How creativity helped me begin to heal

July 3rd - Sunlight on my skin, memories of frost in my heart.

February felt like fog. I couldn't see clearly, couldn't feel clearly. I was somewhere between functioning and fading. Everything around me was quiet. The kind of quiet that doesn't comfort, but weighs.

I had moved to the countryside in the fall, to be with someone I love. I wasn't unhappy, not exactly. But winter grew long, and I began to lose the thread of myself. I missed my friends. And I missed being able to just send a message and meet up for tea after work. But they lived far away now, and I couldn't just go. And maybe the truth is… I was lonely. Not in the dramatic, aching way, but in the slow, dissolving way. Like I was disappearing into the silence.

I've always been creative. As a kid, I would draw for hours, paint, knit, make little things out of nothing. That was how I expressed who I was. But this past winter, all I did was work. My day job in IT... well, there's not a drop of creativity in it. I didn't realize how much I needed to create,  until I stopped. No wonder my spirit went quiet. 

And then one day, something small sparked inside me. I created a new Instagram account.
Just a soft little space called Selflavie. I didn't know exactly what I was doing, I just knew I needed something that felt gentle and mine.

And suddenly, the fog began to lift. Ideas came. One after another. They still do.
I started writing again. Designing. Building a website. Creating products. I took soft photos of soft things. I learned Lightroom. I planned posts and dreamed about digital journals and meditations.

The winters weight wasn't just loneliness. It was the silence of my imagination. I wasn't making anything. And for someone like me, that's soul starvation. 

Selflavie saved me from the heaviness I didn't even fully see until it started to lift. It gave me something beautiful to do. And sometimes, that's enough to keep going. Sometimes, that's everything.

I don't need a big life. I don't need a crowd. I need love, my partner, my dog, my siblings.
And I need a quiet kind of joy, the kind that comes from following a spark. The kind that tells me: you're not lost, you're just being called home to yourself.

So if you're feeling empty right now… maybe your soul isn't broken. Maybe it just needs something beautiful to do.

If you want to follow along as I continue creating soft and soulful things; playlists, quiet moments and thoughts like these, you'll find me on Instagram @selflavie.
I'd love to have you there. You're always welcome in my soft corner of the internet.

Soft hugs,
Selflavie