Mental Health Month #ShareYourOneThing 💙 Share the simple things that help your wellbeing

Hello @Daisydreamer, @cloudcore @Historylover@Bunniekins, @Millieme, @MDT

and others visiting this thread

{~850 words}

"

I understand what I believe you are saying @Historylover , with regard to each of us developing skills and strategies, in the process of working through our MH issues and our living mystery. These processes often provide us with a sense of development in knowledge and awareness of our individual positions, through which we progress, followed by a recognisable sense of achievement, at various stages. Yesterday, I used a sentence in another post, in the thread "The magic of tidying", that I believe resonates with your observations @Historylover ,

“The problem needs to be addressed before a solution can be realised (or formulated). And the problem isn't always what appears to be most obvious.”

"

Just a few minutes ago, I had reason to recall a discussion that I had with a counsellor that occurred nearly 35 years ago. The counsellor had asked me how I felt about a particular issue, to which I responded, “I think that …....”. When I had finished saying what I had thought, the counsellor responded, saying, “I was really wanting to know how you felt about …..., but you just told me what you thought. Can you tell me how you felt?” I was, at that stage, quite confused because I had not been accustomed to making the distinction between thoughts and feelings. In fact, while I obviously had experienced feelings, I was, at the time, not able to articulate in words, what my feelings were. Some would say that I was not in touch, or connected with my feelings. Since then, it has become apparent to me, that my inability to experience and express feelings has had a considerably negative impact on my relationships and associations with other people, before that time and to a lesser degree since. As others have recently suggested, I still, sometimes, intellectualise my experience of feelings.

"

There were very few words used during my childhood to describe feelings. Hurt would have been used to describe physical pain, but there were few others. When words are not used to describe something, particularly something as nebulous as feelings, it is very difficult to use words to convey what it is that we may be feeling. Awareness of the experience of feelings, consequently, had been extremely restricted, confined and limited.

"

The reason that I tell that story is because it is just one of the effects of abuse and subsequently felt and experienced trauma, and its various forms of expression and affect, that subsequently carried over into my adult life. Those events and experiences had significant repercussions in my relationships, so they also had adverse effects on other people. I Had difficulty connecting with others in ways that involved feelings. With respect to the title of this thread, "Mental Health Month #ShareYourOneThing 💙 Share the simple things that help your wellbeing", one of the things that I now do to connect with my own feelings and develop other areas of self awareness and awareness of others, is to engage with other people on this forum site.

"

The experience of mental health, both positive and negative, as I understand it, is peculiar and specific to each individual. While there may be recognised ways and processes, by which we categorise the experience of, and ways of addressing MH issues, they generally have to be, in some way, tailored to address each person's specific needs, personal experience and outward affects.

"

As a result, exercises such as the “Mental Health Month #ShareYourOneThing ….” thread allow each person to state their particular ways of dealing with, coping and developing within their own experience. Consistent with what, I understand, are the objectives of this forum, by sharing these ideas, some of those ways of dealing with and addressing issues and even use of time, may resonate more closely with one person than another. However, the presented ideas also give us the opportunity to look at our own experience, possibly from other perspectives and sometimes, when an idea resonates closely enough, we can adopt that idea or perspective and apply it to and within our own life matrix.

"

These ways of viewing and addressing our own issues, among the many other resources to which we are, or have been exposed, contribute to the basis, or foundation for progress in that dynamic, lived mystery, to which you referred in the quote that you offered,

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived”

"

What I inferred , from your post, @Historylover , was that there are many different ways of addressing MH issues, including a huge range of approaches, theories and resources available. Consequently, bringing to mind our actions, experiences and feelings, and then articulating in writing is just one of those avenues through which we can develop. Sharing details of our own experiences and methods with others, is among the ways that we might use for our own coping and development, and which may also assist and enable others in their lived mystery.

"

With My Best Wishes

@HenryX

@cloudcore @Daisydreamer

Riding my bike*.

Riding my bike is fun and it makes me feel good about myself.

When I am riding my symptoms of depression and anxiety go away. Sometimes they come back that night. They are always back by the next morning.

When I am riding nothing else matters and all my problems and worries are gone.

*It has been a long time since I have ridden my bike. It's a long story but basically I haven't been able to get my new bike because of the lockdown. Not being able to ride my bike is really affecting me.

Beautiful mandala @cloudcore Thank you for the tag.

One thing would be a bath, can't have enough of them 🌸💞

I really use music a lot it ground's me and cheers me up. I especially love 70s Disco lately.

Hi there @Daisydreamer and everyone here!

My #ShareYourOneThing for mental health are actually 2 things that I really appreciated after my last stay in hospital over the past few weeks. They are:

- My knitting which I really appreciated having in hospital as it allowed me time to create a Mental Health Recovery Blanket for myself which I'm still working on as we speak after being released from treatment. Knitting helped calm me down and allowed me to be creative at the same time which really helped me get used to life in hospital.

- My notebook/journal and pens which turned out to be a record of what I was going through during my mental health episode. I was able to communicate my thoughts and feelings to my psychologist via sending them photos of my writing via email and it really helped me express myself. I'm now going to chose a suitable time to look back and reflect on this episode and see what happened to me and how I handled the experience as I know I experienced and learnt a lot about myself and my mental health whilst during the 23 days in hospital/ PARCS and the days before admission to hospital when I was in and out of psychosis.

I look forward to following this thread and learning about others experiences and their one thing that helps their mental health!

Judi9877🥰💐

Sitting outside on a sunny day. Close my eyes and just absorb myself in the sounds and sensations.

Listening to the little birds sing, who nest in my backyard. Almost time for baby birds.

Listening to the wind rustle the leaves.

Hearing the bees buzzing around all the fresh new spring blossoms.

Feeling the breeze on my skin.

Feeling the sun on my skin.

Being in nature helps ground me. And I can focus on things other than my mental health.

I love flowers, colours, quirky things, so I take photos with my iPhone & post some on my Facebook page. Friends reflect back to me when they enjoy particular photos. I feel creative in my own way. Makes me smile.

Hello @JungleGiants. I see you are quite new here. Welcome.

Yes, I watched the program out of interest. I wasn't expecting to be heartened by their 'expert wisdom' but I wanted to see their understanding of the causes - what they were discovering, how they interpreted symptoms, how they were turning things around. I wanted to be able to assess their understanding, their knowledge. I waited for a so-called expert to make me feel that they actually knew what they were doing. None did. It was just the 'latest' in new-fangled ideas and gadgets.

Unless causes are addressed there will only ever be more of the same.

The people interviewed were, so optimistically, simply repeating what they had been told because they were desperate for a cure for their suffering. Blind belief - because we trust that the 'experts' actually know what they are doing. None are dealing with causes.