My Healing Journey: A Work in Progress

It’s been a while since my last blog post but I feel I have to talk about the past few months.

This break between posts has been largely intentional, although I don’t think I ever expected it to last this long. You see, back in March, I had decided that social media and the online world was largely a distraction for me, cluttering my mind and making me feel more frantic than I should. As an actress and musician, a constant message I get hammered into me is: social media, social media! Do the social media! But what people forget is that you shouldn’t just post for the sake of posting and, to be frank, at the time I didn’t really do “post-worthy” things very often – if at all. So posting on socials became a chore, and one that I was failing at constantly.

When I took a break, it was the best decision I’d ever made.

All of a sudden, I didn’t have this expectation to post constantly in the back of mind, and I didn’t have the apps anymore to distract me in my day to day. I could finally just focus on the present moment. That was invaluable.

Even more magical, however, I finally set out on my healing journey.

When the self-doubt hits in the middle of a self-tape

Personally, I feel like everyone has a little bit of something that they need to heal from. For me, I’ve been learning recently that the culture that I come from has a lot of intergenerational trauma (especially from the most recent wars in the ‘90s) so there’s been a lot of unlearning of those patterns, as well as a fair amount of facing personal issues that I don’t really want to delve into in this medium. This healing process has opened my eyes to a lot.

Firstly, in regards to my culture, I’m slowly learning that I wasn’t alone with all of the issues I had growing up, and that many young Balkan women deal with similar things. The expectation to hold up your family’s honor, to be perfect hosts and always be cleaning, self-sacrificing yourself for the sake of others, but then also being shamed for our bodies, being shamed if we’re not considered to be “pure,” among many other things. It gets to be a lot.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these aspects are not unique to just my culture, but there is something about being able to relate to other women in the context of what you’re familiar with, that is just so powerful.

Secondly, on a more individual level, I’m becoming more aware of how I talk to myself. It was…shocking to say the least. My inner child has been suffering as a result of that for years and years and now it’s time to heal her.

I’m still on my healing journey - the job is never done - but I feel as though I’m a much different person than I was even just a few months ago. I’ve pruned the toxic people out of my life, switched jobs, and moved to a much better area of town. On top of that, the focus I have on my career goals has never been stronger. I feel good for once in my life.

I know that the tough times will come (they always do), but that’s life, and I know I will survive them.

As always, my DMs are open if you want to chat about this or anything else! @TheRealSelmaD

With love,

xx Selma