Latest / feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell / every day feels the same

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every day feels the same · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  Every day feels just about the same.
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  The weeks are blending together and you're finding it difficult
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  to make any real progress. Breaking the cycle and facing
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  your mental health issues is possibly the hardest part, but
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  eventually you will reach a breaking point and it's simply
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  time to break the cycle. My name is Ethan Jewell and
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  welcome back to Feel Your Feelings.
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  I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychiatrist, and I'm not a
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  professional in the mental health industry whatsoever.
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  I am a person who, like you, has felt some very big feelings.
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  Difficult feelings, complicated feelings.
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  During my time being human, I've come to understand that change
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  isn't easy. In fact, I have an entire
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  episode dedicated to the process of coping with change.
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  Change is a necessary evil in order to overcome mental health
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  issues and make real, tangible progress in life.
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  What often feels unfair about change is the fact that starting
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  is the hardest part. I'm sure you've heard that
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  before or experienced it yourself.
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  When it comes to making any real difference in your life,
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  starting is one of the most challenging fights to overcome.
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  It took me over three years of actively struggling with mental
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  health issues before I had had enough and decided over the last
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  year that I was genuinely going to start to make a change.
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  So what finally made me start? How did I get going?
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  How did I carry through and over the past year, make notable,
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  palpable change in my life? Well, step one was breaking the
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  cycle that I was currently in. This is much easier said than
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  done and took a lot of trial and error.
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  So let's talk about it. First, we need to understand why
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  we get caught into unhealthy cycles in the 1st place.
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  According to the World Health Organization, mental health
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  problems are the leading cause of disability worldwide.
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  More people are caught in mental health crisis than ever before.
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  It's become one of the largest pandemics in human history.
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  Yet there still remains the issue of breaking free from the
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  cycles that mental health issues cause.
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  Often, we know we need to make change.
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  We know that our mental health is doing poorly, yet we can't
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  bring ourselves to alter anything.
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  It's unfair, but mental health issues tend to kick us while
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  we're down. Depression, anxiety, bipolar,
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  BPD, and all the rest often lead us into bad habits.
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  We lay in bed all day and don't properly take care of ourselves.
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  We isolate ourselves from others and hate ourselves during the
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  time that we spend alone. We don't work towards bettering
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  our mental health or truly experiencing life.
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  We become numbed out to the world.
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  Frankly, this isn't our fault. Due to the nature of these
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  mental health issues, we think that we're better off this way.
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  Our brain convinces us that this is what we need, but that
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  couldn't be further from the truth.
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  That level of isolation and negative self talk will in turn
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  cultivate our mental health issues to thrive.
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  I often in order to take it to a physical and literal sense and
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  make a little more sense of it. I think of my mental health
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  issues like weeds in a beautiful garden that I've been working
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  hard to grow. If the conditions are favorable,
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  weeds will grow and overtake my garden.
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  In the same way, if conditions are favorable for mental health
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  issues, they will continue to thrive.
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  We will find ourselves trapped in a cycle where we are forced
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  into negative thinking patterns by our poor mental health, which
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  in turn leads us down a darker path and allows other issues to
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  thrive. It's a horrible cycle to be
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  caught in, and if you've been there, you know how much it
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  hurts. You know how difficult it is.
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  It's one thing to be struggling. It's a whole different monster
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  entirely when we're struggling. And the results of that struggle
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  lead us to feel even worse. This is the reality of mental
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  illness. This is the reality that
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  millions of us face every single year.
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  Our mental health convincing us that we're alone.
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  Our mental health. Convincing us that we do not
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  deserve love and that we should stay where we are.
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  This is overwhelming to deal with.
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  However, there are things that can be done.
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  For years I was plagued by depression and I was beaten down
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  by the exact same cycle that I just discussed.
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  I knew I needed to change, but I didn't know how to break that
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  cycle. I would guilt myself every time
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  one of my plans to heal failed. I would tell myself that I could
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  never change, that I must be broken, that I wasn't doing
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  enough but lacked the energy to do more.
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  But the truth that I was missing is that progress never comes
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  from guilt. Growth cannot stem from negative
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  self talk. To make sense of this, to make
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  sense of what that means for us in our mental health journeys,
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  let's go back to the garden metaphor.
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  If you're trying to grow beautiful flowers, would you
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  yell at them, Tell them they need to hurry up and grow and
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  that they aren't doing enough? Would you tell those flowers
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  that they're not beautiful and kick them down into the dirt?
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  Obviously not. You'd kill your flowers and
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  frankly, be a very bad gardener. Progress doesn't come from
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  negativity. It comes when you create an
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  environment that growth can thrive in.
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  If you want your flowers to grow, you would water them, give
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  them sun and be patient. You would accept any flaws in
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  their development and see what you can do to help them.
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  This is how you have to treat your mental health.
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  I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true.
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  You have to accept your pitfalls, accept the fact that
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  you feel awful most days and can't do much except that the
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  little things upset you and that progress is very hard except
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  when you fail. Allow yourself the same
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  gentleness that you would give this garden.
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  By doing so, you aren't progressing because of guilt or
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  because you feel like you need to.
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  You progress because you care. You thrive because you are
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  giving yourself the love and space that you need to flourish.
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  Once you have this space, once your progress is coming out of a
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  place of love, you can experiment and see what helps
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  you, and I almost guarantee it will snowball from there.
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  Instead of telling yourself I need to change, I'm broken, You
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  have to tell yourself I am worthy of change and I love that
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  I can change. Try various acts of self-care.
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  Do research and experiment. You care for yourself enough to
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  put in effort. Progress can't come from guilt.
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  It can't come from anger. It can't come from hate.
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  It can't come from anything but love.
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  To break the cycle, you need to grow your garden.
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  You need to tend to your flowers.
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  And you need to do it all from a place of affection for yourself.
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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 any help feeling your feelings, please check out
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  my music on all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell and I
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  almost guarantee that it'll make you cry.
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  Also, please shoot me a message on my Instagram at Jewel Boy
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  with an I under score and let me know what you thought about
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  today's episode. So thank you for being here.
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  Thank you for understanding that you need to treat yourself with
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  more love in order to change. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.