It is officially the first issue

Even though the year has been full of events, I haven't exactly felt my best. You might not believe me if I told you that since the beginning of the year, I've been wanting to start a newsletter, but I've just kept pushing it back on my list of things to accomplish.

First of all can I just share my excitement as I type this issue because it has been one hell of a mental journey to get to this day.

Hello and welcome to the very first issue of MindFeed, a newsletter that will inspire you to achieve your best self while also giving you a glimpse into my life living with scleroderma and being a differently abled creative.

We are going to kick things off with what I have been struggling with of late - self doubt.

Google defines self doubt as a lack of faith in oneself; a feeling of doubt or uncertainty about one's abilities, actions, etc.

Can I take a moment to breathe….

I have for years struggled with affirming that I am capable and I can and while I’d like to believe that I have made progress, have I really? I can be too hard on myself, but this stems from my early years and has nothing to do with my special needs. I am the last born and only girl child, and so I got pampered a lot and perhaps got away with bullying my brothers at times(all the time), I always felt the need to out-perform. Looking back I understand that I have always been a high achiever and a people pleaser because I always wanted to remain in everybody’s good books. I wanted to be accepted because I had the notion that I was constantly being watched by everyone and so I had to be at my best - always.

Fast forward to being diagnosed with scleroderma at 18 yrs of age and the drastic physical changes that followed, my mind was on a roll and I couldn’t understand why I was slower or why suddenly I needed assistance with everything, even getting up from the chair. I felt confused, scared and cheated by my own body because I was ‘less’, ‘incapable’, and ‘ashamed’ of myself.

Sixteen years later I am still on the same journey of learning to appreciate myself and it never gets easy but it’s definitely WORTH IT. What is worth it, you may ask? I keep learning about myself and it keeps blowing my mind. I am learning to view myself in my own eyes and I absolutely love what I discover each day. I learn so much about myself and sometimes it isn’t positive like how I doubt myself and my abilities or when I compare myself with others and the unnecessary fear I have of being left behind in life, lol. It is a journey I make everyday.

Being differently abled I constantly remind myself that I have to move at slow to moderate speed because of obvious reasons (in fact the speed massively applies to mental than physical motions). If I try to move at unreasonable speeds like when I layout an unreal number of tasks to do, I am only setting myself up for failure and the negative loop that follows. This is exactly what happened earlier this year when I thought I would be doing a ton of things only to fall flat on my face and sulk about it for the better part of the year.

I had a lot going on in the beginning of the year and I felt like I was finally getting ish done; I launched my foundation this year and this meant I had to channel a huge amount of time and energy into that project. Mentally I was draining but I kept prolonging and pushing my extent until I fell apart. I had to pull the handbrake!

And so I took a step back and tried to re-analyse my current state and make necessary steps towards ensuring I was maintaining a healthy balance and momentum with all my projects as well as taking time to care for myself. Over the past couple of months it has been a trial and error phase as I took steps at forming better habits, building systems and steadily improving my productivity and I am proud to say I have achieved progress in some areas while I am yet to improve in some. Trust the process they say ;)

But thats the beauty of our beings, the human nature, we gradually make progress and evolve over time. I will be sharing my lessons right here as I take one step at a time, or should I say one feed at a time, see what I did there :D

Thanks for reading my first issue.

Until the next feed, please share this newsletter with your audience.

Enthusiastically,

Farah Khaleck