Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / you're healing without even realizing it

Transcript

you're healing without even realizing it · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

• 0:00
  What if I told you that cancelling plans, crying on your
• 0:03
  floor, or just surviving the day might actually be signs of
• 0:08
  healing? That even when it feels like
• 0:10
  you're going backwards, you're still moving forwards?
• 0:15
  Today we're going to talk about why healing doesn't always look
• 0:19
  like healing and why that's totally OK and part of the
• 0:23
  process. My name is Ethan Jewell and
• 0:26
  welcome back to FEEL Your Feelings.
• 0:31
  Today I want to talk about something that's been on my mind
• 0:34
  as somebody who has worked desperately to heal their mental
• 0:38
  health. I've spent the last five or six
• 0:41
  years trying very, very hard to heal my mental health.
• 0:44
  If you're new here, welcome. My name is Ethan Jewell.
• 0:47
  I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a
• 0:51
  professional in the mental health industry whatsoever.
• 0:54
  I'm a normal guy who started having some mental health issues
• 0:57
  many, many years ago. And I realized that nobody was
• 1:01
  really talking about it. And I mean really talking about
• 1:04
  it, talking about it person to person instead of just pushing
• 1:07
  statistics and studies. So that's what we're doing here
• 1:10
  today. And one of those things that I
• 1:12
  have been thinking about a lot recently is how we're pushed
• 1:16
  this idea of how healing should look.
• 1:19
  But the truth is, healing often doesn't even look like healing.
• 1:23
  In fact, sometimes it can look like the opposite.
• 1:28
  And that's not just OK, it's normal.
• 1:32
  Let's be honest, a lot of what we see online points healing as
• 1:35
  this aesthetically pleasing, peaceful journey.
• 1:39
  You know, it's bubble baths and journaling with fairy lights, or
• 1:43
  it's yoga in the morning. It's walks in the park, it's
• 1:45
  smiling with friends. And hey, sometimes healing does
• 1:49
  look like that. You know, sometimes we have
• 1:51
  those moments where it feels like everything is working out,
• 1:55
  feels like everything's coming together.
• 1:57
  And that is an amazing and important part of the healing
• 2:00
  process. It's not invalid.
• 2:02
  Those things do help. But that's not the whole story,
• 2:08
  because healing also looks like lying on the floor crying
• 2:12
  because you finally let yourself feel something that you've been
• 2:15
  pushing down for years and years.
• 2:18
  It looks like canceling plans, saying no, setting a boundary
• 2:22
  that makes someone upset with you.
• 2:25
  It looks like taking a nap instead of cleaning your room.
• 2:29
  It looks like going silent, disappearing for a few days
• 2:32
  because you're so emotionally exhausted.
• 2:34
  And here's the thing. All of those are still healing.
• 2:40
  You're still healing even if it doesn't look like it.
• 2:43
  Even if it's not aesthetic, Even if it's not clean.
• 2:46
  Even if it's messy, healing is often quiet, and sometimes it's
• 2:54
  ugly. Sometimes it's slow, boring,
• 2:58
  invisible. But progress is still progress.
• 3:02
  Even if it's not picture worthy, Even if it's not something that
• 3:06
  you can post on your Instagram, you know, let me say that again
• 3:09
  for anyone who needs to hear it. Progress is progress, even if it
• 3:15
  doesn't feel like progress. Think about a seed underground.
• 3:19
  You don't see it sprouting right away.
• 3:21
  It's pushing through dirt, it's stretching towards light, but
• 3:26
  it's still growing. There's still something powerful
• 3:30
  happening, just not in a way that's visible yet.
• 3:34
  So maybe your version of healing today is just not yelling at
• 3:38
  yourself for having a bad day. It's allowing yourself to have
• 3:41
  those messy moments, you know? It's letting yourself cry
• 3:44
  instead of bottling it up and telling yourself that you need
• 3:46
  to be tough. Maybe it's just surviving and
• 3:52
  that's enough. There's no right way for your
• 3:56
  healing to look. But I get it.
• 4:00
  I've been there. It's really easy to fall into
• 4:03
  the trap of comparing your healing to someone else's or
• 4:06
  judging the pace at which you're healing, judging what your
• 4:10
  healing looks like. We look at other people and
• 4:12
  think they're going to therapy, they're meditating, they're
• 4:15
  journaling every day. Why am I still struggling but
• 4:21
  healing? It isn't a checklist, it's not a
• 4:24
  race. There's no one-size-fits-all
• 4:27
  path. Some people heal by talking,
• 4:32
  others by being quiet. Some need structure.
• 4:35
  Others need flexibility. Some people need years.
• 4:39
  Some people need months. Some people just need space to
• 4:42
  find themselves. And some people can go weeks
• 4:47
  feeling OK, only to have one bad day and think they've failed.
• 4:50
  And if that's you, you haven't. You haven't failed.
• 4:56
  That is healing, even if it's not linear.
• 5:01
  Even if it's not pretty, even if it doesn't feel like healing, if
• 5:08
  you're feeling like you're back at square one, I promise you're
• 5:10
  not. You're just on a bend in the
• 5:13
  road. You've grown more than you may
• 5:16
  ever realize. Sometimes it can be hard to
• 5:18
  gauge your own process, especially if in the moment, the
• 5:21
  healing doesn't feel good. I know for me personally,
• 5:24
  healing often looks like alone time and it looks like quiet
• 5:29
  moments. It looks like sitting in a room
• 5:31
  just like this one. And, you know, playing my piano,
• 5:35
  talking to my phone, writing a poem, or literally just
• 5:39
  scrolling on my phone, You know, sometimes I find myself just
• 5:43
  needing alone time. I don't have the energy to
• 5:45
  engage with other people. And I don't guilt myself for
• 5:48
  that anymore. I used to.
• 5:50
  I used to tell myself that for me to be healing, for my healing
• 5:55
  to be valid, I needed to be doing more.
• 5:59
  Instead of, you know, sitting here and writing down a couple
• 6:02
  lyrics on my phone, I needed to be performing in front of
• 6:04
  people. Instead of sitting down and
• 6:07
  doing this podcast or writing poetry, I needed to be, you
• 6:10
  know, doubling up, doing more. I needed to be seeing friends
• 6:13
  all the time in order to be healed.
• 6:15
  I needed to act like a person that I thought was healed.
• 6:19
  That's not the case. I've been healing this entire
• 6:21
  time. I've been healing for the last
• 6:24
  six years and I've been healing in those quiet moments.
• 6:29
  I've been healing by myself. I've been healing in a messy
• 6:33
  way. I've been healing in those
• 6:34
  moments where I I break down crying.
• 6:37
  Healing is not pretty. Often time it's quite the
• 6:42
  opposite, but that doesn't mean that it's not healing.
• 6:46
  So if you're listening to this and thinking, I don't feel like
• 6:50
  I'm healing, I feel messy, I feel stuck, I feel tired, then I
• 6:53
  want to say this, you're doing better than you think.
• 6:58
  I spent years thinking that I wasn't healing when in reality
• 7:02
  my journey just looked different from what I'd seen on social
• 7:05
  media and what I've been told. Healing doesn't always bring
• 7:09
  immediate relief and it's not always about feeling good.
• 7:12
  Sometimes it's about honesty and that's hard, but it's real and
• 7:18
  it's worth it. So let the healing be weird,
• 7:22
  awkward, non linear, and raw because that's what real growth
• 7:26
  usually looks like. I spent so long convincing
• 7:29
  myself that something was wrong with me just because my healing
• 7:32
  didn't look like other people's. Just because I didn't journal in
• 7:37
  the morning, I didn't wake up and go on a run for the sake of
• 7:40
  my mental health. I rotted in my bed.
• 7:44
  But I was putting an effort. I wasn't guilting myself.
• 7:48
  And whether or not I believed it, I was healing.
• 7:52
  And you are too. Every day that you tell yourself
• 7:56
  you are deserving of healing, you're deserving of love, You
• 7:59
  deserve to feel your feelings and process them, you deserve to
• 8:04
  heal. Every day that you are kind to
• 8:06
  yourself, you're healing. Every day that you have a moment
• 8:11
  alone, you're healing. Just because you're healing
• 8:14
  doesn't happen in big dramatic moments and instead in the
• 8:17
  quiet, small, lonely ones, it doesn't mean that you're not
• 8:21
  healing. It just means you're doing it a
• 8:23
  little bit differently from everyone else.
• 8:26
  And that's perfectly OK. So wherever you're at today,
• 8:31
  whether you're curled up in bed, you're finally calling a
• 8:34
  therapist, trying to set a boundary, or just breathing,
• 8:36
  please know your healing counts. It matters.
• 8:44
  Even if no one else sees it, even if it doesn't look like
• 8:48
  healing. You're showing up for yourself
• 8:50
  and that is enough. You are enough.
• 8:56
  That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
• 8:57
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 8:59
  If you need help feeling these feelings, if you need help with
• 9:01
  your feeling process, you should check out my music on all
• 9:04
  platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell.
• 9:06
  I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
• 9:08
  Also, drop me a comment. Let's start the conversation
• 9:11
  about our healing journeys. Tell me where you're at with
• 9:13
  yours. Do you think you're healing in
• 9:15
  these quiet moments? Maybe you need to stop comparing
• 9:17
  yourself to other people's healing journeys quite so much.
• 9:21
  I know that I personally am finally to a point where I'm OK
• 9:24
  with my healing looking a little bit differently than everyone
• 9:26
  else's. I'd love to hear your thoughts
• 9:28
  on the topic. So thank you so much for being
• 9:31
  here. Thank you for understanding that
• 9:32
  your healing might look a little bit differently than everybody
• 9:35
  else's. And as always, thank you for
• 9:38
  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.