How often in our lives do we do things because we are used to doing them rather than doing them because these activities bring us joy? How often do we do things for the pure, simple joy of it?

So often people living with mental illness and substance abuse engage in behaviors simply because that is what they know. People living with addiction are so used to using a certain drug or drugs or engaging in certain behaviors that those behaviors have become part of the fabric of their selves. But what would happen if you stopped engaging in those behaviors? What are you afraid would happen if you stopped engaging in the behaviors that no longer bring you joy? Who might you become if you stopped doing the things that no longer make you happy?

I often use the phrase “comfortably uncomfortable” to describe what happens when people live in the quagmire of mental illness and substance use for so long that they can no longer even begin to imagine a different way of living. The behaviors we engage in when we are living with depression, anxiety or addiction can keep us stuck in those illnesses. What would happen if we stopped engaging in the behaviors that keep us ill and instead started behaving differently? What would happen if you started doing things that actually brought you joy?

Sometimes finding things that bring joy when you are living with mental illness or addiction can be difficult. We grow accustomed to the behaviors that have kept us ill and it can be difficult to remember what made us happy before the illness took hold of our bodies, minds and souls. What brought you joy when you were a child? It is okay to practice those behaviors as an adult. Did you enjoy playing outside? Did you enjoy coloring? Did you enjoy being with your friends? Try getting outside in nature for 30 minutes a day. Purchase an adult coloring book and some colored pencils or markers and color again. Meet up with some friends for a cup of coffee.

Our lives consist of a series of choices that result in the behaviors we engage in. If you want a better life, you have to make better choices and start behaving in ways that bring you joy. Find what makes you truly happy and do more of that.

I am generally not a fan of memes, however there is one out there I appreciate. It says something to the effect of “If you do not like where you are, move. You are not a tree.”

There is something to be said in this, but sometimes moving is easier said than done. So often, people come to treatment wanting to see a change in their lives or situations. People come to treatment because something in their lives is not working, be it a relationship, work, a memory that keeps them stuck in the past or substance use. People want something to be different in their lives so that they can move forward.

What many people do not realize or understand is that what needs to change for their situation to improve more often than not is them. We have to change if we want our situations to improve. Either we have to change how we are reacting to something or someone or we have to change our behavior.

But change is difficult. Making our way to treatment is the first step in changing ourselves, but we have to be willing to do the work of treatment before change can happen. Anyone can come to treatment and talk about their problems, but in telling our stories we have to come to the realization that we are the solution to our problems. Our therapists and counselors can point us in the right direction, but we have to summon the courage to make the changes in our lives that will move us forward.

Change can be frightening for us, though. There is another meme I appreciate, it says something like, “Change is scary, but you know what is even scarier? Regret.” I truly believe this is true. You can stay in the same place because it has become comfortably uncomfortable, or you can seek treatment and do the work of recovery to move forward in your life and find your way to mental wellness and out of addiction. Are you ready to make the changes you need to create for yourself the life you deserve? Are you ready to be the change you need in your own life?

So often, people living with mental illness and substance use disorder feel they need to hide their selves from people. They live in the shadows. They isolate themselves from friends and loved ones so those people cannot see them while they suffer. Many times, people isolate because they fear those closest to them will not understand what they are going through or will not like them when they are feeling low.

What would happen if instead of isolating, we told our loved ones that we are in a bad place, that we need help, that we are living with depression or anxiety or addiction? What if we laid our cards on the table and said, “Hey, this is who I am and I need help?” We fear that the response would be negative, that we would be at best misunderstood and at worst shunned by those we love.

More likely than not, though, our loved ones will ask what they can do to help. Those who love you want to see you feel better and get healthy. Those who love you want to see you find your way to recovery. It is okay to ask for help. It is okay to admit you cannot do it all alone.

Recovery is about becoming the person you always were meant to be. Your loved ones want to see you become that person. Recovery starts with accepting yourself for who you are in this moment. Recovery starts with you fearlessly being yourself and admitting you need help in becoming who you are meant to be. Recovery starts with you loving yourself enough to ask for assistance.

Can you do that? Can you be yourself fearlessly so that you can take the first step toward recovery? Doing so requires that you step outside your comfort zone. Yes, it will be scary. Yes, it will take effort. But you so deserve it. You deserve a better life. You deserve happiness and health. You deserve to become the person you always were meant to be.

 

Growing up, many of us heard things from our parents, caregivers, loved ones even friends, that we internalized. These things, these comments whether spoken or inferred, shaped who we are today. These things became part of our story.

Unfortunately, for many people, much of what we heard growing up was negative, even cruel. We heard that we were not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, pretty enough, enough of an athlete … enough of anything. Even if our parents or caregivers never came right out and said those things, those were the messages we received either through childhood emotional neglect, or perhaps outright verbal and emotional abuse. Those things we heard or inferred from our parents’ words or actions became the stories we tell ourselves as we grow up. So many people live with an internal critic who is downright cruel. We likely never would say to a friend the things we tell ourselves.

How do we change that internal dialogue, that story that we tell ourselves? So often that story is based on feeling not good enough, as though no matter what we do, we never will be enough to obtain love, belonging or emotional connection. Changing the story we tell ourselves begins with challenging the things we say to ourselves and with believing that we deserve better than the lies fed to us as children. You are good enough. You are worthy of love and belonging and emotional connection. Why? Simply because you are human.

One does not have to do anything to deserve to be loved, to belong to a community of people who accept us for who you are. You do not have to work harder or more hours a week than everyone else to deserve love. You do not have to be the thinnest woman in the room to deserve love. You do not have to be a beauty queen to deserve love. You do not have to throw a 100 mph fastball to deserve love. All you have to do is change the story you keep telling yourself. Easier said than done, right?

It does take practice to change the story we tell ourselves. Start with telling yourself daily that you are worthy of love and belonging, that you deserve a strong emotional connection. Say it to yourself in the mirror as you are getting ready for work or school in the morning. Say it to yourself throughout the day when you find that internal critic chastising you. Say it to yourself as you fall asleep at night. You deserve love and belonging simply because you are human. You are worthy of a strong emotional connection. You are good enough. You are perfect just as you are.

The stories we were told growing up do not have to be the stories we tell ourselves as adults. You have the power to start creating for yourself a new story with a new ending. It is your story, you can write your own ending … an ending where you believe that you are worthy of love and belonging.

Most people, at some point in time, have done something or said something they might regret. We all have made mistakes. We may have done something others might consider silly. How we react to those things makes a lot of difference in how we ultimately view ourselves afterward.

I am a firm believer that mistakes are proof that we are trying. Making mistakes is how we learn to do something different, to do something better. Beating ourselves up for our mistakes or transgressions is natural, but is it healthy? What do you tell yourself when you make a mistake? Do you tell yourself that you are stupid? Do you shame yourself for doing something wrong?

There is a difference between shame and guilt. Shame tells us we are bad whereas guilt tells us we have done something bad. Perhaps “bad” is not the right word. Perhaps we should instead say that there may have been a better way of doing something or saying something.

Brene Brown, my social work hero, offers a wonderful TEDTalk on the difference between shame and guilt and how it plays into being vulnerable with oneself and with others. I highly recommend it.

I have said it before and will say it again: How we talk to ourselves matters. Our internal dialogue affects not just the way we think about ourselves, but the way we act toward ourselves and toward others. Do you shame yourself when you have made a mistake? Or, do you accept the fact that perhaps there was a better way of doing something, find the better way, do that and move on? Do you apologize for your mistake and change your behavior? Or do you beat yourself up? How you react to making a mistake or transgression is your choice. Would you not rather learn and grow from your mistake instead of shaming yourself?

We can feel guilty that we have made a mistake, that we perhaps hurt someone with what we have done or with what we have said. Feeling guilty can propel us to make a change in our behavior so that we do not hurt someone again the same way. But shaming ourselves can serve to make the situation worse and keep us from learning from that transgression. Shame keeps us stuck. Shame prevents us from growing.

Very few people I know or who have worked with are bad people. Shame tells us that we are bad. Guilt offers us a chance to own what we have done and make changes in our behavior or speech. Making a mistake does not make us bad people; mistakes make us human. Mistakes tell us something is wrong, they offer us a chance to learn and grow and become better people. Is that not what we deserve? To become better people?

In my work and daily life, I frequently hear people describe themselves by their professions or hobbies. For instance, I describe myself as a social worker and runner. But some people use other terms to describe themselves, some that can be self-stigmatizing and that can impact the way they ultimately think about themselves as people.

Why, I often wonder, do we who live with mental illness define ourselves as “bipolar,” “depressed” or “anxious.” How we describe ourselves matters. Someone living with cancer does not self-describe as saying, “I am cancer.” Same goes for people living with diabetes or heart disease. One likely would not describe oneself as saying, “I am diabetes” or “I am heart disease.” Why, then, do people living with mental illness so frequently say, “I’m bipolar” or “I’m anxious” or “I’m depressed.” These are illnesses we have, not things we are.

How we describe ourselves matters, the words we use to define our conditions matters. Referring to ourselves as “bipolar” or “depressed” sticks labels on us and to some extent defines who we are. But we are so much more than the illnesses with which we live. We who live with mental illness are so much more than the conditions with which we have been struck. We are more than the up and down episodes of bipolar disorder, more than the dark days of depression, more than the sometimes crippling panic of anxiety disorder. We are people first, human beings worthy of love and belonging first. Our conditions, our illnesses should not and do not have to define us. How we self-describe matters. We live with mental illness, we are not the illness itself.

When I am working with people living with mental illness and/or substance use disorder, I always try to remind them that they are more than the illness with which they live. Human beings are complicated creatures, but defining a person by one specific aspect can limit that person’s ability to see beyond that label. People are multi-faceted and complicated and wonderful. Labels tend to put people in boxes and stifle personal growth. Those who are labeled with mental illness or substance use diagnoses can find themselves slaves to the symptoms of their particular disorder, when in reality, those symptoms are but a wee fraction of who they really are.

What if we changed the way we talk about mental illness and the people who live with them so that they no longer become their diagnoses, but become people living with a treatable medical condition? What if we moved away from stigmatizing language and labels and focused instead on the person, rather than the symptoms? What if instead of defining a person by her illness, we looked beyond the illness to see who the person truly is? The language we use matters.

 

 

Recently, I have been reminded that you just never know what someone is going through. So many people I know and work with are living in the quagmire of depression, anxiety, substance use disorder and suicidal ideation. It makes me sad to know that so many people are suffering. Indeed, the National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that as many as one in four people are living with mental illness at any given time and that suicide is a leading cause of death for young people.

Sad statistics to be sure. Been there, done that. One of the things that helped me in my own recovery from mental illness is learning how to use good coping skills. I have learned that exercise, listening to music, reading and going to the movies help me keep the blue meanies at bay. But coping skills only work if we use them. Sometimes, it can be difficult to figure out what might make you feel better when you are stuck in the mud of mental illness. So, below is a short list of coping skills that might work for you when you are feeling low or overwhelmed or anxious or that people might be better off if you were not around:

• exercise such as walking, running or riding a bicycle

• writing in a gratitude journal or diary

• coloring or painting

• watching your favorite television program or movie

• crossword or word search puzzles

• listening to music or playing a musical instrument

• doodling on yourself instead of self-harming

• taking a long, hot shower or bubble bath

• retail therapy (within reason)

• cleaning or organizing your home

• knitting, sewing or crocheting

• aromatherapy with scented candles or essential oils

• calling a friend or loved one

• meditating

• play basketball, soccer, go boxing or kickboxing

• play with your pets

• sing or dance to your favorite tune

• cook or bake

• read for pleasure

• visit with family or friends

• play solitaire or other card game or computer game

• play with a balloon or have a water balloon fight with friends

• play a board game with family or friends

• put a puzzle together

• yoga

• learn a new language

This is not an exhaustive list, but some suggestions that might make you feel better. I realize that when you are feeling very low it might be difficult to even consider employing your coping skills, but I am fairly certain that if you just give it a shot, even just for a little while, you likely will feel better. Why not give it a chance?

So often people come to treatment with the expectation that their therapist or counselor will make them better, and to some extent that is true. We providers have the education and training to help you get better, but there is more to treatment than just coming to therapy. You have to be willing to do the work of recovery to get better.

That means taking a chance on you. That means taking the chance to open yourself up to doing the hard work of recovery, of diving down into the root of your problems and facing them head on. Daunting? Absolutely. Scary? You bet. But change does not happen without work, sadly.

I often tell my clients that I do not have the answers to their problems and that, also, to some extent is true. Sometimes it is easier for a trained outsider to see what is happening and make suggestions as to how to improve a situation or find a solution to a problem. But more so than not, the answers to the problem lie within you. You have the answers; they all are inside you. Let’s work together to find them. And when I say “work,” I mean work. Therapy is work, hard work. But the hard is what makes it great. Without the hard work put in by the client, nothing would ever change. It is through the hard work of recovery that change happens, and that is true for mental illness, substance use disorder or anything else that requires time and effort. And are you not worth it? Do you not deserve to take a chance on you, on making you better and happier and healthier?

So often people come to treatment thinking just a few sessions will make everything better. Perhaps for some people, that is true, but recovery more often than not takes time. Change does not happen over night, nor does it come for free. Recovery for many is a lifelong process that requires ongoing, daily effort. Similar to physical fitness, persistence in recovery pays off. The more time you spend working on your recovery, working on you, the bigger the dividends.

People usually come to treatment when they are thinking about or are ready to make a change, when they are ready to get better and find their way out of mental illness and/or substance abuse. But there is more to recovery than just wanting to get better, the question is, What are you willing to do for it? Are you willing to take medications? Are you willing to come to therapy once a week? Are you willing to embrace a healthier lifestyle? Are you willing to change your thinking? Are you willing to stop using illicit substances? What can you do to improve your chances of not just finding your way to recovery but sustaining that recovery?

Moving from mental illness and substance use to wellness is not easy. Anyone can come to treatment, but what are you willing to do to make recovery work for you? What are you willing to do to improve your situation? What are you willing to do to make your life one that brings you joy and comfort and peace? Are you willing to take a chance on you?

You can complain that life is hard; it is. Or you can embrace the fact that life is hard and look at your life as a marvelous adventure full of good and poor choices, full of ups and downs, peaks and valleys. You can complain that your life sucks or you can embrace the choices that led you to where you are right now and use those choices as opportunities to learn and grow as a human being. the choice is yours.

What are you going to do today to make yourself happy? What are you going to do today to make sure tomorrow is better? What we do with our todays matters. Every day we are confronted with choices and opportunities for personal growth. What can you do today to make yourself a better person? First, you have to determine what that means for you. What does being a better person mean to you? Does that mean living a healthier life? Incorporating exercise into your daily routine and eating healthier foods? Does that mean taking five or 10 minutes out of your busy day to meditate and reflect on the blessings life has bestowed upon you?

What does “better” mean to you? What choices can you make today that will move you a step closer to becoming the person you really want to be, to becoming the person you always were meant to be? Owning your choices will offer you freedom from lamenting where you are today and open up the possibility to end up where you want to be.

We make hundreds if not thousands of choices each and every day. You can come to the end of the day regretting your choices or you can come to the end of the day owning your choices and feeling good about the things you have done to make yourself a better person, a better human being. The choice is up to you.

It is that time of year that we find ourselves running from here to there, seeking the perfect gifts for our loved ones, going to parties with family and friends and otherwise celebrating the holidays. In so doing, we may find ourselves running ragged. Now is the time for self-care and self-compassion.

The holiday season is supposed to bring out the best in all of us, compassion and caring toward our fellow humans. But what about self-care and self-compassion? In this season of doing for others, we must also remember to take care of ourselves, for if we do not take care of ourselves, how can we possibly take care of anyone else?

Self-care is not selfish, it is crucial to living our best lives. What can we do to take care of ourselves so that we may better take care of those we love? Perhaps that means a nice bubble bath at the end of a long day of holiday shopping. Perhaps that means listening to our favorite Christmas music while baking for the family. Perhaps that means taking a break with a cup of hot cocoa after wrapping presents for hours on end.

At this time of year, it is easy to get lost in doing for others but we must remember to take care of ourselves, as well. Perhaps while shopping for our friends and family, we can purchase a small treat for ourselves.

The holidays are about giving to others our love, our caring, compassion and kindness. We must also give those things to ourselves. One cannot pour love from an empty cup. Take care of yourselves as you take care of others. You deserve it, not just during the holiday season but throughout the year.