Why I Write Is Ever Changing And Ever Evolving

My name is Rajivi Rao. (Pronounced Ra-jee-vee and not Raj-we.) I’m 33 and loving it. For real, I cannot wait to get older! By profession I’m an award-winning copywriter. And for the longest time I thought that that was the single most interesting thing about me.

But I came to realise not too long ago that it wasn’t.

The single most interesting thing about me is that I’m a high-functioning chronic depressive who has an anxiety disorder but stills lead a miraculous life.

See? The latter statement causes you to ask questions:

“Really?”

“How?”

“Could it really be true?”

“Is that possible?”

And it’s only when you ask, that you receive.

I can honestly say that my self-healing book got written just by me asking the right questions, or as they say in the world of spiritual speakers, inspired questions.

Inspired questions are fun because you don’t have to go out and find the answers. The answers literally walk, dance, sashay and twirl right to you in the most creative ways.

All you have to do is allow them to come.

I know, insanely counterintuitive, right?

We’re made to think all sorts of silly things like we have to suffer to succeed or that only pain leads to freedom or that that there is a lack of good things in the world.

So many fears instilled in us before we even know who we are.

But there are many epic tools to dismantle these fears and let the light in. I’ve shared over 20 of these HAPPYness tools in my self-healing book called More than ‘Mostly Happy'.

Suggested Readings:

Negative Comments and Disappointments are not Reasons to be Despondent

But first let’s go back and start with my pain resume.

Even before I was 15 I’d been at the receiving end of sexual, physical, mental and emotional abuse. I also lost my father when I was 13. By the time I was 19 I was in severe depression and also in a self-mutilating phase. I know, not a pretty picture.

There was just so much pain inside and I didn’t have the HAPPYness tools then to help me cope, which is mainly why I wrote the book I did now.

Anyway, I was put solely on medication without much counselling and just about managed to get myself out of it.

In total I had gone into severe depression 3 times by the time I was 29 and as I write this, I’m battling out of my 4^th depressive phase.

Told you, I’m a chronic high-functioning depressive.

And while I take meds and go for therapy once a week, it’s actually my spiritual practise and HAPPYness Tools that truly bring in the miracles.

You see, after these many depressive spells and a ton of trauma yet to be addressed, I realised that ‘perfect happiness’ was simply not my jam.

It was insanely unrealistic and I was tired of self-help books telling me otherwise.

So I decided to first try and be ‘mostly happy’ first.

Now what did ‘mostly happy’ even mean?

It means I worked towards having more good moments than not-so-good ones each day.

It means I started coming out of fear spirals more often and more quickly each day.

It means I started experiencing shifts in perception and miracles started pouring in.

It really wasn’t rocket science!

It was just the use of simple, yet radical, HAPPYness Tools that I’d collected over the years.

Once I decided to finally deploy them, it’s like the Universe was just waiting to guide me, protect me and help me start to finally heal myself.

November 2020 as I woke up in a hospital bed (I was admitted due to health complications caused by overwork) I asked no one in particular: is there a better way to live?

And miraculously, as I chose faith over fear and deployed the HAPPYness Tools, I was led to doing things way beyond my wildest dreams. I was guided to make digital HAPPYness art and become a mental wellness advocate on social media (my Instagram handle @TheHAPPYnessAddict is where you can always find relief and joy), write a book sharing all these amazing HAPPYness tools, creating a Skillshare Class teaching these tools in detail and introducing students to guided meditations that I channelled and just so many more epic things!

‘Why I write’ is ever changing and ever evolving.

Initially as a child and teenager I wrote poems to put words to the pain within.

As a young adult I wrote for brands and to earn my worth in the eyes of the world.

But now I write to speak my truth intimately.

To address the darkness and share HAPPYness tools to bring it to the light.

I write to fulfil my soul purpose.

I write to find relief.

I write to learn.

And I write to teach.

O write to serve.

I write to be part of the solution.

I write to change my life.

And all I ask, through my book More than ‘Mostly Happy’, is that you’ll allow my written words, colourful HAPPYness artwork and journaling exercises to change yours in the best way possible.

The views expressed are the author's own. 

You can also join SheThePeople's Book club on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.