Looking back five years ago, I can’t help but wonder: was there one thing that broke me, or was it a compilation of many things?

In my mind, I was doing everything right. Hustling, mothering, traveling, climbing mountains, going on retreats. And to my surprise, stress still got the best of me.

I was stunned because I didn’t know what was wrong to be fixed.

That was the beginning of the trajectory I find myself on today, and strangely enough, it all began with therapy. Because the mind needed to calm down first. Only then could I begin attuning to the body, the heart, and the soul.

I remember coming across the word dis-ease around that time. I had just miraculously come out of a hypertensive crisis that caused a complete shutdown, and I was deeply surprised that something like that could happen to me. Because again, in my mind, I was doing everything right.

But the truth was: my mind was wrong.

I had given too much authority to my mind while neglecting my heart, body, and soul.

During this Mental Health Week, I want to celebrate a few things, and perhaps gently question a few others too.

First, I want to celebrate how much awareness has been created over the last five years. We started from stigma upon stigma, from silence and misunderstanding, and today people speak far more openly about the fragility of their mental state. I’ll be resharing some of the very first conversations we had around mental health because they mattered deeply at the time.

But I also find myself concerned by the way psychological information is now handed out like popcorn on social media.

As we move beyond the awareness stage — where stigma has slowly begun dissolving — we must also become more discerning. Burnout and stress have somehow become badges of honor, and healing has started to feel performative at times.

But wellness is not a competition.
There is no prize.
There is no final destination.

We are all work in progress, showing up every day, making better choices where we can, resting when needed, sprinting when needed.

There is nothing to fix.

We are not broken. We simply need to attend to our inner worlds with the same care we give our outer worlds.

And our inner world is made up of the mind, body, heart, and soul — all requiring care, all requiring dialogue, all requiring space.

So during Mental Health Week, I also hope for an emotional health day, a body awareness day, and honestly, I hope we can have a soul day every single day.

Today, I wish your mind rest.
I wish your overthinking softens.
I wish you protect your brain through movement, nourishment, stillness, and care.

Most importantly, I wish you remember that the mind is not separate from our holistic health and cannot heal in isolation.

I wish you curiosity.
I wish you ease.
I wish you healing.
And above all, I wish you joy.