an eating disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, and depression deal with.

I don’t want to minimize the fact that having a mental illness does make life harder in certain ways, just like if you had a physical disability or illness of the body your life might be more challenging in certain ways.  I so strongly feel that my life’s mission is to help others dealing with challenges (even if they aren’t diagnosable illnesses-things like low self-esteem, poor body image, etc.) make life better for themselves.

As I learn how to rewire my brain so that I can choose to be joyful and grateful, and continue to cultivate positive things in my life, I want to share them with others.

I realize that I’m not a licensed therapist/social worker/anything, but I’m letting go of the belief that I have to have a title to help others.  Am I qualified to do therapy sessions? ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Is that what I’m trying to do? ABSOLUTELY NOT.  My goal is to help others as a peer, as a fellow recoverer.  

By the end of this week I hope to have my first project completely finished and then hope to complete at least 2 more before launching this new phase in my life.  I hope you all will stick with me and I’m so grateful for every single one of my readers.  Whenever I get a comment or an email from you, it makes my day and I am just filled with good feelings that I have wonderful people who follow my journey.

Sending good vibes to all of you,

Alex

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Tagged as: being authentic, BPD recovery, custom rings, eating disorder recovery, humor, necklaces, starting a business, The Vintage Pearl, unique jewelry