If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you might have been wondering either of the following questions: how did I design the blog? How long did it take to finish it and launch? What were the challenges faced and how did I deal with them?… Or maybe you were wondering less of the technicalities and more about the mental and emotional aspect of it: the why. What was my drive behind creating my own website, my own blog? What’s the story behind it?

Whether you’re curious because you love the aesthetic of my platform, or you’re a savvy boss babe looking to learn any extra tips to use for your own business, I’m here today to spill the tea and we’re going to get up close and personal, more transparency than I have until now. Especially topics like depression and anxiety are not much addressed in the glow up circles of the internet, which is why I think it’s important to raise awareness, and share our stories.

This is a story about persistence, learning to handle failures, battling depression and anxiety, and learning to overcome them all, because I made a commitment to myself to honor my true self. If you take away anything from my story, I hope it is feeling inspired to start reaching for your dreams, if you have not started already.

WHY I CREATED MY BLOG

I am a creator in every sense of the word. I love creating beautiful things, whether it is art, books, graphics, DIY perfumes or anything else I can think of. That must be said. But even further, I am a writer at heart. Writing is my souls’ passion, it is my soul’s creative outlet, if I had to keep only creative medium it would be this. And so, I’ve been passionate about writing since I was around 13 years old. I started working on my first book at that age. Later, bits and pieces of that storyline, of those characters, morphed into the current version of Arcanum of Thorns, my Celtic fantasy series.

Why is this important? Because for a while – for a long while – I believed that I was meant to be a writer. ONLY a writer, even if just in the privacy of my pen and paper. With time this changed, and I realized I don’t have to box myself in, with all my different talents and skills and interests. I realized that I didn’t have to shrink myself into only one definition, that I didn’t have to stay stuck in a dead end 9-to-5 job and only keep my artistic side as a private, personal outlet. I realized I could be all of the things I want to be, to embody my full self, and do what I love and love what I do, in full daylight, publicly, day by day. And so can you! In full ownership of who you are. Doesn’t that sound so relieving, so fulfilling? It’s how we’re actually meant to live our lives! It’s not about the capitalist grind, living to work so you can work to live. We’re meant to enjoy life and even better, we’re meant to thrive.

When I realized I could be an artist, and a writer, and a designer, and anything else I wanted… a new chapter in my life began.

BELIEVE IN YOUR INFINITE POTENTIAL

With this epiphany, my goal was no longer just the distant fantasy of getting my books published on “one magical day”. I was actually limiting myself and my potential, by believing “getting books published” was the height of my success. Instead I allowed myself to believe in my greater potential, my infinite potential.

That’s when I started doing more research (approximately 1-2 years ago) into elevating my mindset, my lifestyle, and most importantly, my goals accordingly. I finally recognized, in a mindful and conscious way, the highest vision of my life and goals. I finally allowed myself to believe that I can not only dream of more, but manifest that incredible reality into my life. Sound familiar?

Everything changed when my mindset leveled up. I gained this incredible clarity, that I can’t even put into words – it’s like the mental fog that was present there before, just disappeared. That’s why it’s so important to clear any mental blockages of worth or belief, you’re effectively blocking your own blessings! One by one, everything started to fall into place.

TAKING OWNERSHIP OF YOUR TRUE SELF

Yet I didn’t quite know how to start. How do you build a brand, how do you build your own business? How do you start making things happen? How do you start??

And so I kept reading, researching. I kept looking for similar artists or writers or influencers, who were already where I wanted to be. I gained inspiration and motivation, and just said, “f*** it, I’m finally going to buy my own domain, as I’ve always wanted”, because I realized that in my subconscious somewhere, I had been waiting for some magical sign out of the skies to tell me that it’s time to start, that I’m ready. Guess what? You’re never 100% ready, unless you actually start! You become ready by starting to make the first step, and then the second and third.

I knew social media is essential, so I started investing more time into my Tumblr (which I was using anyway, and which will always be the social media platform of my heart). Until then, my Tumblr had been more like a diary where I could shout into the void, and there would be little or no echo back, so I could just do my thing and focus on finding my voice and brand and energy. I didn’t expect it to go anywhere, it was simply my place of comfort, a virtual moodboard if you will, however . . . I kept staying consistent, sharing my thoughts and experiences and advice. And years later, I’m here to tell you, it pays off. Anything that is nourished with attention and love is bound to grow. In short, it was the little sign from the universe that I was going in the right direction. That finally, I was no longer alone just shouting into the void.

In the beginning, my domain name connected with my Tumblr, until I could elevate it to the next level – the one it is now, and which I am so beyond grateful for finally manifesting into reality.

Friends and acquaintances, knowing me, kept asking why don’t I have an Instagram for all my amazing art? How come I don’t have a page somewhere to showcase my creations? I’ll be honest, I’m a Tumblr cat lady at heart, but even the business-savvy Capricorn Moon in me snapped her fingers and told me to pull it together and branch out. So I did. It was a big step for me for this simple reason: it was another way of me owning up to my dream self, to who I wanted to become.

If you’re a budding artist as well, an artist of any kind, you know the amount of courage it can take to put yourself out there and own up to your identity, to your authenticity! It can be scary, uncomfortable, exhilarating, rewarding, empowering all at the same time. But it’s a step that must be done, otherwise you’ll live with the regret all your life of never having tried. You’ll live with the regret of never having given yourself the opportunity to even try. And – I realized I was not the kind of person to do that. I was not the kind of person to settle for a mediocre life, a life of shadowing my authenticity or shrinking myself into something Less.

THE HUSTLE & GRIND

And it was this summer, that once again something shifted in my mindset. In August, I must have lived/worked for 5 whole months because I brainstormed and journaled and essentially catapulted my way into the reality of my dream life. Do you know the dramatic, ultra-inspiring montage in movies when the heroine studies for finals, finishes her projects, essentially gets her life together? That’s literally what happened, and here’s how – I watched all the videos and documentaries and Ted Talks I could find. Listened to all the inspiring and motivating and educational podcasts. I filled my mind and my surroundings with the right energy – a positive mindset, one of abundance and wealth and happiness, of doing what I love and loving what I do. I watched and listened to other people doing what I wanted to do, noted how they did it, and then started following the same steps. I made it a staple of my life to expose myself daily to the content of influencers or platforms that were wildly inspiring.

I visualized my dream life, dream career, delved into the nitty-gritty details of building my own business and everything it implied (market research, planning, strategy, short-term goals, long-term goals, etc). It meant facing all the big, scary questions I’d been avoiding because my mindset hadn’t been right, I had been lacking that belief in myself. One by one, I faced them. Even better, I meditated over them and reveled in their possibility. Best of all, I reveled in their reality. I’m so grateful for that period in my life, where I seemed to have been blessed with all the inspiration and motivation of a lifetime, jammed into one sleepless yet ironically energizing month (must have been that Mars in Aries energy). Bless you August. In short, it’s when I laid the foundations for everything.

I finally bought my own hosting, and got down to business. Across several weeks initially, and then across several months, I went from sketches to designing my ideal website. I spent so many sleepless nights researching the right plugins, troubleshooting bugs and errors (PHP incompatibility, contact form issues / SMTP, newsletter issues, coding issues, PDF issues), the list goes on. I could almost say this stage took more than the initial construction and design of the website, and it wasn’t easy.

DEPRESSION & SELF DOUBT

At some point, I got discouraged. The site wasn’t ready for launch, and yet 3+ months had already passed since I’d started. I had given myself deadline of 1-2 months at most, but the days and weeks spilled on, and I just kept hitting my head against those bugs and issues, without finding a viable solution.

For instance, I had endless issues with the freebie PDF that comes with signing up for my newsletter. I knew it was an essential part of the launch, and had to be fixed. I kept troubleshooting whether the graphics in the PDF looked wrong because of the design app I was using, or the PDF reader, or an issue in its design properties, or the webhost. Maybe it was just on my computer? To this day, I haven’t found the mysterious answer. Most likely, it’s because of the design app, or the gargantuan size of the PDF (I know, I know, but I’m a sucker for pretty graphics, and I would not offer my readers anything less).

In short, I got lost in the technical, analytical details, and lost focus of the creative one, of the soulful one. I lost focus of my “WHY“. Whereas the initial construction and design lasted around 1 – 1,5 months give or take, the bugs lasted for almost 2, because it had gotten me so discouraged. It got to a point, where I fell into depression, because I felt stuck. I started questioning everything, my direction, my goals. I started to wonder if I would even launch the site this year.

Perhaps it was hardest because it keenly reminded me of my deep depression back in 2017, when I ventured on my first attempt to create my dream life. That time, I had no idea what direction to take, what steps to take; I had simply taken a blind leap of faith. And although that may work for others, it didn’t work for me. I needed direction, research, strong planning, and other aspects which needed to be put into place, before I could succeed, but I didn’t know that then. Not knowing how to deal with failure is what catapulted me into depression then, as well as severe anxiety.

If you have ever battled depression, then you know how deadening it can be, how it can numb all your senses, that everything literally becomes drained of color or joy. Nothing pleases or offers delight, it’s all the same, the days bleed together in a cold blue light and your mind is simply blank. It’s like your brain is on hibernate mode, or survival mode, because somewhere somehow you are wounded and bleeding from the inside, and it doesn’t know how to deal with what’s happening. And the only thing it can do to protect you right here right now, is to shut down everything in order to stop the pain. The problem is… it protects you from both the pain and the joy. It numbs you from everything. And my God, what a dark place that is to be in, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone ever! I remember a certain place and time, in the midst of that depression, sitting in a coffee shop with a friend, and realizing that nothing was helping me, nothing could help me. It was like seeing the world from the inside of a blue smoky glass, everything blurry and washed out, and most importantly, beyond my reach. I felt disconnected from others, most of all, which is what caused my severe anxiety in turn.

In essence, the issues with my blog only reminded me of that dark stage in my life. I still have my diary entries from that time, laced with confusion and heartache and just painful energy. Perhaps one day I’ll be brave and strong enough to go over them again, and reconnect with my self from that time, and revisit old wounds so they are not left forgotten and buried. Those kind of scars never fully heal if you leave them aching.

I understand, in retrospective, that the timing in 2017 wasn’t right. That it was meant to happen in a way, perhaps as a way to teach me how to deal with failures as being learning opportunities and not death sentences (dramatic but true, as that can be the case if you place all your bets and quit your job to manifest your dream job – with no plan). Furthermore, to teach me to do better and better, and never dare let the thought of giving up cross my mind, no matter what happens.

PUSHING THROUGH THE CHALLENGES

At some point, I snapped out of it and continued the work. I reminded myself what I stand for. I hadn’t spent hundreds of hours grinding and working on my business to give up now. I hadn’t invested so much time and effort, and most importantly – made an irrevocable commitment to myself to honor my true creative path – to just give up on myself. No way! So I pulled myself together and kept pushing through. Slowly, one by one I solved the issues and bugs with the site, or found workarounds that worked just as fine.

Finally! After 3 months of continuous work on my site (all the while working a full-time job), it was ready. However…

I had a moment of shock. Even with everything ready, I had a moment of disbelief, or wonder, or doubt. What now? Can I really do it? And the answer is: yes, yes, you can do it babe! Because I knew then, this was only the beginning. Finally getting my own website, starting my own blog, was the first step. All my other plans came after, one after another, but this was the foundation.

This is only the beginning. And I can’t wait to bring you along my journey every step of the way, if anything, to show that you can do it to. If I did, so can you – and that’s a fact darlings!

Believe in your vision, and don’t you ever dare give up on it. You owe it to yourself.