Permission to Pause: Walking Through Pain, Not Around It

Together , we'll confront mental health myths and build a space where imperfection isn't feared but embraced , from self-esteem struggles to relational conflicts . We're here to discuss it all , with guidance from experts and real , raw stories that inspire healing . It's time to live mindfully . It's time to be compassionate with ourselves and each other . Mindfully with Tumishe .

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It's laughter around the table , a partner's steady presence , little feet running across the floor . It's the sanctuary I am building . One choice , one child , one moment at a time . And fire , though we fear it , I know fire purifies .

It burns away the falls , it leaves behind the gold and I uluwatsumise I know I've walked through my share of flames , came out cleaner , lighter and more me . Let's talk about shame . That's just being turned inward . A bruise , you hide behind a smile , but I refuse to house what isn't healing .

So I speak to it , write it , name it , and it loses power every time . Freedom , oh freedom . Not the kind that dances only when the world claps , but the one that shows up barefoot , unfiltered , unashamed , the kind that lives in authenticity , because that's where I meet God and myself and the work I was born to do .

I hope that , for those who are in the community , you listen to the episodes that I suggested while we were on break to help us just keep in tune and reconnect with ourselves and demystify the things that we the narratives around mental health questions , around mental health questions .

Okay , I did promise in one of the broadcasts that I made that I was going to catch you up on all that has been going on in my life and , of course , from the beginning , you heard that poem that came from a fire chat , a fire chat that I had somewhere and they asked me questions and I was able to come up with that poem and the questions .

They were fire set questions . They said that I should just reply with whatever comes to my mind and then we've got to write a poem out of that . Don't worry , I will get to the details of why . Mindfully , tumishe took a break and lived , or Tumishe tried to leave what she preached . Okay , so the first question was silence . My answer was loud noise .

The second question was home or prompt . I said husband , children . The third prompt was fire and I said purity . And the next one was shame , I said pain turned inward , and , of course , freedom , which to me is authenticity , and the poem you heard that I decided to name , the noise of silence , is what came out of that exercise .

Oh , and I love , I do love that poem . I do love that poem . You can get it in the transcript if you do want to listen to it over and over and over again .

So have you ever had like tap you on your shoulder or shake you by the shoulders ? You know that awakening that comes from darkness . You know that some awakenings , of course , come with light , but this one , you know , comes from a place that is heavy . They come with silence , with discomfort and with stillness .

These past three weeks , I experienced something that humbled me my body , my mind , my soul , everything that mindfully , with some shade , leaves and stands for , was questioned right . And I was forced to pause , and I did , not out of strength but out of surrender . And in that stillness I heard things I'd been too busy to notice .

Now , this episode is not a diagnosis or a checklist . It is a moment , a turning and well , true to mindfulness , a story to me , a story , okay . So what happened was that I , I had focused I had focused more on psychotherapy , for those who know the story and was followed mindful to me for a bit .

You know that I'm a person living with bipolar affective disorder . I'd run out of my medications and I had to get some review and somehow somehow there was some mix-ups and all of that and that just sent me to places I'm prone to have hypertension . My blood pressure never goes up . Never goes up .

Even after the surgery last year , my blood pressure was still less than normal For most people . It's about 120 over 70 . But I am within the range of 90 over 73 , 70 , or , at the the worst , 113 over 60 . But after this new medication I'm still using my old medication . Then some new medications were introduced and my body just literally shut down .

I had my blood pressure go up to 149 over 101 . It was quite scary . But you see , like I said , there are some awakenings that come from darkness and this was one of them .

I had to sit down and ask myself whether I was pushing too hard , whether I was doing too much , whether I had stopped listening to my body , whether I had stopped listening to people and myself . To be honest , and though it was a medical question for me . I had to turn inward .

I had to ask myself was I becoming for lack of a better word bourgeoisie in the way I was speaking , to mental health questions , to mental health narratives , to living mindfully how does the Bible put it ? Was I what's the word now ? Elevating myself more than I thought in my head ?

Okay , don't worry , I am very trust me , I'm very confident and very secure in who and what I do . But I had to sit down to ask those questions , whether , and then review and re-strategize on how Mindful to Michelle would go on . From then on , I tried to record some episodes , maybe monologues and all that , but it did not come .

Words weren't coming , ideas weren't coming , ideas weren't coming . And for me , the moment I lose my words , I know something is definitely , definitely , definitely wrong . My body spoke in ways I couldn't ignore and , instead of pushing through , like I've often done , or I always do , I chose something different . I turned inward .

Uh , this episode isn't just a reflection , it's a return , a reminder and maybe , just maybe , an invitation for you too . All right , so let's start off from how

the year started . Uh , for those who listened to mindfully with sumo shi to the end of last year , the question in the beginning of this year . Actually , the question was who are you becoming ? And I share about how I eventually read the book the Alchemist by Paul Coelho and how that was going to shape the way I saw and navigated this year .

So let's start from there . There was a resistance , definitely because I felt like I was on fire at the end of last year .

I had old episodes , I had media appearances , I was doing things that I felt and I knew I should be doing , but the truth also is I didn't leave so much mindfully right , I was allowing this seizing to swallow me and then I put a call through to you know who , mu , and she says to me she you know what we need to get you back on mood stabilizers .

Again , I resist , um , but I think , with everyone who , um , who has a condition that has to , that you have to use medication for a long time , you will always push back . Sometimes you get so tired , even , and not take them right , and then I start I forgot , or did I forget , or I thought I had gotten to a place .

Okay , I was journaling every day , I still was doing my prayers , I was doing my breath and , of course , I was still in therapy . So , yeah , it was okay , but you know what this time brought back to me ?

It brought back to me August 2020 , which was the darkest on this , or , yeah , it's been and I hope it's going to be the last darkest , that is being that that has been for me on this journey as a person living with bipolar . It was the final time I was going to attempt to um take my life and that was how I felt when I started .

I got back on medication . There was the shame of I thought to me . I thought you had gotten better , there was no need for you to be back on medication . You were doing well spiritually , you're doing well physically . So there was a lot of questions going on and there was that resistance that was coming from my soul .

But I said to myself I was going to name this , I was going to sit down with what I felt was shame and I was going to push through it . And then I got back to journaling . I got back to my psalms , my prayer , this is like I write my prayers a lot of times , so I call them psalms . I got back to painting because I had not painted since November .

I got back to coloring , but this time around I went back to them the way I had done in the beginning , and not as a chore , not as an obligation , not as oh to me . She , the host of mindfully with me . She has to be mindful . No , I went back to these things with curiosity .

I went back open-minded , with a blank state to learn new things that the season has come to teach me . And of course , you know , uh , I live by my personal aphorism that says life is lived in the transitions . And that was what I did . I got into many things to try to understand what happened or what was happening .

And , as I say , I rarely ask why me questions . I do not , I try to run away from why me questions . There are a couple of times I've asked , but I can't even remember maybe a , maybe one time . But what I do is I have a go , some go-to questions , the being what did this come to teach me ?

And the second being what am I going to do with those lessons ? And , as I said earlier , I got to a point . I had to ask these two questions the last three weeks . I had to ask these two questions the last three weeks and the first two weeks that I took a break . I kid you not , I struggled .

I struggled , yes , my health was still on the balance , but I needed to really shut down mentally , socially and even spiritually . And shutting down spiritually does not mean that I stopped praying or anything , but I stopped worrying . I stopped um , oh , I tried to

stop worrying . I tried to stop um making everything around me so esoteric , and I had to sit down with myself and be like a child , right , not childish , but childlike . I had to connect again with Oluwadzimise , who was five . I had to connect with my five-year-old . And how happy road and how happy .

I took up pictures of me riding a three-wheel bicycle , wearing my blue dress and riding in our living room with a wild smile . I had to connect with that girl to help me find meaning to what was going on in my life . And , trust me , of course she came through , she always comes through , she always comes through .

And then I sit down with her and what Jesus said he said let the children come to me , for theirs is like this is the kingdom of god . And that's what I did . I literally just shut myself down and I started to re-evaluate , to um , re-strategize , to rethink , to rewire my brain . And here I am trying to capture it for you .

As we get into this new season , season six of mindful utimisia , we will still have conversations . We will still try to demystify the questions in the , the blurriness that surrounds mental health questions . We're going to speak to assisted living . We're going to speak to women's health , not mental health . New men or is not parallel to our physical health ?

Some of the time , that ethic that you have is from a mental health question , that sleeplessness that you're experiencing is from a mental health question . So this season we're going to be having those conversations , questions .

So this season we're going to be having those conversations and I'm also going to be working towards making sure that emotions are properly defined , or maybe not properly defined , but we're going to be seeing them from the eyes of different people , from different lenses , so that we truly , truly hunker down on this question that we all carry about .

All right , is mental health mental ill health ? Is mental ill health also mental health ? All of these questions we're going to try to answer in this season to try to answer in the season . Now , what are the lessons I came up with or that came up for me during the season ? The first was to , miche , be grateful that you know your basic vitals .

Um , that is my weight , my height . Um , what I should eat , what I shouldn't eat , my blood pressure range . Um , I know why . I know that if I go 3-4 days without sleep , that is some sort of precursor to a hypomanic episode . If I'm too gloomy and is going on for more than a week , I know that I am swinging to the other side .

And these vitals that I had on my fingertips , it was easy , or it made it easy , for me to be able to connect to my doctors , have conversations with my doctors and we could find quick solutions . We could find quick solutions .

I'm not going to sit here and say that there are no doctors who just don't work according to patterns , right , and I'm not going to sit here and say there won't be some doctors who won't push back when you say you know , but the truth

is , I am grateful that um , I have doctors will listen and um , that has true . That truly helped me and I could sit down and truly take a step back , and I remember Moji saying to me um , your words won't come back until you're down . That was scary , but it's one of the paradoxes . That is so true . I had to shut down to get my words again .

I had to shut down to get my voice again . I had to shut down to see how we can do better with conversations around health , relationships and all of that , and I'm grateful that . Now , on the other side of things , I'm grateful that I followed the omens . If you have read the alchemist , you know what that means .

I followed the omens , I stood with the omens good and the bad and I followed them and , um , I think I'm in a better place now . For now my voice is a little bit shaky , but compared to three , four weeks ago and , trust me , I'm in a better place .

So I ask you again if you've ever had life tap you on the shoulder or shake you on the shoulder , and in the midst of all of this , I still lost a friend . And all of this was coming to me and I was like , okay , what are you saying ? And I had to sit down to wrap that around myself . Now I want to invite you .

I don't know where you are on your journey this year , how you are becoming and I hope you're sitting down to become all those early or early in the year I don't want to call them um what do they do at the beginning of the year ?

You see , I don't do them , so I can't even remember new year resolutions , yeah , okay , I don't know which of them you do whatever , however , you thought you were going to navigate 2025 .

I hope I want to invite you to sit down and begin to truly ask yourself if you are becoming that person , or you're working to becoming that person that you want to see come December 31st 2025 .

What is your body telling you , what is your soul trying to say to you and , most importantly , what would happen if you treated rest not as luxury but as a form of listening ? I'm not returning as the same Uluwatsumishi .

Well , as you see , I think I'm returning a little bit softer , slower and definitely more certain , Certain that turning inwards is in weakness , certain that turning inwards is in shame . There's no guilt with turning inwards and asking yourself the salient questions that you need on your way to becoming .

I'm returning more certain that there is wisdom in stepping back and being mindful of everything that happens in my life . I'm returning and embracing the whole essence of the book Living Mindfully A Journey to being . Stop , breathe , notice , reflect , reflect , respond and resolve . S-b-n-r-r-r became what helped me through the season of life in 2025 .

So I would leave a couple of things with you today . So I've left some . This is another one I'm leaving with you , with you today . If you take nothing away from this conversation or the solo ranting chat , take this away . You will not find your way by escaping the pain .

One way that is sure that you will find your way is by walking through it , and mindfully too , like I do . I repeat that you won't find your way by escaping the pain . You will find your way only by walking through it mindfully . As I always say , sometimes maybe facetiously , but it's very real to me .

Yin and yang tibi tiri la daye , the good and the bad work together to give us good . You cannot understand the bad without the good . You cannot understand the good without the bad . In the good there is the bad , in the bad there is the good . Everything in life is polar opposites , and that is why we have it all right .

That's why we have to take a step back when the not too good happens and enjoy when the good happens , in preparation when life throws a curveball . All right , you're right . How are you ? Yes , you , you've gotten to this point and I'm grateful . So I'm asking how are you ? What are you going to do

with my story that just shared with you and if this touched you , feel free to share it with someone who may be needing permission to pause , or you yourself , take this as a permission to pause . I want you to say to yourself right now my body remembers , my soul remembers and healing begins when I listen .

Thank you very much for sticking with , mindfully , with michelle . We'll return next week . We'll start our conversations with guess who you find out . Thank you so very much for keeping faith with us and I hope that you share this . Follow me on socials , dm me , go to the website and just be . Thank you for listening . Stay mindful .