Get Out Of Your Own Way
Victoria Arlen
It’ s easy to get fixated on your own pain and struggles. And while you need to focus on your past and present to move forward, if you’ re stuck on your own island prison— think Alcatraz— with your tunnel vision fixated on your struggles, you end up isolated, which, in turn, prevents you from getting the help you need and deserve. Continuing to fixate and isolate causes more harm. Sometimes to get out of your own way, it’ s going to take other people— but not in the way that you think.
Years ago, when I first moved to LA, I got involved volunteering at a local children’ s hospital. I wanted to be there for kids who were in a situation I knew all too well. I started with a visit, and it turned into so much more. I would read with the kiddos, do arts and crafts projects with them, and support them wherever I could. At the time, I had not started my mental health journey and was silently struggling and hiding in plain sight with my pain. I didn’ t know if I could get out of my anxiety prison, but I knew I could check myself out of it for a few moments by helping other people. I had no idea that being there was doing more for the wounded inner child in me than I was doing for the kiddos in need there. I had so much unhealed trauma from one prominent children’ s hospital that by seeing how well the staff here treated the children, I was starting to heal part of me.
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