As some of you may have read from previous entries, the past six months have been quite the journey. I left my city, an abusive relationship and an extremely stressful job and moved back in with my parents. I was in the midst of a physical, emotional and mental breakdown.

The day I made the decision to leave it all behind was the first step. Then came the loneliness in dealing with the steps that followed. I may or may not have called Dr. Laura on her XM Channel for advice — God, I was desperate.

In the last six months, I have experienced highs and lows like never before. It has been years since I’d let myself have a good cry and boy, did it last! I had those deep, wailing cries where you literally feel like you’re brain might explode. Those cries where your mind thinks of every moment that has led up to that cry. You remember all of your failed relationships, the times when you were rejected, when someone told you that you weren’t good enough, or the time when your best friend told you that couldn’t bring your girlfriend to her wedding due to religious reasons (yeah, that happened and it still hurt). That type of cry.

Now eventually the wailing subsided and I was no longer crying alongside the car next to me in Monday morning traffic (you wouldn’t believe how many times this has happened). The tears stopped (kinda) and I believed I had reached a point of peace. I believed that all of my prayers, crying, pleading, and promises to be better a person and to do better for myself had paid off. Wrong.

What happened next and what continues to happen is a great tug-of-war in my mind. There is a fight in my brain that is constantly trying to figure out where I am headed next now that I have this newfound sense of enlightenment. I find myself stuck between keeping a devout spiritual path and fearing that I may revert back to my old ways if I don’t. I don’t really trust myself to fly on my own, to let myself make my own decisions. There’s a lot of self doubt and guilt when I realized that my life had hit a wall and I was a big part of it. Because I always had a choice — always. And I chose to ignore my inner voice.

And here I am, the survivor of an awful situation, someone who has allowed herself to feel the pain of years past and who is looking forward to the future and desperately trying to remind herself to live in the present.

I have to remember to trust that I know better because I have lived through it and have dealt with the root of the issue. And to take each day at a time. I have to choose happiness each day and to remember what I’ve learned so I don’t have to repeat the same lesson. Healing is not black and white and if you find yourself in the midst of a healing or spiritual journey don’t be so hard on yourself. If no one gets your journey it is ok. It’s not theirs — it’s yours. You’ll come into your own at your own time.

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” ― Dalai Lama