Hello Reader,

It’s been a year since I experienced one of the hardest periods of my life.

In August 2025, after being depressed for 18 months, give or take, I thought I finally had my life sorted out. I had a job I liked with co-workers whom I enjoyed working with. I had sorted my financial issues and had moved back to my favorite city. I was physically healthier than I had ever been.

Despite all of that, I experienced a complete mental breakdown. My mind and my emotions just completely ground to a halt. I was unable to do anything except for lying on the couch or in my bed, overwhelmed by every negative emotion that I had tried to ignore or repress during the last 18 months.

It was devastating and highly unpleasant, as you can imagine. I thought, “This is it. My mind finally broke,” and I wondered if I would ever be back to normal.

That started what I thought would be a slow climb back to feeling normal again.

And to be fair, at that point I really did question my ability to heal, even though I had beaten depression once before. This time it hit so different. It was like a kick in the head out of the blue. It was so sudden, so powerful.

But just as unexpectedly as depression had hit me, I was handed the keys to healing.

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed (can you believe social media can actually be helpful?) and came across a post by a psychologist who said something along the lines of “Your brain doesn’t need time to heal; it needs new input”.

Instantly something clicked in my mind. I said to myself,

“I know how to do that!”

How the Mind Works

For more than twenty years I’ve been somewhat obsessed with personal development, or as some might call it “self-help”. I’ve read all the classic books, sat through countless courses, watched videos, and attended webinars.

I've explored biohacking, nutrition, exercise, breathwork, and countless other practices in search of a better understanding of the body.

I've gone down rabbit holes in psychology, hypnosis, tapping, belief work, and seemingly endless self-help techniques to understand the mind.

I’ve meditated rigorously, experimented with lucid dreaming, astral projection, quantum jumping, I’ve read spiritual texts, tried to make sense of channeled readings of so many different “highly evolved beings” (I know this is all super weird stuff) just to understand the spirituality of being human.

You name it, I’ve most likely tried it.

So after more than twenty years of studying personal growth, psychology, spirituality, and the mind itself, I've learned many things.

But one insight that stands above the rest is, that the mind is constantly being shaped by the input it receives.

It's easy to believe we're trapped in the same thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, endlessly repeating old patterns. But the mind isn't fixed. It's always adapting, always evolving.

What looks like the same pattern running over and over again is often a new pattern emerging that very closely resembles the old one. It’s extremely similar, but not the same.

That's because the mind is continuously reorganizing itself based on what it focuses on. Every day, it is influenced by what you are aware of, what you accept as true, and what you align yourself with.

The mind is malleable, and patterns can be broken.

So... Have I Healed?

Knowing that my mind needed new, more beneficial input, I took everything I had learned about “rewiring” the mind and created a personal 10-minute morning practice designed to deliberately introduce that new input. Then I practiced it every morning without fail.

In three weeks, I had healed from depression.

I felt lighter and happier. It took another 8 weeks to get back to “normal”, but the worst was over in 21 days.

I almost couldn’t believe how quickly it happened. But that’s what experts such as Marisa Peer (a hypnotherapist whose work I highly respect and recommend) say is needed for the mind to rewire itself. 21 days.

Now it’s been a year since I started my healing journey. Have I stayed happy and healthy?

For the most part, yes. I haven’t really experienced anxiety, depression, or even stress in months.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the happiest), I’d rate most days as an 8 or 9 out of ten. It’s not the most ecstatic 10 out of 10 joyful life that I dream of living, but everything is pretty good.

Do I believe that a 10 out of 10 happy life is possible? Yes, I do, and I’m determined to get there.

Of course there have been “setbacks” along the way (which I plan on writing about also). But all of those setbacks, the days when I’ve felt like 1 out of 10 on the happiness scale, have proven to be important parts of my healing process, and the “bad times” haven’t lasted for more than a day or two.

Healing happens in layers, and it seems like we can process the deeply painful stuff only when we’ve healed the surface-level wounds and become mentally resilient enough to handle the deeply buried emotional wounds.

Looking back now, one year after the breakdown that left me wondering if I'd ever recover, I can confidently say that I feel fully healed. The difference between where I am today and where I was a year ago has been like the difference between night and day.

The Takeaway for You

I know this newsletter has been a bit of a rant about my personal journey.

But I wanted to write it to encourage you.

Even though I’ve studied personal development for more than 20 years, that doesn’t mean you have to.

What I do know is that it is within your power to heal.

No one is broken. Nothing is beyond repair.

I know the medical professionals discourage people from saying these things, and I acknowledge that for some of us, healing takes more time and effort. But healing is possible.

Can you believe it? If you can believe you can heal, then you can heal.

It’s also important to understand that the healing journey for each of us is individual and unique. No one can know you the way you know yourself. No one can know the thoughts, emotions, and beliefs going through your mind the way you do.

The journey is individual and different for each and every one of us.

But we can all achieve the same goal: Becoming the healthy, happy, peaceful human being we have the birthright to be.

Happiness and health are the natural states of being. Healing is a matter of returning to that baseline.

The Method That Helped Me Heal

Oh, and if you’re wondering: The 10-minute morning practice I developed for healing myself is now available as a full-fledged system called IAM: The Inner Alignment Method.​

Inside, you'll discover the beliefs that helped me move from "I'm broken" to "I have the power to heal myself," along with the exercises and bonus resources that can help you begin making that shift for yourself.

As I mentioned, I can't tell you exactly what will heal you. But what I can do is share what helped me heal after years of believing I might never recover. My hope is that something in these ideas, exercises, or perspectives sparks a new possibility for you. If it does, perhaps that's a good place to begin.

Until next time,

Think happy thoughts!

​- Atte

P.S. After decades of struggling on and off with depression, I discovered I could consciously guide what I put into my mind instead of endlessly repeating the thoughts, beliefs, and patterns that kept me depressed and anxious. That's what IAM is designed to help you do. If you're curious, take a look at the Inner Alignment Method and see if it resonates with you.

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