life

A Different Way to Process Setbacks

Nathan Smith4 Comments

I have been thinking a lot about setbacks lately. Not just my own (although of course, that’s taking up the majority of my time), but the very concept of them. It’s a thought I’m still coming to terms with, but I definitely think about setbacks more often than I would like – and it’s those consequences that I’d like to focus on today.

It’s safe to say that for the most part, people don’t like facing setbacks. Whether these setbacks happen because of something they’ve done or something out of their control, it can be hard for someone to accept this truth. Physically, mentally, emotionally – setbacks happen in all areas of our lives, and they can have impacts that last days, weeks, months, or even years. Having an anxious mind, I guess it’s not so surprising why I might ruminate on this topic, now is it?

If I was thinking off the top of my head, without slowing down, I’d probably tell you I face setbacks constantly. Every day, it feels like, something new happens that feels like a setback. Is it actually a setback? Not always. But when I am going through a challenging time, each minor problem feels like a massive setback. The stakes get higher, the challenge becomes more all-encompassing, and it becomes hard to focus on anything else. And let me tell you, it is not good for your mental or physical health to constantly think about one small aspect of your life, and it’s impact on you.

But I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way. In fact, I know I’m not. There is a strong link between depression and rumination in particular – in fact, studies show that people who tend to ruminate develop depression four times as often as those who don’t. Focusing on setbacks is not good for our mental health in general but for some people pre-disposed to negative thoughts or instances of depression, it can have far-reaching consequences.

Which brings me back to my main issue with setbacks – or at least, how I currently think about them. I don’t like how I view setbacks, and I’d like that to change. Reading this post on Psychology Today about turning small problems into big issues definitely helped. Because every time I have a small problem, or an issue I perceive as a setback, I forget about all the progress I’ve made. It’s as if the past few weeks, months, or years, didn’t happen. There’s a part of me that thinks this type of thinking is in line with toxic positivity, or always “looking on the bright side,” but I think that’s just a coping mechanism I’m telling myself so I can continue to ruminate.

The fact is, I’ve made progress. Setbacks don’t tend to happen unless you have made progress – otherwise, why would it feel like a setback? Reminding ourselves of our progress isn’t just putting a positive spin on things; it’s bringing facts and logic to the table. I might feel like a failure because I did not accomplish this thing, but that does not negate the progress that I can point to that has gotten me to that point. And when I think about the progress I’ve made – particularly when it comes to my mental health challenges – I can’t help but admit that I have grown by leaps and bounds. And once I acknowledge that growth, it’s much harder to ruminate and feel like a failure.

Whether you view this post as a pep talk, a reminder, or a discovery of sorts, I hope that you can take what I’ve learned here and apply it to your own life. Next time you face a setback (maybe start with a minor one? I don’t know, I’m clearly not an expert on this), try and remember where you started. Consider the progress you’ve made, and try and be gentle with yourself. It’s easier said than done, but when it happens, it can turn your whole day around.

And before you get discouraged, please know I’m working on this, too. We’re all a work in progress – and it’s not a bad thing to think about that progress from time to time.

A Moment to Reflect, and a Return to Blogging

Nathan Smith4 Comments

Hi, again. So…yeah. This is my big return to blogging. I haven’t written since last year. I don’t know why I stopped. I mean, I do know why I wasn’t able to do it for so long – life gets in the way sometimes – but I don’t quite know what happened. But, since I would like to get back in the swing of things with this space, I figured it would be better to post something than nothing at all. So here I am.

It’s been a busy time since my last post. While there are probably a million and one things to catch you up on, I can provide the big highlight here – I got married! Last month, I married the love of my life; the day was absolutely amazing, and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. The road leading up to that day was filled with a lot of work, planning, and preparation – and as you can imagine, took quite a toll on my mental health! But it was all worth it and at the end of the day, I am overjoyed and overwhelmed with positive emotion when I think about that day, which is all I can really ask for.

I’d like to say that’s the main reason I (unintentionally) stepped away from this space, but I don’t quite know if that’s true. Because I’ve been here before. Writing a similar message, about a similar topic. At the time, I had just gotten engaged. After months of struggling to come up with topics and ideas, I’d been re-invigorated to get back into writing. And although I turned out a few posts here and there…it didn’t stick.

For a long time, I thought about why it didn’t stick. I doubted myself as a writer, a blogger, and as a mental health advocate. I worried that I had nothing left to give here, or that my opinions didn’t matter. There was part of me that thought maybe I’d even plateaued, and had no more original thoughts to offer on mental health, wellness, or anything related to those things.

And who knows? Maybe that’s true (I kid…mostly). But in truth, I don’t think that’s what it is. I think, like many things, it was an accumulation. I went through a period of massive change in my life, and while I think I did handle it okay, it took its toll on my mental health. Most days went well, but I often felt like it took everything out of me to have a decent day. And here’s the thing – that period of change? It’s not over. In fact, the fact that the world changes around me every single day – and that I change with it – is actually one of the most consistent things I know to be true about my life.

Life, as with mental health, ebbs and flows. Things are busier than ever one day, then calm the next. Months can pass where we feel like we are constantly bombarded with tasks, items, details, and to-do’s, when we look up and realize another school year has passed, or another holiday is upon us. But there can also be times that feel so mundane or humdrum, that we yearn for the days of chaos and calamity. Over time, I’ve come to see that regardless of where we are, the grass often feels greener on the other side.

So here I am. Seeing the grass on the other side and choosing, trying to choose, the patch of the world I’m standing on now. Life will happen, as it so often does, and I will live, as I have done my best to do for the past 32 years. But I take it I’ve learned a thing or two in the last eight months and, as I shake myself out of this writer’s fog, I’m excited to figure out what exactly that is, and share it with all of you.

Quote from Theodore Roosevelt: "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

Getting Unstuck with Traci Edwards

Nathan Smith3 Comments

CW: This post discusses mental illness and suicide.

One thing I enjoy about this blog is the chance to learn about other people’s approaches to mental health and wellness. Today, I’m sharing an interview with Traci Edwards, who recently started her own digital project, Let’s Get Unstuck, to create an online community in support of others who feel “stuck.” 

In your own words, how would you describe Let’s Get Unstuck?

[Let’s Get Unstuck] is a space for people who feel stuck and are looking for ways to get their lives back on track.

It’s a safe place to be vulnerable, free from judgement, and supported. A place to share their stories without criticism or fear. To learn from others how to gain back their power from painful moments. How to turn their pain into purpose and power. A place for shared stories to help others work through struggles. I want to find the right voices to tell the right stories that can relate to as many people as possible and pull them back into a place of hope and get them believing in possibility again. 

What do you hope people will gain from your project, and from your perspective?

Image of woman in chair, smiling
Traci Edwards (image courtesy of Traci Edwards)

I want people to gain a true connection with me, but also with other people who share similar values of spreading goodness and compassion to others. I want people to gain a new safe space in a digital community where they can be vulnerable, honest and feel unjudged. A place to tell their truth and to know that they will receive love and kindness in return. My space is not for harsh critics and to tear others down. I also want people to gain perspective from others about topics they struggle with. Tips, tools, advice that helps them through a tough time. I know this exists in more established websites and I want to make this one of those sites, but always upholds integrity and authenticity. 

If anyone can gain anything from me, then I am doing my part. I had no expectations when I started writing; only that I want to help others through dark times and in return, I can learn something new that can perhaps help me. I want people to walk away with hope. To find their confidence and self-worth again. I want them to know it’s okay to be off track and stuck, that they aren’t alone. I also want them to feel supported which is why I share relatable stories and tools that can help them move toward getting unstuck. I only know what has worked for me, which is what I want to share with everyone.

When it comes to mental health, why is it so important for people to share their stories?

[People’s] stories can very well be the one thing that gives someone struggling another day to live. People really do not fully understand the power behind their words. I literally had a young 25 year old girl write to me the other day asking me for help. She had connected with something that I wrote. I had to explain to her that I was not a therapist but I would most certainly be there to listen. The sweet young woman was unsure about her life as she felt unloved, unwelcomed and unneeded. She was in a very dark place of depression and told me she isn’t sure if she wants to live anymore. The first thing I did was provide her with a group for people that could guide her to the right therapist b/c she asked me for help. Then I just listened to her and asked her simple questions. She was so taken back that I was willing to give her a stranger time to unload and to just be heard. We spoke for a while. She said “thank you that you care thank you”. This all stemmed b/c of a story I shared. That is the power of our writing. That in one moment it captured someone in a way that helped pull someone back from a ledge. That is why people should share their stories. To help others. Bottomline. 

Why does mental health matter to you?

I lost my best friend to suicide when I was 14 and he was 15. Far too young! Then another one a year later to suicide. Similar in age. Throughout my years, hearing friends lose friends or family members to it as well. Then you see well-known celebrities broken on the inside when appearing well put together on the outside taking their own lives as well. Then recently I lost an ex who I once loved very much to this as well. 

People feel broken, this world feels so small to them, that pain will not pass and they feel alone. This breaks my heart! I am a person who wants to help, it’s just part of who I have always been. When I see someone I know feeling empty inside I want to be that person to help pick them up. So, when suicide keeps coming up it makes me feel like I could have or should have done more. 

I personally have been battling with anxiety since my 20s and I have family members with major depression and I see them struggling a lot. It scares me to think that one day they won’t be here because the pain outweighs everything else.

People feel helpless and don’t feel safe to speak about what they are struggling with. There needs to be more compassion in our crazy world, more places to allow for vulnerability and non judgement. All of this is connected to mental health. I want to provide that space! More people should want to provide that type of space.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I started this journey to get unstuck. Now, I’m meeting so many inspiring people who are teaching me (indirectly) how to inspire others. I am not a coach or a therapist, but I do want to become a voice in the personal development and growth space. I feel my story could help others learn to never give up, that there is hope again and possibilities are all around us once we can shift our mindset and be more open. And even in the darkest of moments you will eventually find that light that takes you into your new chapter with grace and confidence. You will reestablish a relationship with your self-worth again and become that driving force that always existed within. 

You can follow Traci’s journey on her blog Let’s Get Unstuck, as well as her Substack.

Moving Forward with Our Mental Health

Nathan Smith11 Comments

What do you say when you feel like you have nothing to say? As the saying goes: “something is better than nothing.”

It’s no secret that lately, I’m not writing here as often as I used to (I’ve actually written about that specific feeling, funny enough). There are a million and one reasons as to why I haven’t been doing so. There is, of course, the *gestures vaguely everywhere* of it all. Living in the United States in 2025 is…well, I don’t actually know how to put it into words. At least, without going on a long rant. If I did, maybe I would have been able to write something here in the past few months! But I digress.

But it’s not just that (although truly, that would be enough). Every now and then, I feel like I’ve plateaued in doing this project. When I started My Brain’s Not Broken, I was in my early 20’s, and just figuring out myself and my mental health. I had more bad days than good, and I felt like the blog was a place to figure out those challenges in real time.

Look, I won’t pretend that everything is all sunshine and rainbows these days. But I am much more confident about how I handle my anxiety and depression, and am confident in the tools I’ve acquired to help me deal with those challenges. I’ve become stronger, more confident, and more prepared to talk about my own mental health, and talk about mental health with other people. I’ve written it countless times on this blog: we are stronger together, and I am so thankful that I can add my story and my experience to the millions of people who experience mental health challenges every single year.

So this is my re-entry to the space. I don’t quite know what I’m doing, and I don’t quite know what my goal is. Since I started this blog, the world’s changed a great deal, and the contributing factors to the mental health crisis in America (and around the world) are much different than they used to be. Smart phones, AI, politics, pandemics – it’s almost hard to even remember the type of person I was back when this blog was started.

But that’s part of why projects like this matter. Because beyond offering tips, tricks, and advice, this blog is a chronology of my life and the major happenings in it. It’s my journey with mental health; my ups and downs, the joys and struggles. It’s captured my unique perspective at specific points in time. There are posts I can turn to when I need a boost. Posts that I’ll look back on and say, I can’t believe I wrote that (hopefully in a good way!). And while I know that this blog has never played the role of an online diary or anything like that, it’s been fascinating to see the way I’ve grown and changed over the years, through what I’ve written.

Mental health – as a topic, a public health issue – as a community – isn’t the same as it was when this project first started. It’s morphed, it’s changed. There have been good aspects to this, and there have been bad ones. We’ve hit milestones and faced serious setbacks; in this moment, it feels like it’s more setbacks than successes. So I will continue to write, and share my perspective on mental health – the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. Whether that makes a lick of difference in the vast abyss of the Internet, I do not know (most likely, no). But as long as I’m in this corner of the Internet, you can count on this being a space that prioritizes those things. Because mental health matters. I matter. And you matter. And these are important things that I never want us to forget.

Why Habits Don’t Need to Be Permanent

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On this blog, I have a tendency to write posts that build on each other. After writing about habits last week, I thought more about how we create and maintain healthy habits. In my research, it’s clear that any type of significant habit formation takes time. And during that time, we can become extremely committed to these new habits and the impact they’ll have in our life. But it’s important to remember that even though habits take time to create, these habits are as permanent as we need them to be for our mental health.

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The Learning Curve of Mental Health

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When it comes to my mental health, one thing I can always count on is that it won’t be too long before I learn something new. Sometimes it’s a mental health or psychological term. Other times it’s a phrase, or a more accurate description than one I’d been using. After ten years of living with depression and anxiety, there’s still a lot to learn. And while there are many ways to learn these lessons, today I want to reflect on how experience is often the best teacher.

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Remembering That I Have A Moment

Nathan Smith3 Comments

After writing a post earlier this week about how busy I feel, I wanted to reflect more. Part of the reason I felt busy was because there was a part of me that thought I shouldn’t be busy. That at this point in time, I wasn’t supposed to be doing what I was doing. This part of me ignored what was actually going on in my life. Instead, it was pursuing an unrealistic vision of a life I don’t lead, doing things I don’t do.

These thoughts led me to feeling like I had no time for anything, to the point where I couldn’t take a moment to myself. But, as it turns out, I do have that time. In fact, I’ve always had that time – and it’s that reminder that I want to reflect on today.

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Summertime and the Living is…Busy

Nathan Smith1 Comment

It feels like I write a version of the same post every year. I don’t intend to write this post, and I don’t even know how I get to the point I do. But at some point during the summer, I take a moment, I look around, and I take in just how busy I am.

Oh, you thought I’d say how calm everything was at the moment? That after writing about the importance of slowing down, I’d be able to have create more time for myself? Though I have been able to create some time for myself and been able to spend time with people I love, my life feels anything but calm.

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On the Concept of Slowing Down

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Today’s post will be short but sweet. Many of my posts are written in advance or pre-scheduled, which I enjoy doing. But sometimes I want to share how I’m feeling in the moment, which requires some quick thinking and reflecting. So, in the midst of a very busy time in my life, I wanted to reflect on the importance of slowing down.

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Going Down The List

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Like many people, there are days when I feel off or don’t feel like myself. Sometimes I wake up feeling that way, and other times that feeling hits me at some random point during the day. Regardless, the moment that feeling hits is a familiar one. It’s almost as if there’s a missing piece to a puzzle, or as if I’ve forgotten an answer to a question I’ve known my whole life. When this happens, one of the first things I do is think about what I’ve done that day, or what I’m planning to do. And that starts by consulting my list.

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