Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / some days, just surviving is enough.

Transcript

some days, just surviving is enough. · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  When I was desperately trying to be OK with the mental illness I
• 0:03
  was facing, I wrote this poem. I'm not quite happy, but I'm not
• 0:08
  quite sad either. I eat my dinner on the front
• 0:11
  porch and I don't see my friends that often.
• 0:14
  Some days I wake up feeling like I have weights wrapped around my
• 0:17
  fingers and others I hardly have to wake up at all.
• 0:22
  I think it's OK to spiral. As long as you're spiraling
• 0:25
  towards something not just floating in space but aimed your
• 0:29
  hurt feelings fueling a rocket ship built with some sort of
• 0:32
  progress, I think it'll be OK. Like this, I think I found some
• 0:38
  sort of peace. My name is Ethan Jewell and
• 0:41
  welcome back to Feel Your Feelings.
• 0:46
  One of the hardest parts of my healing journey was accepting
• 0:50
  that nothing was going to dramatically change, and instead
• 0:53
  I had to learn to live with it until it became bearable.
• 0:57
  I had to learn how to aim myself with all of my hurt feelings.
• 1:00
  I had to learn how to aim myself with all of my struggle, with
• 1:04
  all of my pain, and keep going even though it hurt.
• 1:10
  I had to accept that I didn't keep going because I wanted to.
• 1:15
  I didn't keep going because I was magically getting better.
• 1:18
  I had to keep going despite it all.
• 1:21
  I had to keep going even though I was hurting.
• 1:24
  And that was a difficult truth to accept.
• 1:27
  It took me many years to accept that.
• 1:30
  You kind of just have to grit your teeth and get through it.
• 1:32
  Some days nothing really works. Some days the healing
• 1:37
  mechanisms, the coping mechanisms that worked yesterday
• 1:39
  just don't work. Some days you just feel worse
• 1:42
  and you're not sure why. And that is the brutal truth
• 1:45
  about mental health. And that is what this poem is
• 1:47
  about. This episode is a part of Talk
• 1:49
  About It Tuesdays, which is a series where I read a poem from
• 1:53
  my mental health struggle. And I talk about it because I
• 1:55
  have been through it. It has been over six years of
• 1:58
  learning how to heal. It has been over six years of
• 2:00
  feeling my feelings and trying to get better.
• 2:03
  And this is where I'm at. And now I want to talk.
• 2:05
  How about that? I'm not a doctor, I'm not a
• 2:07
  psychiatrist, I'm not a professional in the mental
• 2:09
  health industry whatsoever. I'm just a guy who has hurt, who
• 2:13
  has struggled and wants to talk about it.
• 2:15
  This poem is important to me because I wrote it during a time
• 2:18
  of acceptance. I wrote it just after I had
• 2:21
  moved out of my parents house. I was finally living on my own
• 2:24
  and I realized that nobody was coming to save me.
• 2:27
  It was me and all of these feelings and all of this pain
• 2:31
  that I had versus the world, and I just had to figure out how to
• 2:34
  survive. It wasn't about getting through
• 2:36
  the year or the month or the week.
• 2:38
  It was about getting through the day.
• 2:40
  It was about figuring out how I was going to get through that
• 2:43
  day, how I was going to try to be OK most days.
• 2:47
  It wasn't about healing, it was just about surviving.
• 2:51
  And sometimes that's enough. I woke up every day and I found
• 2:55
  one little thing to live for. One ridiculously small thing
• 2:59
  like eating dinner on my front porch or seeing a friend or
• 3:03
  going outside and just smelling the air.
• 3:05
  I would find one ridiculously small thing that didn't really
• 3:08
  feel like it mattered, but I would latch so much meaning onto
• 3:11
  it. Instead of the sunset just being
• 3:13
  colors in the sky, I would see it as another sign that I lived.
• 3:17
  I would see it as another sign that I would get another chance
• 3:20
  tomorrow. I wouldn't hear a bird as just a
• 3:23
  bird singing. I would hear it as proof of
• 3:25
  life, as proof that I could still comprehend the world
• 3:29
  around me because there were times that I was so depressed.
• 3:32
  I felt like I couldn't comprehend what was going on.
• 3:36
  It felt like somebody had shut my eyes.
• 3:37
  It felt like I had horse blinders on.
• 3:39
  And that is a horrible feeling. And when you're facing feelings
• 3:43
  like that, you're not really worried about thriving, you're
• 3:46
  just worried about surviving. Some days, that's all that you
• 3:51
  can do. I'm quite confident that if
• 3:53
  you're listening to this podcast, if you're seeking out
• 3:55
  mental health content, that you likely are struggling with your
• 3:59
  mental health too. And I want to look at you as
• 4:01
  somebody who has gone through this, gone through the thick of
• 4:04
  it. And I want to remind you that
• 4:06
  you are capable. You don't have to be perfect on
• 4:10
  those days that you're hurting. You are allowed to spiral.
• 4:12
  You are allowed to spiral as long as you are trying to push
• 4:15
  yourself to spiral towards something.
• 4:18
  There were days where I couldn't get out of bed, but I would at
• 4:20
  least stop myself from scrolling on my phone every once in a
• 4:23
  while and I would drink water and I would call a friend while
• 4:26
  lying in bed. You see, so many people glorify
• 4:29
  the mental health journey saying that you're going to be able to
• 4:32
  do this and and you're going to keep getting better.
• 4:34
  You're going to be able to stack up these little habits.
• 4:36
  Even I say that. I say that a big part of healing
• 4:39
  your mental health is backing up small habits.
• 4:41
  But some days it's just going to be too heavy.
• 4:44
  Some days it's just going to be too difficult, and you just have
• 4:47
  to do what you can to survive. You just have to try to find
• 4:51
  peace within the chaos. You just have to try to find a
• 4:54
  little bit of calm within all of the pain that you're feeling.
• 4:58
  And I preach that there is no peace within pain.
• 5:00
  Just a few episodes ago I said that.
• 5:02
  But sometimes you have to create that peace for yourself.
• 5:06
  Because if you're going a year, 2 years without feeling peace
• 5:10
  from any outside parts of the world, without feeling peace
• 5:13
  because this mental illness is driving you crazy, you have to
• 5:16
  find that peace within yourself and within small quiet moments.
• 5:20
  And that is what this poem is all about.
• 5:22
  It's about taking those moments that don't feel significant,
• 5:24
  that aren't a big part of your journey, and making them into
• 5:27
  something significant. When you're just trying to get
• 5:30
  through the day, when you are hurting so much, you have to
• 5:33
  make the little thing significant because you need to
• 5:36
  give yourself something to live for.
• 5:38
  It's going to be hard and you're going to have to look for it,
• 5:41
  but it is there. I found something to live for in
• 5:44
  the sky, in the trees and the grass and the birds and the
• 5:48
  bees. I found something to live for
• 5:51
  inside of a stranger's eyes. I found something to live for in
• 5:55
  a waiter telling me to have a good day.
• 5:57
  I found something to live for in the sun kissing my skin.
• 6:00
  I found something to live for every single day.
• 6:03
  And I held on to that. And I made it the most important
• 6:06
  thing in my life. Until one day it truly was.
• 6:12
  Until one day I felt better. Until one day I didn't have to
• 6:14
  desperately grasp to that moment of peace.
• 6:17
  I didn't have to desperately grasp to that moment of
• 6:19
  importance. Because I found it within
• 6:21
  myself. While you're healing, it's
• 6:24
  important that you find those little moments.
• 6:26
  Those moments of joy, those moments of happiness, those
• 6:29
  moments of something to live for.
• 6:32
  Because yes, healing is important, but sometimes you
• 6:35
  just have to survive. Sometimes you just have to get
• 6:38
  through the day. Every single day that you choose
• 6:40
  to stay is another opportunity to heal tomorrow.
• 6:45
  Maybe today sucked. Maybe this week sucked.
• 6:47
  This month sucked. This year was horrible.
• 6:51
  But you chose to stay day after day.
• 6:53
  And now you have given yourself another chance.
• 6:55
  And that is so worth it. Because what if you do heal?
• 6:59
  What if it does get better? Allow yourself to think of the
• 7:04
  good what ifs as well as the bad ones.
• 7:07
  Allow yourself to have a little bit of hope.
• 7:10
  It was probably year 4 or five of my healing journey until I
• 7:14
  truly believed that hope, until I truly felt it.
• 7:17
  Until I truly felt a little bit of joy, a little bit of change
• 7:22
  in the mental illness that I've been facing for so long.
• 7:24
  But in those four years before that, I held onto that hope and
• 7:27
  I focused on just surviving. This poem is titled Some Sort of
• 7:32
  Peace for a Reason. It's about the journey of trying
• 7:36
  to find a little bit of peace within the chaos, within the
• 7:39
  pain of my mental health journey.
• 7:42
  It's about accepting that I'm not happy, but I'm not quite sad
• 7:46
  either. I'm somewhere in the middle.
• 7:47
  I'm trying to figure it out. It's about knowing that eating
• 7:50
  dinner on the front porch, even though it's small and
• 7:52
  insignificant, means something. Some days I wake up feeling
• 7:57
  horrible. Other days I don't.
• 7:58
  And that's OK. I think it'll be OK like this.
• 8:02
  I think I've found some sort of peace.
• 8:04
  Because you have that within you.
• 8:06
  You are capable of this. And until you truly believe
• 8:10
  that, you just need to find those little moments, those
• 8:13
  little bits of peace that remind you that it will be OK.
• 8:17
  Healing is hard. It's not easy, and at times it
• 8:22
  literally makes you feel like you're going insane.
• 8:25
  But it is so important that you hold on to those moments, that
• 8:28
  you look for little things to live for and you keep going.
• 8:31
  Some days all you can do is survive and that's OK.
• 8:37
  That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
• 8:39
  Thank you for joining me on another episode of Talk About It
• 8:42
  Tuesdays. These episodes are really
• 8:44
  personal to me so I know I kind of just ramble sometimes, but it
• 8:47
  means a lot that you listen through to the end.
• 8:49
  If you like the poem, it's from my book I Feel Everything All
• 8:54
  the Time by Ethan Jewell. You can get a copy at the link
• 8:57
  in the description. Also, if you need help feeling
• 8:59
  your feelings, you should check out my music on all platforms
• 9:02
  under the name of Ethan Jewell. I almost guarantee it'll make
• 9:05
  you cry. Please drop me a comment.
• 9:07
  Let me know one little thing that you found peace within this
• 9:10
  week or this month, whether it's something really, really small,
• 9:13
  like a moment in nature or outside or something
• 9:16
  significant, whatever it is, let me know.
• 9:18
  I'd love to start the conversation.
• 9:19
  So thank you so much for being here.
• 9:21
  Thank you for understanding that you are capable of finding that
• 9:25
  little bit of peace. And as always, thank you for
• 9:28
  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.