After 2 years, this journal is finally full. The first thing I wrote in it, dated December of 2019, was reflections on my studies in substance and behavioural addictions.

Self-worth and self-care are the most neglected of things when we feel that our lives have been shattered. It can seem easier to avoid ourselves when we are in pain – as I have done many a time in my life with alcohol and behavioural addictions.

But behaving in such a way only amplified and redistributed pain into my environment and into other human beings. I wasn’t able to feel it, but others certainly did at my hand.

This is no way to live.

Looking back on my notes over the last 6 years, across all my stacks of papers and notebooks, it’s very clear that a journey of rediscovery of the self is far from easy, and far from short. Sometimes we must even begin again if a mistake has been made.

But thankfully there is no law that says a journey must also be a journey undertaken in isolation – a fundamental truth I wish I would have learned years sooner than I did.

It is ok to seek out resources, like a gardener looking to nature for her wisdom.

The need for self-care and self-discovery will never fade. That’s life. Now, it’s time to start filling a new journal in acknowledgment of this fact.

If I were to recommend anything to anyone, it would be this hard-earned wisdom – Trace the roots of your tree of life. Form an understanding of your source of life, and pay close attention to what has grown to this day.

Where we plant our seeds, how we tend our soil, and how we water these roots will determine the health of our tree of life and the sweetness of the fruits that it will give.

Journals are of great help in producing the sweetest fruit. Do not underestimate the value of reflection in the growing process.

There is a good reason why water is both the source of life and if still, a surface capable of facilitating reflection.