Do the hard thing

I write weekly and sometimes daily in my journal, but that is just an explosion of thoughts, feelings and words and often is a dump of all my energy, negative, positive, whatever I’m feeling at the time.

It’s really been helpful for my mental health, I find writing out my thoughts and ideas a nice form of stress relief.  The fact that these articles are going out on the internet makes me want to structure it in a way that will be interesting to read, it’s a challenge and I really enjoy this new medium of sharing my thoughts.

Today’s article is about doing hard things and pondering about how our lives are all so comfortable but we seem to be the unhappiest we’ve ever been. Depression is rife, obesity is a problem and social media has taken over making us compare our lives with others more than ever. We all have such incredibly comfortable lives but somehow, someone always has it better. It makes it really difficult to appreciate what we have when we’re constantly comparing our lives with others.

I wrote this article when I had been traveling for almost 4 months. In June 2023 I left my comfortable, consistent life to move to Canada and travel indefinitely (or at least for 2 years until my visa expired). I thought there had to be more to life and I was right!

I say my life was comfortable, but in reality, it was the most uncomfortable I had ever felt. I was constantly feeling down, crying myself to sleep and crying upon waking. I was uncomfortably overweight from self-medicating with food and alcohol. I was trying desperately to fill a void to get one more hit of dopamine so I didn’t have to feel the darkness that was currently enveloping my life. I felt like I was at a standstill, my creative business was going ok but I was in a loop of procrastinating and beating myself up about not getting enough work done, but then just spending hours lying on the couch, feeling frozen — unable to move and take action on the things I knew I needed to be doing.

Fast forward to today, just under 4 months living full-time in a van traveling around Canada. My lifestyle took a complete turn and it turns out living in a van is hard. There are comforts that I no longer have but the funny thing is, I’m the most comfortable I’ve been in a long time.

The hard things I’ve been doing for the past 4 months have also made me look at my previous life and realise what I took for granted. Hot water from the tap, daily warm showers and a large fridge with ample food and cold water available. Living in a van has made me grateful for the small things, when I shower I now really appreciate it, I really soak in the satisfaction and comfort of bathing in the warm water and having freshly cleaned hair, but equally I love my wild showers and bathing in rivers and lakes.

When I have electricity I take full advantage, powering up all my devices to get me through another week on the road, grateful for the instant electricity, which I once took for granted. This trip has made me realise how much of life I took for granted and am learning again to notice all the pleasures and comforts in life and truly appreciate them, and at the same time notice how the hard things are shaping me as a person and changing my perspective from victim to feeling empowered and back in control of my life and my choices.

I have been doing the hard things. I’ve been hiking to the tops of mountains and discovering the struggle to get to the top is greatly rewarded by a breathtaking view. I hiked 6 hours to get to a beautiful alpine lake (pictured), the journey was hard – but not as hard as sitting on the couch feeling deflated and depressed opening another bag of chips to while away some more time. Hiking has given me a new appreciation for pushing through pain — because the reward is indescribable. The reward is not only an amazing view or lake but it’s the satisfaction of knowing I did the hard thing. It’s the feeling of self-love by doing the hard things and recognising the fact I can do anything I put my mind to. I am learning a new feeling of self-respect by taking this journey and am stepping away from the victim I used to be.

I have stepped into nature and by doing so I am stepping into myself again and I can’t be more grateful for that.