There was a time in my life not too long ago where I felt the paralyzing feels of depression. It started around my 19th birthday. For a girl that was always looked at as the positive-happy-go-lucky type, I didn’t understand what was happening to my mind. I blamed it on being overworked and overwhelmed until I finally realized that I was actually depressed. I felt numb. I felt sad to the point of no tears. I felt exhausted to the point of sleeping hours on end during the day. I knew this wasn’t me. What happened to the girl that lived the fullest through all aspects of each day?

I felt like everything was happening to me. I was doing poorly in school, I felt like I wasn’t making the money I deserved, I was constantly falling ill and on top of all of that, I felt a funk inside of my inner mind that made me very uncomfortable with myself.

I found yoga to relieve the tension and ultimately figured out the reason for my in comparison to some, short-lived depression by acknowledging the true issue.

As short as my diagnosis may have been, it enlightened me to the battle that so many faces. Luckily enough I was able to shift my energy to resolve my muddled mind. Not saying it was easy, but this short saying kept me in line.

This is not happening to you, this is happening for you.

Shortly after deciding that each experience was happening was for me, not to me, I was able to get back into my groove, make amends with my university, put my all back into my amazing job and actually stay awake during each day. I took myself from this dark place I was cascading down into, to the bright-eyed girl that I was known as.

I see my life as these relatively short clips all clipped together to make one long video stream. I look at times like I have described above almost as a different life with a different starring character. The thing is that we all have these different lives, happy and sad episodes and those different people that play roles throughout each of them. As we go on, some of these characteristics evolve, some remain and others vanish. Through each of these experiences it is important to ask ourselves not why this is happening to me, but why is this happening for me? The universe knows what you need, let it give that magic to you.