Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, this advocate of mental health turns her traumatic experience into a deep contemplation moment for herself. Prestige chats with Nadya Hutagalung

This year has really shown what Nadya Hutagalung’s strengths are, what she’s capable of and what she values as part of her family. Earlier this year, the model, actress and advocate of mental health announced on Instagram that she went through a very traumatic medical emergency. So now, she’s taking the time to heal both her body and mind. Prestige touched based again with Nadya just in time before her move from Singapore to Australia to see how she’s been doing following our conversations earlier this year. Fortunately, she’s feeling much better and has been working extensively on her spiritual practices. To that end, she went on a retreat to let go of the residues of her trauma.

Nadya began her healing journey by, first of all, acknowledging her feelings. This is also something she suggests for people who want to start looking out for themselves – and it all begins with normalizing conversations about emotion at home. Simply checking in to see how everybody at home is feeling and doing on a particular day can work wonders, and when this becomes normalized as part of a day’s routine, it becomes easier to talk about emotions. This, in turn, will help people feel safe to share what they’re feeling and what they’re going through.

The journey towards robust mental health is definitely not easy, with the most challenging part being acceptance. Although Nadya remains dedicated to her own wellbeing, sometimes she finds herself feeling frustrated as recovering from something traumatic is rarely a linear experience. Although she feels 90 percent better now, there are still challenging days that spark her frustration. Nadya admits that sometimes, it can be quite disheartening; but she knows that nothing changes overnight since we are, essentially, creatures of habit. But in the end, it takes time, practice, effort, and a lot of work. That, and patience.

As she takes the time to heal, Nadya also decided to take a break from social media and the rest of her work as well. Unsurprisingly, she’s loving the time she spends away from everything and feels incredibly blessed as it has given her a chance to rethink who she is, who she has become, and also who she has left behind after years of following a single trajectory. The time she spent away from it all allowed her to get back in touch with her inner self, and to ask herself who she wants to become moving forward, what her gifts are, what she can share and what she deems important in life.

“It’s been a very, very beautiful time,” Nadya elaborates. “Some might say it’s been a scary period, but to me it’s a beautiful time of deep contemplation: A lot of quiet time and work on what I’m doing with support and on my own. It’s been wonderfully transformational.”

In some ways, she feels that 2021 has actually been one of the best years because she has found deep peace. When you go through great challenges and struggle, Nadya believes, it’s really where the most growth happens. This year has been a healing journey for her, a healing year and the year that she will always remember. She looks forward to all that is to come while reminding herself that there are two ways of looking at things – it’s all a matter of perspective. We can choose to say it was a hard year or you can choose to say it was a year of growth. And to her, it was an incredible year of growth.