Happy New Year!
I'm pretty sure we can all agree that 2020 was not exactly the year we'd anticipated when we were decked out in our Gatsby gowns and Daisy curls. We channeled the roaring 20's, but really what we got was 1929 - 2.0. The year the Great Depression started. 2020 was full of similarities. We lost our jobs. We lost our loved ones. We lost some of our freedoms. We lost vacations and concerts and movies and Broadway shows. We lost routine. We lost our sense of direction. We lost peace and hope in a better future.
But I think there were a lot of things we gained. We gained perspective. We had more time so we slowed down. We refocused our priorities. We became more creative. We took up new hobbies and discovered new talents. We made new friends and found new ways to connect with old ones.
I hope at the beginning of 2021 you're looking back on 2020 and seeing the positive even in the midst of all the negative. I know for me the last three months were especially filled with love, peace and a new sense
of purpose.
Purpose.
It's my word for 2021 because this year I want to live a life that intentionally pursues the purpose I know I've been given. And 2020 has taught me how to do that even when life gets derailed.
There’s this quote from John MacArthur I heard on a podcast. He's a legendary pastor and leadership author who said, “Knowledge isn’t power. Knowledge with purpose is power.”
You can be the smartest person in the world; go on Jeopardy and win millions; but if there’s no greater use for that knowledge then it’s really just lifeless thoughts and useless facts swirling around in your brain.
I’ve always been a knowledge seeker. I loved the academics of college more than the socialization. Especially in grad school when some of my classes were so obscure that there was probably very little use to the information outside of the classroom, but I loved learning how to research and write a 90-page thesis anyway.
When I started getting into journalism, I began to realize that there was so much more value in asking the questions than having the answers. I often joke that the smartest person in the room isn’t the one with all the answers but the one who asks the right questions.
Through my job, I’ve been able to ask a million questions. Two things tend to happen after a great interview: 1) I’m a little bit more knowledgeable and 2) they (the interviewee) are just a little more confident about themselves. What I mean by the latter is that even the shyest person likes to talk about things they know. So when I get a one-on-one with an expert in fall foliage or in community food distribution, I find that the nerves often go away when they’re talking about something they love.
However, that conversation means very little beyond the two people having the discussion. It’s just knowledge for knowledge's sake. But when I take that information, package it up in a nice little minute-and-a-half story and put it on TV, now that knowledge has the power to change someone’s life.
Okay, okay, maybe I’m giving myself too much credit, but you get the idea. If the knowledge you gather can be used to help someone else then that right there is when knowledge actually becomes powerful.
And that’s what I want my blog to be for other people; a place for them to find knowledge about mental health that will empower them to create purpose in their own lives.
By now, many of you know my struggle with depression and anxiety. You know of chapters in my life when I was at my lowest. You know some of the lessons I’ve learned through difficulties that have helped me become the person I am today. But I’m still in the infancy stage of this mental health journey and so my ability to help people is limited. I don’t have all the answers, but lucky for me, I have a lot of questions. And lucky for you, I know a lot of people who can help.
One of the best parts of my day job is the people I’ve been able to meet over the last two years. Many of them are experts in various fields right here in my own community that opened their doors to me and my video camera. Some of those resources have even become my friends who I’m now calling on to help people with this next chapter of The Drawn Collection.
Because as much as I know sharing my story might help readers feel less alone in their struggles, I don’t want this blog to turn into a lamenting diary where I just depress people even farther with my grief. We all have struggles, but we don’t have to choose to live in those struggles forever. There are tools and resources out there that can help, you just have to be willing to fight for it. I want this platform to be a way to help people fight for a change in their life.
And I’m not going to do that by having all the answers. Instead, I’m going to do what I do best and ask the questions. I want to invite you on the journey as I consider a path forward for me and the many other people who actively fight mental health challenges.
In the coming months, I’m going to have articles with yoga and meditation experts to talk about the first steps of mindfulness, doctors to discuss medication options, counselors to talk about the misconceptions of therapy, community facilitators to help people find the help they need, and many, many more. I'm ready to learn and I'm ready to grow. How about you?
Don’t worry, I’ll sprinkle in some of my own story. I’m going through this journey with you, remember? So I’m also learning how to meditate and documenting my experience along the way. I’m going to share my own pros and cons of therapy even as I interview my own therapist. Yes, I might even try hypnotherapy just to be able to accurately describe what that’s like.
I’m very excited to be evolving on this platform and I hope that you will join me here as often as you can. I’ll be posting daily on Instagram, and hopefully someday soon, I’ll be ready to launch my new podcast with tons of interviews and stories and fun conversations with people just like you and me. For I believe we’ve been drawn together to create a life we love.
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