Seeing multiple news about deaths due to suicide has been the #1 reason I wanted to start this journey. 2020-2021, after the world shut down and many months in isolation (partly due to COVID) but mostly because post-partum depression hit me hard and unexpected, plus add the crippling anxiety I struggled with for many years, it made it that much easier for me to hide away. I longed for a community to reach out to but it was challenging to get out of a hole I dug myself in. I was depressed, my husband and I separated, self-care was nonexistent, avoiding any form of social gathering, stopped going to church, avoided seeing people, having “empty” moods and negative thinking, it was surely a difficult time.

In January 2022, I started seeing a therapist regularly, working hard to gain resiliency and strengthening my relationship with myself, knowing my self-worth, replace the negative thoughts with loving ones – all these might seem basic to some but to me, it was a journey I was glad I started and continue to be on. The journey to self-love and accepting my past, working through childhood and adult traumas I thought I’ve long ago packed away has been life changing. Turns out, ignoring or pretending things didn’t happen doesn’t work (maybe for a little while, until it all comes crashing down on you) – but with God’s grace and eternal glory, I’m thankful to have made it out to the other side with some scrapes and bruises but with a redeeming story. I realized that I cannot work through my struggles on my own, I needed help, so I asked for help.

I had to put in a lot of work to fight through all that I was going through. I worked through the toughest physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual journey I have ever gone through in my life. I learned that when I finally put everything out on the table and be vulnerable is when I actually started to fully heal. My husband and I reconciled earlier this year, and I started Building Bridges Box.

Through therapy, I’ve learned of healthier ways to cope with unhealthy emotions and negative thoughts – I started self-care practices, art therapy (which I’m not the best at but there are amazing tools like coloring books, etc. that have worked wonders for practicing mindfulness), and journaling helped me process emotions and put it down on paper, giving me time to allow myself to feel emotions and work through them. Letter writing has also been a fun activity I started back up again; writing letters, sending gratitude or thinking of you cards, sharing small gift bags, etc. has helped me build deeper relationships with my family, friends and helped me get to know more of my community, neighbors and coworkers.

Everything that I went through in the past couple of years served its purpose. It made me realize that in order to move forward with my life, I had to let go so much of what was holding me back. Being honest and true with myself was the start of my healing journey and because of what I went through, it gave me the inspiration to start my own subscription box company and to build a community for women to create connections and to live life with.

In late 2021, I discovered subscription boxes and started ordering them as a form of self-care. I subscribed to @kinderbeautybox, @fabfitfun and @singlesswag. I love these boxes because they offered a variety of products for pampering and also a community with a good mission and serving a need in our world. I fell in love with the concept of getting a monthly surprise in the mail PLUS access to a community.

This concept has set in motion my desire to build a community of my own. Building Bridges Box has been in my heart for many months now and I’m so excited to finally start this journey! My hearts desire, and the Building Bridges Community’s vision is to provide exciting products and happy mail in your mailbox every month and create a community of women that fosters growth, cultivate friendships, practices self-love, banding together to live life with!

Each box will be curated with this vision in mind. It will contain products that will encourage living the vision out in real life and to inspire women to bloom where they are planted 💙 Life can be hard at times, but we don’t have to walk it alone. Welcome to Building Bridges Community!

• What are some healthy ways you do to help you with cope with stress, loss, grief, anxiety?

• What is a self-care activity you like doing?

• What are you grateful for today?