Life's Lessons and Mental Health

I am so sick of the worry in my life. It runs rampant in my mind and there seems no end to where it can take me. It’s as if it is infiltrating my entire being. My whole body feels it’s presence. And for what? Absolutely nothing! When I push to check it out, there is no basis for my fear. Why is it even there? I have to find a way to let it go. I guess, if I practice what I preach, I need to first accept it. Sit with it. To sit with it and think curiously, I wonder where it comes from? Trying to be non-judgmental is incredibly difficult. I want to chastise it, beat it up, yell at myself about it. I feel the need to stuff it under something so it can never come out. I internalize and beat myself up for having this incredibly mind consuming angst. But I will try to sit with it and curiously explore its painful existence.

Why are you here? How did you come about? Where do I hold you in my body? What is your purpose? When did you pop up in my life? Not easy questions to answer and maybe I can’t delve into these without some help from a resource or my therapist who might be able to guide my exploration. I think I will do some research to help me navigate this analysis. The first step I will take will be to work through the worry resource from the CCI resources–they can be found in the menu at the top of my blog for those of you who also struggle with worry. 

For now, I am going to set my worries aside. I am going to do what I can to accept them as a part of my life right now. I’m not going to ignore their existence, I am merely postponing the exploration until another time when I can concentrate and really give them my undivided attention. Hopefully later this afternoon around 1:00 pm. There, I’ve set a worry time! I need to be disciplined enough to make sure I really do it because I’m pretty sick of how it is taking over my life. If you’re finding worry to be taking up space in your mind, maybe it’s time to really explore and navigate around it, non-judgmentally.

Here is the link to the worry resource from CCI:

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Worry-and-Rumination

peace balance empathy

Hmmm…doesn’t that just bring a smile to your face? Or, are you thinking, get me out of here? Or is it, whatever, heard this song and dance before? How about shame? Anyone feel shame? I lived with it for years. It’s difficult to live with a mental illness and not have to deal with shame. One of the most difficult times in my life has been dealing with the shame of feeling happy. What right do I have to feel happy?

I have been off work because of my struggles with depression and anxiety and one of the hardest things to allow myself to feel was Happiness. How could I be happy AND be on disability? The two just didn’t sit well with me and thus the shame came when I actually felt good. I worked through a lot of distorted thoughts using CBT to get me where I am today. That is in a place of satisfaction and yes, even happiness. I still experience shame in this situation, but it isn’t near as heavy as it used to be.

A friend once told me that “The pursuit of happiness is a child’s dream” and it made me question my own happiness. Was I fooling myself? It sure didn’t feel like it. I was actually enjoying being alive–for the first time in ten years! It took a lot of hard work in therapy to get me there, but I had managed to arrive! And it wasn’t really an arrival but a process that is still on-going. I don’t thing happiness is stagnant and it is not a point of arrival, but a place that shimmers and shakes. There are good days and bad days for everyone; we all suffer with the “pursuit of happiness” during our lifetime and I am no exception. But at least I can now actually reach that ideal and finally accept it.

I think happiness is different for everyone and also that it moves along a continuum. For me that continuum begins with contentment and ends with euphoria. In between there are levels of delight, enjoyment, exuberance and exhilaration. I think my happy medium is somewhere between exuberance and exhilaration. Sure, I don’t stay that high all the time; there is a general sway to my happiness at any one time and it can change in a flash. I think that happiness is a difficult emotion to sustain for any length of time, but I do think it’s attainable. It might be a different continuum for each individual. Your perception of happiness could be very different from mine but that does not mean we can not reach our own level of joy.

How do we get there? Everyone’s journey will be different but I think that it is important to be able to accept all our emotions. To be able to sit with them and let them go. I have talked about this phenomenon many times in previous blogs and it sits well here. In order to have happiness, we need to accept all feelings, without judgment or ridicule and to move on from this point of approval into a medley of feel good sensations. From there we can begin to experience happiness of many levels and degrees. What is your happy? Where does it come from? Where does it begin? Find your level of happy and learn to accept and appreciate it. You’ve got this!

peace balance empathy

I’m debating on what I will talk about today. Even as I write this, I haven’t decided how it is going to turn out or what I am going to say. I guess I will begin with my truth. I am very disturbed by the way our world and our country, in particular, is dealing with Covid. And maybe I’m most disturbed by my own inability to set my truth straight. Quite honestly, I don’t know yet where I stand and I feel some shame about that. Whereas others seem to be certain and confident about what they believe, I am still sitting on the fence. I’m not willing to commit to one view or the other. I hate that we’ve been divided into US and THEM! Maybe I will just take a moment to explain something I am quite sure about as I stand on the outside looking in. I believe everyone’s truth is controlled by fear! There seems to be only two ways of looking at how Covid has impacted our world. Either people are afraid of getting Covid and dying or they are afraid of our government’s tyranny and the vaccine. I don’t seem to be afraid of either.

Some days I find myself questioning the government’s decisions–both federal and provincial–and other days I question whether or not I am safe walking around without a mask on. Once again, in my life, I find myself caught in a dichotomy between truth and lies and fiction and reality. I have to catch myself there and go back to fear as that is what is driving both of these views. Is there any substance to either of them? Do we really need to be afraid of either one or the other? Or is there some happy medium right down the centre that can explain each. Do we need to be afraid of each other, I wonder? Are both extremes dangerous? Ah, now that hit a real nerve.

Is that where I stand? Am I driven by the fear of either ultimatum? Have we always lived in fear of something? Is that just what drives us in general? Is that why anxiety is so rampant in our society and in my life, in particular? I’m sitting here trying to think of what life was like before Covid. It’s not an easy thing to conjure up and that really scares me. I have to take a moment and really think here. Took some time to ponder and I believe maybe death motivated us before Covid. Then, of course, we were slapped in the face with death! I remember Italy was hit pretty hard with Covid when the scare first came out because of their aging population. I think their numbers put the fear of God into us. I wonder, now, if that fear wasn’t embellished somewhat at the time.

I don’t have clear answers to any of my questions about either the fear of Covid or the fear of our government’s tyranny and vaccines. Thus, I sit on the fence. I hope, for the sake of mankind, that both fears have been exaggerated and that we can begin to live our lives again. I do, however, fear the division in our society. I think that is a very real fact that fuels my own anxieties at the moment. It’s been good for me to work that out here. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explore my own fear.

Peace, Balance, Empathy!

Thanks for joining me!

I honestly forget where I heard or found “Perfectly Imperfect” but it has stuck with me over the years. I am constantly reminding myself that perfection doesn’t exist. High Standards, however, are perfectly okay! The problem comes when those ideals actually interfere with our quality of life in a negative way. Some examples from my life would be: not finishing a test in time because I pondered every question and answer until time ran out, procrastinating about doing something until the last minute because I am afraid of not doing it well enough, chastising myself for making a mistake, trying to learn about everything so I don’t feel stupid in any conversations, difficulty making decisions because I am afraid I will make the wrong one, winning awards and brushing them off as no big deal, etc.. I could likely fill a page with the trouble imperfection has given me over the years. It comes down to I AM a failure instead of I made a mistake or I failed. You might find I repeat myself from my last post on Failure as we tangle with imperfection. That is okay. If I say it more than once, it is likely very important.

As you can see from the diagram above (taken from a CCI resource), Perfectionism is a never-ending cycle of thoughts and behaviours that support our pursuit of unrelenting standards! You will notice, also, that there are positive outcomes for setting high standards for ourselves. We DO do things to the best of our ability as long as we don’t give up or run out of time. Calming a perfectionistic mind into imperfection and acceptance of that imperfection is the key to overcoming this incessant, mind-boggling cycle. But how do we do that?

Well, I just witnessed first hand what imperfection can do. I had two more sections written here and deleted them when I switched to my phone to double check for errors! My first thought? How ^*#*^%$# stupid of me! Oh No! What am I going to do now???? It was a great piece of writing, I thought, not perfect, but good! I don’t think I can do it again!! And I waited in silence for a minute, just hoping beyond hope that it would return; that somehow I could get it back because I was sure I couldn’t do it again! But here I go…

…and we push on…that’s how we face defeat. There is a link here between thoughts, behaviours and feelings so if we change one, we can change the other two. I believe that changing my thoughts takes precedence here because they are what really drive perfectionism. I’m reminded here of the saying, ” to have what you’ve never had, you need to do what you’ve never done”. Or in this case, “think”. And right now I’m thinking this is nowhere near as good as my original ‘thoughts’. I’m going to change that thought, right now, into, “this is better than my original work because I am actually dealing with thoughts of imperfection”! I have to try and believe that is true. Now, you should know that I have done laundry and gone for a walk to “clear my head” and to distract myself from all the negative thoughts about my “mistake”. And you’ve likely forgotten what that was! In case you can’t read the definition of ‘Flawsome” above, it says, “an individual who embraces their “flaws” and knows they are awesome regardless”. I am flawsome because I have continued to write; I am taking a risk–again.

There is a good side to imperfection if we can embrace our trials. There is freedom in knowing that mistakes are actually a good thing; that they help us learn and grow. Imagine celebrating our blunders, giving them credit for changing our thoughts and behaviours in the future. Imagine living life with abandon. I’m sure you’ve thought about it. I know I have. What if we actually put this into practice? What if we take our faults and turn them into excellence? Maybe I’ve done that today because I often find that when my written work seems poor, it actually reaches more people! What a dichotomy that is! So, embrace what you think are your short-comings; revel in your inadequacies; put faith into your faults! Begin to exist within your errs and emerge as who you truly are! Get really good at being you!

If you want to delve further into perfectionism, you can follow this link to a workbook put out by CCI. It contains exercises and information that will help you on your journey to becoming who you really are:

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Perfectionism

“Failure is at the beginning of all success; it’s how we learn and grow”, I used to tell my students, “Don’t be afraid of failure; be afraid of not trying“, I would say. But how did I honestly perceive my own failure? What did I still need to learn? It’s easy to read these quotes and even believe them, but do we actually practice at failure? Just imagine, setting out a plan and following it, knowing you’re going to fail at some part of it? Maybe all of it, but at some point there has to be failure or there is no growth. And I believe we are always learning and growing. I don’t think we come to a complete understanding of anything until we have failed–often more than once–at what we are trying to achieve. This will be a difficult concept to grasp especially if we are perfectionists because a perfectionist doesn’t have the capacity to accept failure. I place myself in this group as I have always shuddered at my own failure. To fail was a reflection of me as a person, on my being. My perception of reality did not include failure. It’s like the shame vs. guilt argument. Instead of thinking, “I failed, now what can I learn from that; how can I make it right?”, I think, ” I am a failure; it is part of who I am, not what I do.” When, in fact, the exact opposite is true.

Failure is still very difficult to accept, but so is success. What a conundrum I live in. I have mentioned in other blogs about my two breakdowns shortly after receiving awards at work–at two different jobs. My self esteem was so low that accepting any kind of encouragement or reward was just way out of my comfort zone. I couldn’t handle it. I failed at success! I mean I was doomed no matter what I did. Failure was imperfection and success was beyond me. Never did I dream that I needed to become a successful imperfectionist. How did the two even relate to each other? It was a dichotomy, just a senseless riddle and it had no place in my vocabulary. I was meant to learn and really understand how failure is a part of any successful life. But it was hard; I’m still not sure I’m there yet. I want to be, but am I? Maybe the answer to that doesn’t really matter; maybe just being aware of the continuum between the two is enough, for now.

Sometimes when I look back on my life, all I see is failure. My mind just doesn’t register successes. I have to turn a switch somewhere. I have to reorganize my thoughts to accept both these concepts as facts of life because that is what they are! I wouldn’t be lying to myself; in fact, rejecting them is lying to myself. I am telling myself lies! But what do I tell others about this? I tell them success doesn’t come without failure. Why can’t I tell myself the same thing? I have to or I am lying to others. That’s how I work it out. That’s how I come to accept it as truth in my life because it is truth in everyone’s life. I am not special in this regard. I can no longer believe the lies I am telling myself about failure and I have to accept that I can also succeed, have succeeded. I am succeeding now! And so are you. If you have trouble with failure and success, maybe you can also break free by changing the lies you are telling yourself into truths. Give it a go! Take a chance! You, too, can succeed at failure!

I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for “liking” my blogging page. I don’t get a lot of feedback but what I do get makes it worth writing. I want you to know that it is as therapeutic for me as it seems to be for some of you. Thanks for your Personal Messages and likes to tell me so. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m trying to post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In between, I often leave a poem here and there for you to listen to or read. I am truly enthralled to be able to participate in life this way and I am blessed to have so many friends and family to share it with. So, once again, Thank you!

Shame vs. Guilt

Just a quick word on the difference between Shame and Guilt. I like Brene Brown’s (a renowned researcher, speaker and author) explanation on this: “Guilt is ‘I did something bad‘”; “Shame is ‘I am bad‘”. You can get rid of guilt by righting your wrongful actions or asking for forgiveness. But shame is deep seeded. It is captured at your core and much more difficult to get out from under. Shame is usually put upon you from others–likely at a very young age. The ideal to be perfect builds shame inside us. I think failure in anything can build shame. But this shame comes about from our thoughts about ourselves. All the work we have done on positive affirmations and being kind to yourself can help eliminate shame, I believe.

Vulnerability & Courage

According to Brene Brown, the more one shows vulnerability, the greater the courage. She believes that courage is built on vulnerability and that this is the one way we can experience pure joy and happiness. Here is a Ted Talk by Brene Brown. I hope you enjoy her as a speaker. She is humorous while conveying an important and serious message…

So, after writing Monday’s blog on ‘Worry’, I ended up with a worry hangover. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim… and I mean really dim. I wrote a poem about my musings, if I can even call them that, but it grew so dark that I couldn’t let anyone in. I am going to share it here, but with a bit of a prologue as I don’t want people triggered or worried by what I have written. It is merely a place I went to for a very short time. I didn’t stick around. Although, when it came to reading it out loud for my recording, I found I sank a bit, at parts. For me, it was very real and maybe you’ve been there yourself. I guess the key is letting it go so it doesn’t take you down with it. Words on a page that reflect an extremely dark place. It is true, this poem, every word of it. There is no frivolity involved I really have been there but I’m not there now. It allowed me to describe where I go and maybe, for the first time, I discovered how I get there. That’s a painful awakening. And, it was difficult to read back to myself let alone repeat it several times for an acceptable recording. I honestly did not realize how heavy my worry can be. I thought of it as a minor inconvenience, but out of that came this horror. I was both enthralled and saddened by this collapse. It is a new insight, new learning which I strive for everyday, so why not this? Sure it’s a difficult and confusing place to go but it’s real, at least for me and I need to deal with it. That’s all there is to it…all this because of one thought, “What if I fail?“

Worry Time

Suddenly it hits me that I’m stuck

What if I can’t do this and I fail?

What if when I fail, I also fall

into the deepest darkest desert once again?

What if this one time I can’t climb out?

What if I fall apart, no longer whole?

What if the shadow shapes begin to stir

and suffocating sadness becomes my shell?

And what if all my burdens bother others?

What if dark depression descends upon my soul?

What if I feel like dying inside-out?

Will I just drown inside my manufactured hole?

What if as I’m crumbling, I crash and cry?

What if light betrays my inner core?

What if I am finished with this fight?

I know, it has contained me countless times before.

What if I forfeit force over my fear?

What if the truth inside me trickles out?

What if my deep desire is only death?

It’s darkness does descend delivering doubt.

What if all that matters inexorably expires?

What if who I am becomes who I am not?

What if trembling trickery does taunt

and the sins that swirl inside me can’t be caught?

And it all comes down to this…

Where my body is around just taking space

because my mind could never really win this race

to the God above, I ask for grace

for a life I couldn’t live and stay on pace.

Today brings me to dealing with one of the most worrisome debilitating factors in my life. But I have to catch myself there, as thinking that way just makes the worry worse! I think if you asked most of my friends and relatives that they would say I worry way too much. But what is too much? I mean, that in itself, is a judgment and we have talked here a lot about how it’s best if we don’t make judgments on our feelings. Although, worry is not a feeling in and of itself, it is really a result of fear and can cause us anxiety. In fact, worry is likely the leading contributor to feelings of angst, in my mind.

On a daily basis, I worry about people close to me dying and the way they will die, what if I have an accident, what if my credit/debit card doesn’t work, what if I don’t succeed, what if I fail, what if someone close to me doesn’t succeed, what if… and the worry goes on. Labeling my worries as “what ifs” is a new thing for me. I just started to do this this past week as I am working through one of the CCI workbooks on Worry and Rumination. I knew I carried a lot of worries around with me, but I seriously had never connected those worries to the anxiety in my life. Well maybe I had acknowledged they contributed to my anxiety, but now I believe they are the main reason for my fear.

So, what do we do with worry? According to the information I’ve recently read, we don’t push it away! As with our feelings, trying to hide or ignore worry only makes it worse but what we can do is set the worry aside. I liken it to putting it into a suitcase in my mind that I will unlock at a later time. Then I give myself permission to open it at certain times through the day when it is more convenient. I did this yesterday and when 2:00 pm (the time I had given myself to spend worrying) came around, I had completely forgotten about it. I thought, incredible! But, what if the scenario in my mind doesn’t go away? What if the problem is still there? According to my recent reading, I check out the worry and question whether it is actually a problem I can solve (like being able to get a passport) or whether there really isn’t anything I can do about it (like people dying). If it is something that requires problem solving, I use my worry time to implement some problem solving strategies. If it is something I can do nothing about, I use my thinking time to explore challenging my thoughts. Both of these solutions require attentive action on my part. But just to know that I can change or solve my concerns helps the worry itself become more tolerable.

If you struggle with worry, I strongly recommend working through the same Workbook I am working through. I don’t believe it is enough just to read about worry, I really think we have to put some effort into solving the problem or challenging our thinking in order to have success with this. Once we have worked through our solutions on paper several times, it will become easier to deal with them on a more regular basis in our minds. Here is the link to the WorkBook I am currently using…

https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/Looking-After-Yourself/Worry-and-Rumination

My last post talked about being self-compassionate. I’d like to elaborate on the thoughts we talked about and introduce some self-nurturing activities. In the Behaviour-Thinking-Feeling triangle, today is about behaviour. I think if we can combine our thinking and behaviour that our feelings about ourselves will change. This is extremely important if we feel badly about ourselves; if we continually put ourselves down, it is going to have a negative effect on our feelings. We will likely feel down/depressed or even angry with ourselves as well as being anxious about the things we do–like socializing, performing or even working.

We might even feel some anxiety over being self compassionate and participating in self-nurturing activities. That would be understandable if we think of these things as being selfish or self-indulgent. It may go directly against our morals or values that we have about ourselves and our participation in life activities. If we have always been taught to be considerate towards others at the expense of our own needs, we will likely struggle with the concepts of self-compassion and self-nurturing. The tricky thing here is that if we don’t take of ourselves, we will burn out and not be of any use to others. Taking care of yourself is paramount for taking care of others.

So, what does it mean to self-nourish? Well, it means doing things for yourself that you find soothing and enjoyable. It will mean different things to different people and what one person finds nourishing (ie. gardening), another (like myself, in this instance) might find anxiety-provoking. While I might enjoy reading, someone else could find this activity riddled with anxiety. I was able to find a pdf that lists a large number of self-nurturing activities. It is in no way exhaustive; you can certainly make your own list. In fact, I encourage you to do so! Try fitting one self-nourishing activity into your day to begin with and gradually increase to several times a day either with the same or a different activity. The idea is that you will begin to feel better about yourself if you combine self-compassionate thinking with a nurturing activity. Here is the link to the list.

Click to access Ideas-Self-Nurturing.pdf

Copy down the ones that you identify with or print out the list and highlight those you think you’d like to try. One a day. Pick a really simple one if you are struggling with this topic. If you need to, break one down into smaller steps. For example, writing is a soothing activity for me but when I’m struggling, I might only be able to find a pen or pencil or set my laptop on the couch or table. Maybe later in the day, or even the next day, I will pick the pen up or open my laptop, and so on. Maybe it takes you a week, but one small step everyday will get you there. You’ve got this and you are worth it!