Coping with Anxiety & Depression

August 7th, 2020

Real quick, just wanna shout out the individual that gave me this suggestion. I appreciate it. Always means alot. 100%.

There’s alot honestly that I could talk about. Do I really ever want to talk about what’s on my mind? No, not really. On a real level, no one truly cares. That’s not being pessimistic. That’s just the harsh reality. Am I hard on myself? Yeah I am.. No one would take a bullet for me. That’s why I push myself to be the shield for others. It’s called empathy. Memento Amoris, remembering to love. You still love, even when you don’t feel like there is any to receive. It’s ironic because you want something good for once.. but sometimes you’re that good thing that’s supposed to happen to others. I haven’t gone much into as well for certain reasons. I’ve got a few mediums that are just drafts that I haven’t posted. I’m not in the business of pleasing others or trying to be what people expect me to be. I learned to stop doing that awhile ago. People are who they are.

So where do I start…? Umm.. There’s a few things I do that helps me push through the hard days. Not a whole lot of things. I’m a simple person. I prefer to keep things simple. One of those is of course writing on medium. You wanna hear my thoughts and see it? Well this is it.. this is what it looks like. It’s dark. It’s ugly. It makes me feel weak. All at the same time, it’s healing. It’s time and patience. It’s hope. All my thoughts written down on paper, everything raw and unfiltered. This shit isn’t easy. It gets overwhelming.

Ever since the breakup, I’ve needed an outlet to keep my mind clear. If you haven’t had a chance to read “Love Leaves a Mark”, it’s a 32 minute read, almost 10k words, took me almost 5 months to complete. I would spend days on end sometimes writing, deleting, rephrasing, and do it over and over again to have a sense of clarity. Honestly though, I haven’t read it again since I published it, because I know for a fact it would make me emotional. I’ve considered doing an audio version of it, but who wants to hear me bawl my eyes out? I was at my darkest point when I started it. It was like fear took ahold of me what felt like being in a dark room, no light. There was so much static in my head.

Talking my feelings have never been easy for me, it’s always been hard. I don’t really have anyone to talk to about how I’m feeling or try to work through it, I write it down. Writing has just always been easy for me. They say behind every word and action there is a motive. I want this to be of pure intent. No games. No tricks. No bullshit. Just to be 100% real with you. AUTHENTICITY. This started to just be like a journal for me, where I would just write and never make my stuff public. Since I made it public, I actually took a bit of time the other day to look at my stats to see what kind of attention it’s been getting and it’s been actually quite a bit which surprised me.

I do this to help others try and make sense of what’s going on in their mind as well. My legal thing has been going very well, I put on my thing that I should do therapy and it has me scared to death because it gets you to think about the things that you wouldn’t ever think of in a different perspective. I need it. I want to figure myself out. This only does so much for me and sometimes that shit is uncomfortable. Uncomfort = growth though. We don’t grow when we become stagnant. You don’t become fit and strong, UNLESS you put in the work of lifting, cardio, etc etc.. Same principle applies to the mind. You have to exercise your mind.

The second thing which will tie into the last thing which will be a little bit longer, I get out on the trails, go hiking, and go to the gym to exercise. Not only exercising your mind, but also exercising your body is important as well. Keeps you strong and healthy. For me it’s therapeutic. Gives me time to also clear my head but think more clearly. Make sense of things. When I wrote my longest piece, alot of it came from when I was out on the trails or hiking. No noise, I was just in my head in my thoughts. I wouldn’t stop doing those things though EVER. That’s a passion I had before I met Elizabeth, it was amazing to share that with her though. If you didn’t get to read my last medium, I go more in depth about how doing hiking has helped me.

The 3rd thing I do to help me get through hard days is filling and exercising my mind with positivity. Now I know what you're thinking already… nahh it’s all bullshit, doesn’t work, it’s fake, etc, etc.. Do you give it time? Do you give yourself the patience to put in the work? Remember our mind is the strongest muscle in the body.. how do you expect it to change overnight? It won’t and that’s something all of us should be able to agree on yes?

You have to continually feed it, you have to exercise it everyday. You have to plant the seed. No seed grows into a beautiful orchid without giving it water and sunlight to be fed. What happens over time? It grows. YOU have to do the same. It’s putting in the work and being consistent and that’s always the hardest part. We stop, because we expect progress too soon. Learn to love the process, and the results will follow.

Would you think that my friend Grayson, aka Graywood [Shoutout to you bro ;)] would be as successful as he’s been or love his music if he only paid attention to the numbers? HELL no. May work short term because it gives you excitement, but what happens when that’s lost? A passion is more than just temporary excitement. You start to lose sight of why you actually started. You lose that and it’s ruined. Long term it’s proven over and over to never work. We put ourselves through that vicious cycle over and over again.

Progress is progress, even if it’s baby steps. I am living that journey right now, I won’t say I’ve made it, because I haven’t. Honestly I have a LONG way to go. You have to learn how to walk and stand up, before you can run. Too many of us are trying to run before we’ve learned walk. When you put in the work, you give it time, you have the patience, things will slowly start to change. Yes, there is some days that I feel like why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? You’re gonna have doubts and I’m here to tell you.. that it’s okay. Believe me, it’s not easy.. you’ll want to cry your heart out because the pain is too much. You know an amazing thing about pain? It makes you stronger. Think about getting a cut or just doing something that makes you physically bleed right? Well what happens to that wound over time? It heals and repairs itself.. but it takes TIME.

If no one has told you that your strong and that you can do it, let this be a stepping stone for you. This shit’s been extremely hard. Maybe you’ve been through something worse than a heartbreak. Whatever it is, I believe you’ll get through it. Are you a bit more open to positivity now? And I’m not talking about the rah rah hype shit, no.. I’m talking about deep emotional positivity, the kind that can actually push change. You have to learn to do your part as well.

There’s a favorite speaker of mine, his name is Tony Robbins. You may have heard of him before, but if you haven’t definitely do. He’s become a master of helping work through individuals emotions. I used to listen to alot and I stopped because I let myself out of the headspace I was in before my relationship and put something else in. Not to say that my past relationship was never important or a priority because it was, but it damaged it. I let my mind shift when I never should have and it caused issues. I can’t go back and change what’s happened and that’s okay.

We have the power of choice. We have the power to make the decisions we do that shape the way our life goes. It takes as much work to be sad, just as much work it takes to be happy. So why not work towards being happy? That gives us the power to control what happens. What we focus on, is what we will feel. Seek and you shall find. Then you have to decide what that means for you. Once you decide what it means for you, then decide what to do about it. If you don’t like where you’re at, CHANGE it. The first step is changing the mindset before you can take action. You, yourself, have to believe you can. No one else will or can do it for you.

Choose to give yourself the power to keep control. Fight for yourself. We’re so quick to fight for others, but what happened to fighting for me? You’re gonna make mistakes along the way and that’s okay. When you fight your blueprint of life, life is hard. Doesn’t mean you can’t change the outcome though.

There’s four things I wanna share with you that’s helped me and maybe it will help you too. The first thing is to see things as they are, but not worse than it is. It’s realizing that your taking accountability for your actions and emotions. It still gives you the power to have a reason to try. The second thing is get to the real truth and deal with it. You need to take a step back and look what needs to change. Ask yourself what is working and what isn’t. It might give you some perspective, it's a process. Handle with the cards you’ve been dealt, because there’s always someone that has it worse. It might seem harsh, but consider it a blessing. Everyone has experienced hardship. Even I have. The longer you wait, the longer the crisis will remain. The third step is to get a vision. There’s something you HAVE to have, to look forward to. Without vision, you will perish. Nothing will change. The 4th step is to have a role model. Find someone to learn from. If you don’t have one, you all have me. I’m working the same journey. The 5th thing is just doing the right thing and putting in the fucking work.

If you’re reading this, you are still ALIVE. That’s a blessing in of itself. Hard times will pass and are always temporary. Give yourself a little bit of faith.

So I’ll leave you with this.. What decision are you going to make? Do you want growth?

Be uncomfortable short term, to be comfortable long term. ❤