I do not believe in mental illness. I believe the human body-mind organism responds intelligently when exposed to harmful situations and has the innate capacity to restore its inherent wholeness.

Being exposed to violence and scarcity in early life distorts the frameworks within which we relate to the external world.

It appears to distort the natural beingness that we already are.

We begin to perform a life based on external expectations. We lose connection to that which is most important: what lies within.

At some point, it dawns on us: we have been living a lie.

Growing up, perhaps your caregivers and others around you hated your authenticity.

They tried to shut it down repeatedly.

You then decided it was a good idea to do the same thing to yourself. When you have feelings or thoughts that go outside of the norm of what is expected of you, you suppress them and shut them down.

Through food, through drugs, through relationships, through work… The list towards emotional numbness and disconnection seems to be endless and even encouraged in our world.

These come at a cost. All of this suppression and denial of your inner world creates the symptoms of what we call mental illness.

You hope these inner experiences will go away someday, but there is a lingering sense that they won’t, unless you stop disowning them and try to understand them.

Somewhere inside you, the voice of your own soul calls you back home.