When you have lived through depression, suicidal ideation, or long-term chronic illness, the word “healing” can feel complicated.
Sometimes it feels hopeful.
Sometimes it feels unrealistic.
Sometimes it feels like pressure.
I understand that tension because I have lived it.
My lived experience of depression, suicidal thoughts, and a chronic incurable health condition has taught me something I did not learn in any training.
Healing does not begin with strategy.
It begins with belief.
Not blind optimism.
Not denial.
But a return to something many of us lost along the way.
The belief that we have an innate ability to heal.
What Lived Experience Taught Me About Healing
When you are inside depression, healing can feel impossible.
Your thinking narrows.
Your body slows.
Your future feels closed.
When you live with chronic illness, healing can feel even more complex. You may be told clearly that your condition is incurable. Symptoms may remain. Capacity may fluctuate.
So what does healing mean then?
Lived experience forced me to confront that question honestly.
I had to separate healing from curing.
Curing is the removal of symptoms.
Healing is the restoration of relationship.
Relationship with your body.
Relationship with your thoughts.
Relationship with your identity.
Relationship with hope.
For me, healing began the moment I stopped asking, “How do I get back to who I was?” and started asking, “Who am I now, and what is still possible from here?”
That shift changed everything.
The Core Beliefs That Shape Recovery
Whether we realise it or not, our core beliefs shape how we experience mental health recovery, chronic illness management, and personal growth.
If you believe:
You are broken
You are weak for struggling
You should be further along
Your illness defines you
Then every setback becomes proof that those beliefs are true.
I lived with those beliefs for years.
Depression reinforced them.
Suicidal ideation magnified them.
Chronic illness seemed to confirm them.
But lived experience also revealed something else.
Those beliefs were not facts.
They were conclusions formed during pain.
And pain does not always tell the truth.
The Innate Ability to Heal
When I talk about our innate ability to heal, I am not talking about magical thinking.
I am not suggesting that severe depression can be wished away or that chronic illness disappears through mindset alone.
Healing is not about bypassing medical care, therapy, or practical support.
It is about recognising that beneath the symptoms, something in you is still wired for survival, adaptation, and growth.
Think about this.
Your body heals cuts without instruction.
Your nervous system recalibrates after stress.
Your mind searches constantly for meaning.
Even during my darkest periods of depression, there was a small part of me that kept showing up.
It got me out of bed when I did not want to move.
It reached out for support when silence felt easier.
It chose to stay when leaving felt tempting.
That part was not loud.
But it was there.
That is what I mean by innate healing ability.
It is the part of you that has not given up, even when everything feels heavy.
Why This Is the First Step in the #BVOMT Framework
In the #BVOMT framework, becoming your Best Version Of Myself Today does not start with goals.
It starts with belief.
If you do not believe you are capable of healing in some form, you will unconsciously sabotage progress.
You will:
Dismiss small improvements
Minimise growth
Expect failure
Protect yourself from hope
Reclaiming your innate healing capacity does not mean declaring yourself fully healed.
It means allowing the possibility that change is still available.
Even now.
Even here.
Even within limits.
For someone living with chronic illness, healing may not mean symptom-free.
It may mean:
Greater self-trust
Clearer boundaries
More stable energy management
Less internal conflict
For someone recovering from depression or suicidal ideation, healing may look like:
Reduced intensity of negative thoughts
Longer periods of emotional steadiness
Reconnection with purpose
Willingness to imagine a future again
These shifts are real. They matter.
And they begin with belief.
Lived Experience Vs External Advice
One reason I speak openly about lived experience is this.
When you have walked through mental health struggles yourself, you recognise how damaging certain messages can be.
“Just think positive.”
“Other people have it worse.”
“You’ll bounce back.”
“Push through.”
Those statements often come from good intentions.
But they ignore core beliefs.
If someone deep down believes they are broken, telling them to be positive feels invalidating.
If someone believes they are a burden, telling them to push harder reinforces shame.
Lived experience taught me that healing conversations must start at the level of belief.
Before behaviour changes.
Before productivity returns.
Before goals are set.
We have to ask:
What do you believe about yourself right now?
Because that belief is shaping everything.
Chronic Illness and the Myth of Permanent Damage
Living with a chronic incurable health condition can create a dangerous belief.
The belief that because the illness is permanent, your potential is permanently reduced.
I struggled with that for years.
I equated diagnosis with limitation.
Limitation with failure.
Failure with identity.
But over time, I saw something different.
Yes, my condition changed my capacity.
But it also sharpened my awareness.
It deepened my empathy.
It forced clarity about what truly matters.
My healing did not remove the illness.
It changed my relationship to it.
That is an important distinction.
Healing is not always about subtraction.
Sometimes it is about integration.
Depression and the Illusion of Finality
Depression convinces you that how you feel now is how you will feel forever.
It tells you:
“This is permanent.”
“You are beyond help.”
“Nothing will shift.”
That sense of finality is one of its cruelest features.
But lived experience taught me that depression lies about time.
States change.
Intensity shifts.
Support alters trajectory.
The first time I experienced even a slight lifting of heaviness, I realised something powerful.
My system was not frozen.
It was responding.
That response, however small, was evidence of healing already underway.
Often we overlook these micro-moments because they are not dramatic.
But they matter.
They are proof that the innate system is still active.
Practical Steps to Reconnect With Your Healing Capacity
If this concept feels abstract, here are practical ways to begin reconnecting with your innate ability to heal.
1. Notice Evidence of Adaptation
Ask yourself:
What have I survived that once felt impossible?
Survival itself is evidence of capacity.
2. Track Small Improvements
Not dramatic breakthroughs.
Small shifts.
- A slightly better morning
- A conversation that felt easier
- One boundary you held
These are signs of movement.
3. Challenge Fixed Identity Statements
Instead of saying, “I am broken,” try:
“I am struggling right now.”
Instead of, “I will always be like this,” try:
“This is how it feels today.”
Language reshapes belief.
4. Separate Illness From Identity
You may live with depression.
You may live with chronic illness.
But you are not those conditions.
That separation is foundational to healing.
Encouragement Without Fantasy
Encouraging belief in healing is not about promising miracles.
It is about refusing to reduce a person to their worst chapter.
When I encourage people through the #bvomt framework, I am not asking them to deny medical reality.
I am asking them to refuse hopelessness as a permanent identity.
Your body may have limits.
Your mind may experience dark periods.
But your story is not over.
That is not motivational language.
It is observable truth.
If you are here, reading this, reflecting, searching, you are participating in your own healing already.
Why I Teach This Now
My lived experience has shaped my work because I know what it feels like to lose belief in yourself.
I know how heavy it feels to question whether healing is even possible.
And I also know the turning point was not when everything improved.
It was when I allowed myself to believe improvement was still possible.
That belief opened space.
Space for therapy.
Space for medical support.
Space for new identity.
Space for purpose.
Without that belief, none of the strategies would have mattered.
Becoming Your Best Version of Self Starts Here
Becoming your Best Version Of Myself Today does not require perfect mental health.
It does not require cured illness.
It does not require endless motivation.
It requires one core shift.
The willingness to believe that something in you is still capable of growth.
Even if it is small.
Even if it is slow.
Even if it looks different than you expected.
Healing is not linear.
It is not clean.
But it is available in forms we often overlook.
And when you reconnect with your innate ability to heal, you stop fighting yourself.
You start working with yourself.
That is the first step.
Not performance.
Not optimisation.
Not reinvention.
Belief.
From there, we build.
One honest day at a time.
