The Elsa in all of us!

It’s been so long that I have written again!

A long pandemic and a lot of forced self-healing to deal with. The COVID-19 pandemic with all the lockdowns has been traumatic for many people. Anxiety, stress, and so many more emotions that we have been forced to deal with.?

Before the lockdown, we all had created a routine and a system for ourselves. For some of us, it was called “Discipline,”; while for others, it was an unintentional way of running away from self-healing. The latter didn’t even realize what this is and what it meant. The outcome – the pandemic forced us to deal with our traumas. Did we all survive? Sadly, no. Wondering what I am talking about?

Let’s talk about “Frozen” here {Oh! By the way, Disney movies are my favorite. They always tend to teach you something!}. Frozen Part – 1 & 2 – a film that talks about self-acceptance and finally self-discovery and your true purpose and most of all, becoming your own “HERO.” A journey of a girl that isn’t allowed to accept herself and her abilities; log kya kahenge? And finally, when she discovers herself, it is harmony and completeness.?

So what has this got to do with the pandemic? Like Elsa during the pandemic, we had to learn to accept ourselves. This was irrespective of what people thought of us, even when it was family, for that matter. The lockdown disrupted the routines that we have. It has forced us to stay locked with ourselves and, for some, even with toxic family members and the outcome – Trauma.?

Trauma is wounds that can’t be seen, like internal wounds, what we call in Hindi – “Naasoor” or “Canker” in English. Often in such cases, for physical injuries, we have to reoperate that area and then allow it to heal. The same is valid for mental wounds or, in fancy words, “Trauma.” We all have faced trauma in some form or the other. It could be in the form of fights within the family, being scolded or beaten, being forced to stay within the so-called rules and perceptions of the society, or being forced to give up our lives and dreams for others, treated as worthless, and so on. There are innumerable ways that you could have been traumatized.

So what did we do? We just ignored it and pushed it into the deepest recesses of our minds. Effect - “Naasoor” or “Canker”. Now the lockdown happened. This trauma started surfacing in various ways. Some people could deal with it; others had problems and couldn’t handle it and wouldn’t even reach out for help. Why? Because some of us never understood it, and for some, it was the stigma around mental health that held us back.?

In this world of instant gratification, we need to understand and accept that healing doesn’t happen overnight. Like everything else, it takes time and effort. Also, once the recovery is completed, or let me put it this way that after the pandemic, most of us have evolved as entirely different people. None of us is the way we used to be, and this is where the self-acceptance starts again.?

Sounds like a lecture, doesn’t it? However, it is accurate, and I say this from a place of experience.?

• Constant highs and lows.?
• Innumerable meetings with my counselor.?
• Innumerable lifestyle changes.?
• The list is probably endless.?

Like Elsa, I had to break myself out of the walls that had been built around me. Walls of fear. Walls of feeling worthless. Walls of feeling are not good enough. The person who had come out from the walls is now much stronger, and the old beliefs still hold actual, now even more potent.?

The goal of this pandemic has been to survive. None of us are going to come out of this pandemic the way we were before. Some of us are physically stronger, and some mentally. It will be a change of priorities and understanding the importance of the small things that we take for granted for some. Whatever your transformation has been, accept yourself and love yourself.?

Like Anna in Frozen 2 says, “I might not be able to see or go far; however what is important is take the next step and the step after that.” One day at a time.

And most of all, ask for help. Mental health is stigmatized. Like a quote from Dr. Daniel Amen rightly said –

“We live in a society that stigmatizes mental health and mourns suicide.”