Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / your brain is LYING to you about your mental health

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your brain is LYING to you about your mental health · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  Being lonely and having nobody around you is difficult.
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  There is no way around that, but being lonely.
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  When there are people around you, when you do have people
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  there for you, that is an entirely different battle and
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  that can be even more difficult. Hey, there and welcome back to
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  another episode of feel your feelings, with me, Ethan Jewel.
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  This is a podcast that I started all about mental health, and
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  mental health awareness. Now, I'm not a doctor.
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  I'm not a Professional. I'm not a psychologist.
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  I'm just a normal guy who has felt some big feelings and it's
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  very, very passionate about mental health.
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  In wants to open the conversation about mental
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  illness. So, thank you so much for
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  joining. Me and as always, let's feel
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  some feelings. As I was saying in the intro,
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  loneliness is a difficult concept to Grapple with, it's
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  not easy. Being lonely is very, very
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  difficult. If you've ever experienced
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  loneliness, you know what I'm talking about?
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  But one thing that I have grappled with for a very long
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  time that to me almost feels more difficult is loneliness in
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  the presence of company. Now this is something I'm very
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  familiar with. I wrote an entire album about
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  this concept, it's called loneliness in the presence of
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  company and I wrote it Low time in my life.
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  And during this time, I realized when I was with people, when I
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  was with big groups of my friends and people that I loved,
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  I still felt so lonely, I felt like I didn't belong, I felt
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  like I wasn't supposed to be there.
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  I'd beat up on myself and say you don't deserve this
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  happiness, you don't deserve these friends, you should just
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  go home and sit with your sadness.
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  And this was a narrative that I kept telling myself over and
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  over and over again. And eventually it started
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  affecting my relationships, my friends.
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  Gunships it affected the time that I spent with the people
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  that I love and it affected my life as a whole, it was
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  difficult. This loneliness in the presence
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  of company was difficult. But what I began to realize is
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  that it was a lie that my brain was telling me.
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  It was an elaborate lie that was set up by this mental illness.
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  I was battling with to convince me that I was doing worse than I
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  was and to convince me to isolate myself.
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  You see mental illness breeds with in isolation, it grows
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  stronger and stronger when you are alone and it tries to
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  convince you of a narrative, this mental illness, tries to
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  convince you to be alone. And that's what I want to talk
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  about today. I want to talk about the
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  narratives that our own mental illness.
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  Tells us in order to make us get worse.
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  Now, I can only speak from personal experience because like
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  I said, I'm not a professional and also I don't know.
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  It's like inside of your brain. However, I have a feeling that
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  you will very closely relate to this.
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  You see, when you're struggling with mental illness your brain,
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  tries to convince you of certain things.
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  For example, for me, my brain tries to convince me that I need
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  to be alone that I'm better off without anybody.
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  It tries to convince me that I don't deserve to get better.
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  And if I'm already struggling with my mental health hearing,
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  these narratives in my head, is so difficult in.
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  This is what makes a lot of people feel worse.
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  This, this is what makes a lot of people's depression worse.
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  It made mine far worse because instead of just being depressed,
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  I was depressed. And had my brain telling me that
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  I deserved to feel this way. It told me that I was the only
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  person on Earth that felt this way and it was incredibly
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  isolating in. This is a difficult battle.
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  Depression is already dangerous enough on its own, but if you
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  believe in your heart that you are alone in that fight and if
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  Believe this narrative that your brain is telling you it becomes
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  deadly. So how can we spot these
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  narratives? And what can we do against them,
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  in order to realize that we are simply allowed to feel our
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  feelings? And let them go without all
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  these narratives and lies that our brain feeds us.
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  Well, the most important part of this is a simple matter of
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  self-awareness as with, so much of mental health, I know it
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  sounds cheesy and I know I get a little bit repetitive in these
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  episodes, but truly knowing yourself.
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  Of knowing your feelings knowing the stories that your brain
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  tells you often that is enough. So one thing I always recommend
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  is to sit with your feelings and understand them, know what, your
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  brain tries to tell you about your feelings.
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  So for example, every time I start to feel depressed or I
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  feel sad or I feel anxious or I feel alone, I sit with that.
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  And I ask myself, what am I feeling?
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  And what is my brain telling me and often there is a very
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  Difference between your feelings and the narrative that your
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  brain and your mental illness. Tells you about those feelings.
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  This is a very important distinction to make because it
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  is healthy and necessary to feel your feelings and to understand
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  them. But it is unhealthy to listen to
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  false narratives told by mental illness.
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  So learn about your feelings, learn what your brain tries to
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  tell you, when I feel anxious, my brain often tries to tell me
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  that something bad is going to happen.
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  That's kind of the whole thing. Thing with anxiety.
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  I convinced myself that I'm doing worse than I am.
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  I convinced myself that things are going to get bad.
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  That my friends are going to leave me that they're judging
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  me, that they don't like me secretly.
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  And this whole narrative, this whole story erupts from a simple
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  feeling of anxiety. So by sitting with my feelings
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  and learning about them in learning that this is a story
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  that my brain tells me, I'm able to identify that, and I'm able
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  to stop that spiraled before it gets out of control.
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  I'm able to ask myself. What is the proof?
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  What proof do I have? For these claims that my brain
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  is making okay? I'm anxious that my friends hate
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  me. What is the proof?
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  I'm anxious that nothing's going to work out in my life is going
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  to fall apart. What is the proof?
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  And by asking yourself, what your proof is by asking yourself
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  to prove these claims, you will find that often.
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  You are able to control your narrative, in your able to take
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  back that control and stop these stories that your brain is
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  trying to tell you from spiraling out of control in
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  order to get control on your mental illness, in order to get
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  control of your feelings and control of your life.
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  You have to learn these narratives and you have to learn
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  how to answer them. This will be different for
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  everybody. I'm going to be honest with you,
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  I can't give you a step-by-step routine that will help you feel
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  and understand your feelings and avoid these narratives.
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  I can't do that. But what I can do is I can tell
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  you from the bottom of my heart. These narratives about yourself
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  are not true. You are deserving of having
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  people there for you, you are deserving of healing and getting
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  better. You are deserving of a life free
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  from these mental illnesses. This depression in this anxiety,
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  and you are deserving of Happiness.
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  So, don't believe these narratives that your brain tells
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  you don't believe that you are worthless, and that you should
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  isolate yourself instead, find how you can counteract these
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  Narratives in order to fully understand the real feelings
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  that you feel to get to the bottom of your feelings, to
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  understand them. And to process them, this is an
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  important part of the human experience and something that
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  you must learn how to do. Don't believe these narratives
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  understand that you are worthy, you are enough, and you deserve
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  to be able to feel your feelings in a healthy way, without your
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  brain and mental illness. You otherwise.
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  So that's going to do it for today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for tuning in. If you need help identifying
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  these feelings and feeling them, go check out my music on all
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  platforms, Ethan Jewel, it's emotional spoken word, poetry
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  and I just came out with two new songs that might make you cry.
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  Thank you for being here, please take care of yourself and as
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  always, thank you for feeling your feelings.
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  I'll see you next time.