Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / how to find your good feelings

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how to find your good feelings · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  For years, I didn't really try to find something to look for.
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  I didn't try to find glimmers of hope.
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  I simply expected that to happen to me.
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  I expected my mental health to get better in my perspective, to
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  become more positive, passively. What I didn't realize is that we
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  have to actively seek out something to look for and seek
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  out glimmers of hope every single day in order to improve.
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  Hey there, My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to
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  another episode of Feel Your Feelings.
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  This is a podcast I started all about mental health and mental
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  health awareness. Now, I'm not a doctor, a
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  psychiatrist or professional in the mental health industry
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  whatsoever. I'm just a normal guy who has
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  felt a lot of big feelings and wants to start the conversation
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  on mental health. So today let's talk about how
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  important it is to find glimmers and how important it is to seek
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  out something to live for. And also, let's feel some
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  feelings. Something that many people
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  identify early on in their mental health journey.
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  Something that I identified early on in my mental health
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  journey is triggers. Now, triggers are a part of
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  almost every single mental illness, whether it's
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  depression, anxiety, bipolar, borderline.
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  Almost every single mental illness is related to a trigger
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  of some kind. Or triggers, at least, can make
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  things worse. And what a trigger is, is an
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  event or situation that will spur up that mental illness.
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  It'll spur up feelings that have maybe been suppressed.
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  It'll remind you of situations, and it will make things worse in
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  the moment. It will trigger you.
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  Now, I'm sure most of us have heard of that term.
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  Most of us know what our triggers are.
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  A lot of us are able to identify our triggers and try to avoid
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  them. And that is a very healthy and
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  necessary skill in order to improve prove our mental health.
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  However, a term that I only recently learned, and a term
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  that I think needs to be learned by everybody on their mental
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  health journey is finding our glimmer.
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  Now, it may seem a little bit cheesy, but glimmers are
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  essentially the opposite of triggers.
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  Glimmers are things that remind us of good times, things that
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  give us hope, thoughts, ideas or situations that bring us some
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  kind of positive joy and take us away from that bad place.
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  They help resolve those feelings that the mental illness may
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  bring up. And that is what I want to talk
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  about today because I think identifying your glimmers and
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  what brings you that joy and hope is potentially more
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  important than identifying our triggers.
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  So how exactly do we find our glimmers?
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  I mean, it's a great idea to have something that brings us
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  hope and joy that we can resort back to, but how do we find
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  that? I mean, sometimes everything
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  feels so dull and numb and depressing that we aren't
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  exactly sure what our glimmers may even be.
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  I know I went through a period of probably a year or two where
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  everything seemed to be a trigger of some kind, and it was
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  like almost everything would kind of set me off into a
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  depressive phase. The smallest things would make
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  me not want to leave my bed for days at a time, and that was a
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  difficult, difficult thing. And I know during that period
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  finding a glimmer would have been incredibly, incredibly
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  difficult. What did it for me was simple
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  trial and error. I tried to continue to live my
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  life. I tried to continue to
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  experience things the best that I could until I was able to find
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  something that gave me hope. Now I'm not talking about
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  anything grand. I'm not saying, oh, like I went
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  on a European vacation and I found that my glimmer was, you
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  know, petting cows in the fields of Switzerland or something like
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  that. No simple things like listening
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  to a new song or trying to find a new hobby or interest on the
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  Internet. Talking to friends about new
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  things in their lives. Simply trying new things and
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  trying to find something that brought me that joy.
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  Now there were some things that I had already identified in the
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  same way. If you reflect on your life, I'm
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  sure you can find some glimmers for me.
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  One of the big ones is piano and music.
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  I've been playing piano since I was like four or five years old,
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  and so to me, that is always a place of hope and joy that I can
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  revert back to. Maybe you have something
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  similar. Maybe you used to play an
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  instrument that brings you joy. Maybe there's a song that you
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  used to listen to that brings you a little bit of hope.
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  Maybe a person is your glimmer. Yes, you heard me right.
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  In the same way that a person can trigger us, a person can
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  also bring us that bit of hope and joy.
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  And I think that that is a beautiful part of the human
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  experience. I can think of a couple of
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  people that are glimmers for me, people that I see, and they just
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  light up the room for me. And I feel that hope all over
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  again. And that is something that is
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  very important to have. So now that we know what a
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  glimmer is and how to potentially identify it, let's
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  talk about the benefits of having this place of hope and
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  joy to refer back to. I personally have felt these
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  benefits during that dark period that I was talking about.
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  As I started to come out of that dark period, I was able to
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  identify some glimmers. I was able to identify the fact
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  that music and piano helped me, and using that knowledge I
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  started to make music. I started out small, just
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  writing lyrics in my phone and then speaking them out over a
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  little piano chords. And then I continued with that
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  passion. And quickly, actually, this
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  glimmer became something that saved my life.
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  Making music allowed me to process the feelings that I was
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  feeling. They helped me get out of that
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  dark place. They helped me deal with my
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  triggers. They helped me identify more and
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  more things that I needed to deal with.
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  Quite simply, the small glimmer that I identified eventually
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  grew into my biggest passion and one of the reasons that I keep
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  going today. One of the reasons that I can
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  get out of bed now and feel hopeful for the future.
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  Glimmers are something to live for and they can be anywhere.
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  I find glimmers in the sunset. I find glimmers in the trees, in
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  the sky, in the wind. It can be simple.
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  Allow yourself to pursue a childlike wonder for the world.
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  Allow yourself to be amazed by the little things and to find
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  hope and joy in every corner that you come across.
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  You might find that there is more beauty and more hope in the
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  world than you were ever aware of.
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  Allow yourself to be open minded about this.
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  Allow yourself to discover what makes you happy.
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  Trust me, it doesn't come easily.
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  It took me several years of trial and error, but once I
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  identified what my glimmers were, what brought me hope, what
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  brought me joy, it totally transformed my life and allowed
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  me to walk towards a much more hopeful future, and one that I'm
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  living in right now. So please don't give up.
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  There are many triggers out there, but in the same way,
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  there are so many glimmers. There's so many reasons to hope.
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  There's so many reasons to want to live.
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  So what are your glimmers that's going to wrap it up for today's
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  episode? Thank you so much for being
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  here. If you need help feeling your
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  feelings at all, I have music out on all platforms under the
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  name Ethan Jewel. Check it out, it might make you
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  cry. Also, shoot me a message on my
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  Instagram at Jewel Boy Under Score and let me know what you
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  thought about today's episode. Thank you so much for being
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  here. Thank you for allowing yourself
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  to discover your glimmer. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.