Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / how to start your mental health journey

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how to start your mental health journey · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  The hardest thing for me to accept in my experience with
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  mental health, is the fact that improving your mental health is
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  not a journey with an easy and obvious destination.
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  Know, it is a long process in one that evolves and allows you
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  to slowly. And steadily grow, hey, there
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  and welcome back to another episode of feel your feelings
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  with me, Ethan Jewel. This is a podcast.
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  I started all about mental health, and mental health,
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  awareness. Ernest.
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  Now I'm not a doctor, a therapist or professional in the
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  mental health industry whatsoever.
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  I'm just a normal guy who has felt some big feelings is
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  incredibly passionate about mental health and wants to start
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  the conversation. So, thank you so much for being
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  here. And as always, let's feel some
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  feelings. When I began my mental health
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  Journey. Several years ago, I'd say
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  three, maybe four years ago I quickly became frustrated.
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  I felt like I was making no progress, I was doing all the
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  right things. I was doing all the things that
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  I thought I needed to do in order to improve my mental
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  health. And I thought that I was
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  steadily along in my journey and certainly I would reach the
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  destination soon. I thought one day I would just
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  wake up and I'd feel better. I wouldn't feel as depressed.
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  I wouldn't feel unmotivated and everything would just Turn
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  around and I'd suddenly start just being happy and I'd start
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  skipping and getting out of bed in the morning would be easy.
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  However, I very quickly became frustrated, when this didn't
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  happen. I went to therapy.
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  I journaled, I really took the time to understand my feelings
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  to understand what was causing me pain to understand trauma
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  that I experienced throughout my life, but I was still sad.
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  I was still at this low point. There is no magic switch that
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  turned on. Like, I was expecting.
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  And to be honest with you, still to this day, there has been no
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  magic switch. There has never been a moment
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  where I suddenly woke up one day and just instantly felt better.
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  However, this has made me realize something incredibly
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  important about mental health, you see?
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  Mental health is not a destination.
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  It's not you waking up one morning and feeling better,
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  know. It's an ongoing process,
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  improving your mental. Is a process.
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  It's something that is learned. It's understanding parts of
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  yourself. It's understanding how to deal
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  with your traumas in your pains. I'm still not magically better
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  to this day and that doesn't just happen.
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  We don't just randomly wake up one day and simply feel better.
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  We have to put the work in to understand ourselves and to
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  understand our emotions and engage in the process that is
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  improving our Mental Health. So what do I mean, when I say
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  that mental health is a process. Let's go to the basics.
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  The dictionary definition of process is a series of actions
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  or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end.
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  So, in terms of mental health, this means taking small steps
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  one day at a time in order to reach a more steady place.
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  The destination is not waking up one day and feeling, better know
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  the destination is In how to handle your drama, how to handle
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  your pain, how to keep living and feel good, regardless of
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  your pain, a lot of the pain and Trauma that we experience in
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  life, will not just magically disappear, it takes years and
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  years of engaging in a process and engaging in a mental health
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  process that works for you in order to improve your state of
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  mind. If we keep engaging in the
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  Journey of mental health and expect to just reach a
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  destination. Ganesh uneasily, we will become
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  frustrated. We will become burnt out.
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  Just as I did, I stopped going to therapy for a period of time
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  because I was so frustrated with the fact that I wasn't just
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  better, I was so focused on the destination.
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  I was so focused on the end goal that I didn't know how to form
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  my own process. I didn't know how to reach a
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  steady state of mind, in order to deal with the things that I
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  needed to deal with. So how do we form our own
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  process? We have to start small.
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  I actually talked about this a couple of episodes back, when I
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  had dr. Jenn Hartman a licensed
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  psychologist in Texas on my podcast.
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  And we talked about this, we talked about how to start in our
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  mental health journey and I think this is something that is
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  so important and I wanted to come back and highlight this and
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  talk about how we can start our process, because they're two
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  very similar topics. And the best thing that you can
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  do is start miniscule. Start.
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  So ridiculously small begin. Your process, really, really
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  small. We can't expect ourselves to
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  start huge. When we're dealing with mental
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  illness and we're dealing with pain life is already hard enough
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  when you're dealing with pain and Trauma and mental illness.
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  It's already hard to go about your day to day life.
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  It's unrealistic to expect yourself to be able to just
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  throw huge steps in strides and routines to improve your mental
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  health out of nowhere. You have to learn You have to
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  engage in a process and you have to start small when I first
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  started focusing on my mental health, I made the mistake of
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  trying to start too big. I told myself that I needed to
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  start going to the gym. Improve my physical health, I
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  told myself I was going to journal x amount of times a day.
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  I was going to go on walks to clear my head.
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  I was going to go to therapy. I was going to do this.
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  I was going to make music. I was going to write poetry and
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  I stacked all these expectations on myself and I was focused on
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  the end goal. I was focused on the destination
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  Ocean and getting there as quickly as possible and I became
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  burnt out and I wanted to quit, but one day, I realized that I
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  needed to focus on the journey, I needed to focus on my process.
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  So I started small, I started so small.
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  First, I started talking about some things with friends and
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  family that were on my mind, then I slowly started getting
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  into therapy and I didn't go off tonight.
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  I went maybe once every two weeks sometimes.
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  Even just once a month, I would go.
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  And I would talk about what's on my mind and I would learn how to
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  deal with the problems. I was having, I started to learn
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  my process. Then I started going on walks to
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  clear my head and then I started to slowly meditate and become at
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  peace with my emotions and become at peace with myself.
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  Whenever there was silence and slowly, I formed my process in
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  this took me three years. I started this journey, three
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  years ago and I can tell you confidently right now Now, I am
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  not 100% magically better, but I am obsessed with the process.
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  I am obsessed with learning the small steps that I can take
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  every single day to improve my state of mind.
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  I love being able to discover a little bit more about myself
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  every single day and be able to get myself to a steady place of
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  Mind, where the pain Isn't So present anymore.
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  It's not about the end goal. It's not about the destination.
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  It's not about immediately getting Severe trauma and
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  getting rid of your pain and just being happy.
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  No, it's about understanding yourself.
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  As a human understanding that you still have emotions
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  understanding that, the pain and Trauma, and mental health issues
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  will still be present, but knowing how to deal with them.
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  Knowing what small steps. You can take every single day in
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  order to improve your mental health.
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  So, I challenge you start today and start so ridiculously small
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  start. So Small that it doesn't feel
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  like it will do anything and then watch as your process
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  grows, watch as you settle into a routine and slowly, you become
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  more and more comfortable with yourself and you become more
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  comfortable and at peace. With your mental health
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  experiment and find out what works for you.
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  I guarantee that if you focus on the process, if you focus on a
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  routine and if you focus on taking small steps every single
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  day, you will see Improvement and you will be able to Rule
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  with the pain that you may face, I believe in you and I know that
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  you deserve to feel better every day.
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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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  I have a big announcement. Some of you may know that I make
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  music and I am incredibly lucky to be able to go on tour.
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  This spring in, just over a month, I'll be going all up the
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  west coast of North America. So go to Ethan Jewel.com and see
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  if I'm playing any dates near you even if you haven't listened
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  to, my music should still come to a show.
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  Check it out. I'll be doing a little talks in
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  between my songs, just like this.
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  I'm super excited to get on the road and hopefully meet some of
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  you in person. So thank you for being here.
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  Thank you for taking the steps to develop a process and improve
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  your mental health. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.