Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / how to ACTUALLY help your mental health

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how to ACTUALLY help your mental health · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  Mental health is a difficult field to navigate.
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  Everybody's mental health is different, so certain solutions
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  may not work for you. Mental health is complicated,
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  it's confusing, it's difficult to understand, and often it
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  feels easier to do nothing at all.
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  Unfortunately, bettering our mental health is necessary and
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  also requires active effort. Today, let's identify the
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  difference between passive and active recovery, How we can make
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  the switch. And overall, how it will benefit
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  our lives. My name is Ethan Jewell and
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  welcome back to another episode of Feel Your Feelings.
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  I've been on a self improvement journey for the past two years,
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  but I've really been focused in for the last six months.
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  And let me tell you, it's not easy as somebody who has
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  essentially made depression and anxiety and just general
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  sadness. A big part of their personality
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  for the last four to five years. I can tell you that recovering
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  from that and improving my mental health has been one of
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  the most difficult battles I've ever gone through.
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  It isn't easy. And that's that's what people
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  won't tell you about mental health.
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  You know they'll preach for a mental health awareness and
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  they'll preach that you should take care of yourself and try to
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  better your mental health, but they won't tell you just how
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  difficult it is. We need to approach mental
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  health from a realistic standpoint.
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  Mental health isn't pretty. It isn't fun, and it's not easy
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  to get over. Fixing your mental health
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  doesn't just mean changing your mindset.
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  It means changing physical habits, changing emotional
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  habits, and adapting an entirely new mindset.
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  That's what finally changed for me.
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  I realized that in order to improve, in order to change, I
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  needed to make an active effort to change.
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  And when you're already depressed, that can be nearly
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  impossible. People want to preach a very
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  pretty and organized mental health agenda.
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  They want to say that you just need to journal and go outside
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  and go on walks and talk to a friend and that that will cure
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  you, that that will make everything better.
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  But if you have struggled with depression, if you've struggled
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  with anxiety, you know that that's unrealistic.
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  It is nearly impossible to get out of bed some days.
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  It is nearly impossible to talk to other people.
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  Frankly, most days mental illness can feel unmanageable.
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  So how are we supposed to go from this bad place?
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  How are we supposed to take this lack of motivation, this lack of
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  joy, this lack of anything, and how are we supposed to turn it
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  into something positive? Well, that's a question I've
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  been asking myself for the past several years, and in the last
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  six months I feel like I finally found what works for me.
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  And I want to talk about the journey that I've been going on
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  and how I am actively trying to recover from a battle with
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  mental illness. However, before we dive into
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  that, I want to clarify I am not a professional.
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  I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
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  I'm just a normal guy who has been through this experience,
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  has felt these big feelings, and wants to help you feel yours.
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  So please. Take what I say with a grain of
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  salt and find what works for you.
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  This is just based off of my own personal experience.
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  Now, before I start talking about a journey on recovering
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  and improving our mental health, I wanted to find two terms.
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  Two terms that have already lightly used and that is active
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  recovery and passive recovery. These are two very, very
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  different things and you're going to run into both of them
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  if you get serious about improving your mental health.
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  Now, passive recovery. Is what I've been doing for the
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  past two or three years. And to be honest, I feel as
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  though this is where most people get stuck.
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  When they're trying to improve their mental health or they're
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  trying to recover from a traumatic situation or a mental
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  illness, passive recovery is very, very easy to fall into.
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  It's a bit of a trap. This is what passive recovery
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  looked like for me. I would wake up and I would
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  watch videos about improving my mental health.
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  I would make plans about how I'm going to improve my mental
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  health. I would write in my journal and
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  say soon I'm going to start doing this or this, and I really
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  think it's going to improve my mental health.
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  I wasn't actively doing anything to improve my mental health.
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  Instead, I continued to plan and I continued to hope and I
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  continued to listen to advice and learn.
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  And although there's nothing wrong with this, there's nothing
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  bad about learning and and making plans.
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  It is bad if you never act upon these plans.
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  Passive recovery can feel like real recovery because you're
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  learning about your mental illness.
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  However, this knowledge is semi useless unless we apply it to an
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  active recovery. So for two plus years I learned
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  a lot about my mental illness. I learned a lot about the
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  struggles I went through. However, I didn't feel real
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  change until I switched into active recovery.
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  You see, active recovery is an entirely different ballpark, and
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  it is much more difficult. And that switch is what makes
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  improving our mental health so very difficult.
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  We have to become active. We have to actively fight the
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  mental illness. We have to fight those difficult
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  feelings in order to recover from them, in order to learn how
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  to live with them, in order to overcome.
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  And this isn't easy. So what does active recovery
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  look like? Well, for me it was a
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  combination of things. You see, mental health and
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  emotional stability is not one clear cut thing.
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  It's not one activity that we can start doing.
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  There's not one routine that you can adapt in order to perfect
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  your mental health. I like to think of it almost
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  like a game of Jenga. You have to take out pieces of
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  yourself and reframe them. You need to build upon a
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  foundation, and you need to do it all very delicately.
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  Recovery from mental illness and mental health improvement will
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  look different for everybody. It will look different for you.
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  It will look different for a friend of yours, a family
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  member, and it probably look different For me, switching to
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  active recovery means trying things and figuring out what
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  works for you. It means taking that first step.
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  So what did that look like for me?
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  What helped me was starting ridiculously easy.
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  And I've talked about this before and I will talk about it
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  again. This is the best way you can
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  start your journey on mental health improvement and the best
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  way that you can switch to active recovery.
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  Start very small. One of the reasons we stay in a
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  passive mode, one of the reasons we always keep planning and
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  learning, is because mental health recovery is overwhelming.
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  It sounds nearly impossible to fix our mindset and to become
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  happier and to try to get rid of those difficult feelings.
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  Going from the start to the finish like that sounds nearly
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  impossible. Instead, you need to focus on
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  the journey. Getting there, you need to take
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  tiny, tiny, tiny steps. Expecting yourself to wake up
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  tomorrow and have a perfect routine and be improving your
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  mental health actively tomorrow is an unrealistic goal.
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  That's like expecting a baby to go from barely being able to
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  crawl to running a marathon overnight.
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  It's super unrealistic. Humans are creatures of
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  learning. Humans are creatures of adapting
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  and understanding and making slow improvements.
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  You are able to evolve, you are able to adapt, and you need to
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  create room for you to do so. So start small.
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  Wake up tomorrow and do one small thing that you think might
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  help your mental health, whether it's taking care of your body.
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  Doing something for yourself physically.
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  Going on a walk or trying a really light exercise.
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  Maybe it's just drinking a little bit more water.
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  Or maybe you should do something for yourself emotionally or
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  mentally, such as writing down a few sentences in a journal or
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  having a short conversation with a friend.
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  Whatever it is, start ridiculously small.
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  Active recovery grows from habits.
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  And habits grow from small tasks that you implement into your
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  routine every single day. And it's going to feel silly.
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  It's going to feel like it's doing nothing.
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  But trust me, the snowball will slowly start rolling downhill
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  and grow larger and larger. One year ago, I would not be
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  able to imagine the things that I'm able to do today.
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  One year ago, I would have thought that going to the gym
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  and taking care of my body would have been nearly impossible.
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  A year ago, making a meal for myself sounded overwhelming.
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  A year ago, hanging out with friends was exhausting.
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  And after a year of building small habits.
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  A year of focusing on active recovery a little bit every
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  single day. I can say that I am making leaps
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  and bounds in improving my mental health once again.
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  This is what worked for me, and I'm still a work in progress.
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  I'm not trying to claim that I know the secrets to everything,
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  or that if you do this, your life will suddenly switch
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  around. I don't want to claim that at
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  all. I'm I'm not some guru.
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  I don't have the answers. I'm not a professional.
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  However, I have experienced this.
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  I've looked depression dead in the eyes.
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  I have experienced some very, very deep lows.
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  And frankly, I still do to this day.
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  This past week I have felt some of the old habits and old
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  feelings of depression that I used to struggle with a lot.
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  They came back in full swing and it hasn't been easy.
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  However, the difference between passive and active recovery
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  means that I am able to fight these habits.
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  I have developed routines over the past year or two that allow
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  me to deal with those depressive feelings.
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  Frankly, that depression will most likely always be there.
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  What you can do is equip yourself to deal with it, and
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  equip yourself to live and coexist with it whenever it gets
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  bad. That way you can still enjoy
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  life. You can still live life without
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  depression pushing you down. You deserve that.
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  You deserve to live a life not controlled by your mental
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  illness, but instead one that is controlled by you.
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  So I challenge you to try to start building these habits, to
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  try to start ridiculously small and begin to build a routine
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  from the ground up, become active in your recovery.
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  I believe in you. I did it.
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  And I've seen incredible changes.
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  And I know that you can do it too.
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  That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for being here.
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  If you need help feeling your feelings, check out my music on
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  all platforms under the name Ethan Jewell.
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  Also, shoot me a message on my Instagram at Jewel Boy, under
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  score Boy with an I. And let me know what you thought
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  about today's episode. Thank you so much for listening.
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  Thank you for understanding that you need to start ridiculously
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  small. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.