Wellbeing & Mental Health

"If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else"

- Rupaul

Love. 

According to the Ancient Greeks there are 8 types: 

• Agape - Unconditional Love 
• Eros - Romantic Love
• Philia - Affectionate Love
• Philautia - Self-love
• Storge - Familiar Love
• Pragma - Enduring Love
• Ludus - Playful Love
• Mania - Obsessive Love.

Why is love the first thing you're reading on a page titled Wellbeing & Mental Health? 

Again I'll say, this is a journey of self-discovery and I'm only now starting to see how love, in whatever form it manifests itself, is at the core of our every being. 

If I don't love myself and embrace my flaws and imperfections with open arms, will I ever win my battle with mental health? Will my soul ever really be at peace? 

If we as a race and a community don't learn to love ourselves, and love ourselves wholeheartedly can we truly expect others to do the same? 

There is such a stigma within the Black community surrounding mental health, a trap I've unconsciously fallen into. I'm starting to realise, and I hope you will too that there will never be any long lasting progress made without healing and nurturing the wounds that have been inflicted upon us and passed down from generation to generation. 

So here's me creating a space for healing. For the first time in my life I'm outwardly expressing my vulnerability, not as a cry for help, not for pity, but simply because there is someone out there going through and experiencing the same things I went through. I am finally strong enough to speak and relive my pain if it means saving someone else from that path.

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