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nobody is coming to save you. and that's okay. · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  No one is coming to save you, and that's OK.
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  There's no one right person. There's no one right
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  circumstance. There's no one time to heal, to
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  improve, to dig out of the hole that you've been in for years.
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  There is no rock bottom moment that finally makes everything
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  click. There is no morning where you
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  suddenly wake up and feel ready. There is not a version of your
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  life that looks different enough to where getting better finally
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  makes sense. You just have to do it.
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  You have to do it scared. You have to do it uncertain.
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  You have to try to heal your mental health in every way that
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  you can without knowing exactly how.
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  And you are capable of that. My name is Ethan Jewell and
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  welcome back to Feel Your Feelings.
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  Now I know that is a very strong introduction.
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  It sounds like a very harsh thing to say, to look at you and
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  tell you that nobody is coming to save you.
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  But I don't mean that in a harsh or difficult way.
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  I mean it as the truth. And I mean it as the truth that
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  eventually pushed me into taking action to healing my mental
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  health. I think so many of us get stuck
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  in a waiting room when it comes to our mental health.
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  We are waiting for the right moment.
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  We're waiting for the right people.
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  We're waiting for the right support.
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  We're waiting for the right day to start.
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  We're waiting to feel different. We're waiting to have a surge of
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  motivation come over us to finally start healing.
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  And I stayed in that waiting room for more than three years.
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  I sat there waiting for somebody to save me, but the only thing
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  that finally actually worked was me taking action to stop
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  treating my mental illness like this mythical concept and
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  instead like a real struggle that I was facing, that I was
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  capable of dealing with and learning to live with.
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  This waiting room. This waiting room that so many
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  of us get stuck in with our mental health journeys.
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  It looks different for everyone. For some people, it's waiting to
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  feel ready. For some people, it's waiting
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  until things are bad enough that you feel like you can justify
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  asking for help. Waiting until you figured out
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  the right words to explain what's wrong.
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  Waiting until you have more time, more money, more energy,
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  more certainty that something will actually work for some
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  people. It's waiting for somebody to
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  notice. Somebody to reach out first, to
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  ask the right question, to see through your performance of
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  being OK and name what they're watching, to love you loudly
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  enough that it breaks through. You're waiting for proof that
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  you're sick enough to need help. Waiting for a sign, a moment of
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  clarity, a version of yourself that actually feels ready to
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  heal. And that waiting, it makes
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  sense. It's a very human thing to do.
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  When you're exhausted, when you're overwhelmed, when you're
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  struggling and you don't know where to start, it feels like
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  the only option is to wait. And sometimes you do genuinely
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  need to rest before you can move, before you can take
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  action. I'm not here to shame that
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  waiting. But what I do want to say is
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  those of us who get stuck in this waiting room, it is
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  important that we eventually find our way out in the waiting
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  room. It doesn't have a door on the
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  outside. Nobody has the key except for
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  you. So why do we wait if a part of
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  us knows that it's up to us to get better?
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  Because during those three years that I was waiting, I was not
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  completely oblivious to the fact that it was up to me to heal.
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  I was not living in a fantasy world.
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  I knew that it was up to me. So why do we keep waiting?
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  There's a few reasons, and I want to name them without any
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  judgment because I think all of them are understandable and they
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  happen for a reason. And the first one is hope.
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  There's real, tangible hope that something external will change
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  the internal. That the right relationship will
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  make you feel worthy, that a job will feel purposeful.
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  That the move, the fresh start, the new chapter, will reset
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  something that feels irreparably stuck.
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  And hope is not a bad thing. Hope keeps us going.
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  But when it's pointed entirely outward, when it's contingent on
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  something happening to you, it takes the power away from you.
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  Because you have power. You have the power to heal.
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  But when you tell yourself that you just need something else to
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  happen, it takes that power away from you.
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  And that's dangerous. That's dangerous when that power
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  is what you need to heal. The second reason that we keep
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  waiting is fear. Healing your mental health is
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  scary. I feel like that's something
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  that doesn't get talked about enough.
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  It is scary to accept the pain that you feel.
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  It is scary to sit with it. It is scary to sit alone in a
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  room and feel bad. That sucks.
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  That is an awful part of the human experience.
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  That is healing, sitting with it.
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  And when you sit with these heavy, awful feelings that just
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  consume you and then you realize that it is up to you to do
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  something about it that is scary and that is overwhelming.
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  And then we start worrying that the action that we do take won't
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  work. You know, what if you do ask for
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  help and it doesn't help? What if you try therapy and it
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  doesn't click? What if you make the change and
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  you're still not OK? At least in this waiting room,
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  the outcome is certain. You know how you're going to
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  feel, and you don't have to change anything.
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  For a lot of people, the possibility of failure is
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  scarier than the certainty of staying stuck.
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  And the third reason we stay in this limbo of waiting for
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  something to happen to us, waiting for somebody to save us,
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  is that we feel unworthy. And we feel unworthy of finding
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  that healing. You don't deserve to be saved.
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  That other people's problems are worse, That you haven't earned
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  the right to ask for help, to take up space in a therapist's
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  office, to tell somebody the truth about how you're doing.
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  That you should be able to handle this on your own.
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  You do not have to earn the right to be helped or to heal.
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  You do not have to earn the right to heal or to be helped.
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  You do not have to be sick enough, sad enough, broken
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  enough. You just have to be struggling.
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  There is no bar of entry. There is no standard.
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  Just because other people struggle too does not mean that
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  you are not worthy of of asking for help.
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  That you are not worthy of finding that healing within you,
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  of taking up space at a therapist's office, of doing
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  what you can to heal. You are worthy of that.
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  There is no judge. The only judge is coming from
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  within you, convincing yourself that you are not worthy.
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  But you are. You deserve to heal.
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  So let's talk about actually healing.
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  Actually saving ourselves. I want to be really clear with
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  something first, the phrase nobody's coming to save you.
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  I know that that can be misread as you're on your own, figure it
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  out. Don't trust other people.
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  Pull yourself up. That is not what I mean at all.
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  What I mean is this the kind of healing that actually changes
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  things, the deep, lasting, real kind.
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  It cannot be done to you. It has to be done with you and
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  often that has to be initiated by you.
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  And that doesn't mean that you have to do it alone.
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  You don't have to. It just means that you're the
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  one that gets going. You're the one that opens the
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  door. You're the one who makes the
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  appointment. You're the one who sends the
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  text that says I'm not doing well.
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  You're the one who decides to take a a small step every day
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  towards healing your own mental health.
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  When I say nobody is coming to save you, I don't want to scare
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  you and I don't want to make it more overwhelming.
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  I mean it to tell you that you have the power.
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  Nobody is coming to save you. Good.
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  Because you will find a strength within yourself that you didn't
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  know existed. You will find a will to heal, to
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  grow, to become the person that you've always wanted to be, to
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  feel better than you ever thought you could, to love
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  harder than you thought was possible.
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  And you will find that because nobody came to save you.
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  Because you saved yourself. And you can rely on other
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  people. You can lean on other shoulders,
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  But you are the one that has to start it.
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  The first step is yours. When you tell yourself that
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  somebody else is going to save you, that you are going to wake
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  up 1 morning just feeling ready, you are taking away real power
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  from yourself. You are taking away the fact
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  that you are capable and you can heal.
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  I spent a long time waiting for somebody to save me.
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  Waiting to feel ready, waiting for someone to notice, Waiting
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  for things to get bad enough that asking for help finally
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  felt justified in what I finally figured out, in the hardest way
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  possible, was that nobody was coming.
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  Not because I wasn't worth saving, not because help didn't
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  exist, but because the door to that help opens from the inside
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  and I was the only one who could open it.
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  And the moment I stopped waiting and I took that first small,
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  imperfect step, everything didn't fix itself.
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  But something changed. I stopped being at the mercy of
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  outside circumstances. I took power.
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  And that means something. And I promise you, you can do it
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  too. I'm not a guru.
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  I'm not a doctor, I'm not a professional.
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  I haven't studied mental health. I've just been through it.
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  So when I tell you that you are capable of this, I'm not saying
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  that oh, statistically you are. No, I'm telling you that I was
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  able to do this, so I know that you can too.
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  Everyone's experience is different, and I cannot lay out
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  exactly step by step what I think you can do.
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  But what I can tell you is that you are capable of figuring out
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  what helps you. You are capable of finding that
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  healing. You can do it and you don't have
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  to wait for somebody else because what's on the other side
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  of healing, what's on the other side of that first step is truly
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  miraculous. The weight of waiting to start
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  goes away, and that waiting is incredibly heavy because you
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  know something's wrong and you know you're not taking action.
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  That is a heavy feeling to deal with.
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  When you stop waiting, you accept that you are the one that
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  has to move. And even if that's a little
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  scary, there's a strange lightness that comes with that.
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  It's empowering in a way that I can't quite put into words.
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  It's something that you just have to experience.
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  You just have to take that first step and then you learn so much
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  about yourself. You learn the insurance and outs
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  of your feelings, how you deal with them, how you handle them.
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  You go on this journey, this beautiful journey of learning
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  and growing and it is so powerful.
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  So take that first step. Tell one person something true.
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  You don't have to tell them everything.
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  You don't have to tell them the whole story.
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  Just one thing to somebody you trust.
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  I've I've been struggling lately.
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  You know, that's it. That's a first step.
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  You look up 1 resource, not even to sign up, not to commit.
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  Just look a therapist directory, a crisis line, a support group.
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  Let yourself see that these things exist and then tomorrow
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  take one more step. You'll make one appointment.
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  Say out loud even to yourself that it's time that you need
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  help, and then take action on that.
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  Do 1 ridiculously small thing for yourself every single day.
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  None of these things are the whole thing.
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  You are not going to be able to take one step and then have it
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  all figured out and be healed. This is a journey that you will
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  be walking for a very, very long time, but it is one of the most
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  powerful journeys that I've ever been on.
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  And I've learned so much about myself and I've healed so much.
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  And I know that you can do the same.
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  Nobody is coming to save you. And that is not a tragedy.
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  It is an invitation for you to take control.
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  An invitation to stop waiting for the perfect moment, the
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  right circumstances, the person who finally sees you clearly,
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  and to become, imperfectly slowly, the first person who
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  shows up for yourself. You have been waiting for
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  somebody strong enough to open the door and take the first
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  step. That person is you.
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  It has always been you and you are braver and more powerful
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  than you know. That's going to wrap it up for
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  today's episode. Thank you so much for being
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  here. If you need help feeling your
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  feelings, you should check out my music on all platforms under
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  the name of Ethan Jewell. I almost guarantee it'll make
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  you cry. Also, drop me a comment and let
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  me know what you thought about today's episode and how you are
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  feeling about taking that first step.
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  So thank you so much for being here.
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  Thank you for understanding that you have the power to heal.
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  And as always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.