Hello, I am Eric Michael.
The Official Line: I am a thirty-something brand, business, and reputation management consultant with an unabetting passion and pursuit for personal and professional healing and development.
Now, let’s go deeper: I am a Reflective Sagittarian Logician with introverted, intuitive, thinking, and prospecting (INTP) personality traits. I fancy the road less traveled, nights around a campfire over the dancefloor (most times), books over movies, and find more precious value in who we are than what we have. I am pro-herbalism and favor plant-based medicine and energetic healing over the clinical, more traditional routes.
I created this blog as a way to complement and share my evolving creativity (moving from the digital space into the real world), gnarly nesting phase, recovery from perfectionism, insatiable wanderlust, and journey to healing. Contributors and collaborators welcome.
Foreword...
For nearly twenty-five years, I lived a life plagued (if not ruled) by chronic (sometimes delusional) anxiety, fear, and worry. Everything got to me—even from an early age—until a moment of mental health crisis, coupled by a lack of familiar support and community, pushed my life into a state of sharp and swift decline.
At twenty-two-years-old, I lost my home, all of my material possessions, and rode a gnarly shame wave couch-to-couch; all the while, working to regain and strengthen connections with clients, community, and self. It was a year-and-a-half until I was able to claim independence, afford to stand on my own, and find a place to call home again.
Through all of those ebbs and flows I learned that experiences like that are meant to do more than chip away at self-love and shake us to our core. Moments like those illuminate our strength and resilience and call on the power within us. Moments like that are ones in which we prove ourselves to ourselves, fortifying the healthy armour and momentum that’ll carry us through the rest of our lives.
My life changed when I was able to afford three meals a day again, for sure. But, my life really changed when I stopped living and moving (physically and emotionally) from a place of worry, fear, and anxiety and started living a more authentic, purpose-driven wholehearted life. By taking every stride from a place of self-awareness, -compassion, and self-love I have been able to conquer my own impossible mission: Rebuilding myself and the world around me to be a brighter and more beautiful thing.
This process is not done. I still rumble with (sometimes debilitating) General Anxiety Disorder and Major Depression. I still wrestle with the physical, sexual, and emotional traumas of my past and my world is still far from ordinary, let alone visionary. But, I have found peace with and in all of that perfect imperfection and have since decided to dedicate my life to giving myself (and others) the space and resources necessary to heal, one step at a time.
And, for the first time in my thirty one years, I not only feel a hankering hunger for healing but finally feel prepared and excited and ready to get about the business of it. This blog and extending social footprint, The Curative Man, is just as much a documentary journal of my personal experiences and pursuits as it is for friends (you!) to find the motivation, inspiration, and courage to forge your own journey and pursue your own paths.
Check out some of my other projects, passions, and initiatives.
