ក្ɔondītīoиşງື່

All of the positive things you can do for mental health and well-being - like: eating healthily, exercising, engaging in meaningful activities, mindfulness, cognitive reframing, self-help, and so on, always seemed to me, in the past, to be like trying to take a sip from a firehose or putting a band aid on a serious injury. 

That's because I was always just starting with those things. I was in a state of crisis and desperately trying to get relief from doing those things. But now that I'm doing them habitually, I see how powerful they are. You have to be less results-focused and more learning and growth focused. 

For example, I've been eating fruit. It started as one of those things that I had to push myself to do. Eating fruit has always - my whole life - seemed like an unpleasant chore. But, like my other goals, it is now a matter of life or death, and I'm desperate, so I'm doing it....at least that's how it began, but it's changed. 

For the first time in my life I'm actually enjoying eating fruit. But also, it has a strong, immediate effect, as well as a more general effect. So, eating oats and fruit in the morning will make me feel better and less anxious later in the day, but also, as soon as I eat the fruit, I feel it. My mood improves and I feel less tired, pretty much instantaneously. 

It's a similar thing with exercise. One of the biggest challenges at the moment is fatigue. It's a heaviness that makes it hard to function. It's extreme, and, as I wrote recently, I haven't slept well for at least a year, and that's mixed up with anxiety and depression - all these vicious cycles reinforcing each other. It's somewhat counterintuitive that the solution is to exercise. I definitely don't feel like exercising or anticipate that exercising is going to make me feel better - more like the opposite. I can't run. I'm too tired. But I'm learning to tell my feelings to back off and get lost. And after I run, I feel less tired. 

Same with all of my daily goals. I just do them. It doesn't matter how I feel or whether I think they're going to 'help'. They all do help because they are my new life, but my feelings and rumination don't get it. I'm no longer committed to anxiety and depression and rumination and crisis. I'm investing in my life.