My last post of the year is usually one of my shortest ones. It’s a simple message, but one I wish was spread more this time of year, so I try to reflect on it at least once during the month of December. I don’t know about you, but this year certainly had its share of ups and downs. There were a lot of good moments, but there was also a lot of times that were painful and sad. So I want to remind everyone reading this that no matter how your year went, no matter what things may or may not have happened, you did enough.
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Getting Back to the Present Moment
Earlier this week, I reflected on some of the challenges of going on autopilot. Though it can be helpful when I’m dealing with anxiety and depression, going on autopilot can also make things more difficult. I can get too focused on accomplishing my goals, and rush into doing something. I am not always the most decisive person (and I know my friends and family would agree), and being on autopilot often exploits my indecisiveness. I tend to feel best about my decisions when I am in the present moment, I understand what’s in front of me and I know the various possibilities. That being said, it’s not always easy to get back into the present moment, and I’d like to talk about that today.
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Getting Out of My Head
Some days I wish I could get out of my head. I don’t always know what I mean when I say that, but the sentiment is there. It feels like I live most of my life inside my head and every so often, I want to burst out. I’m sure actually doing so isn’t as dramatic as all that, but it feels like it would be. Being ‘inside your head’ is a fancy synonym for overthinking a moment or situation but when you do it often, it feels like it’s just the way you experience things. After quickly retreating inward for many weeks, I’d like to try getting out of my head, and here’s why.
Continue readingFive Ways to Manage Automatic Negative Thoughts
Last week, I broke down a mental health term I’ve learned more about in recent years – automatic negative thoughts. We all process things in different ways, and negative thoughts are a byproduct of that processing. While I haven’t been able to rid myself of negative thoughts, I have been able to recognize them and try to deal with them in a more direct way than I used to. Here are some ways I try dealing with automatic negative thoughts, as well as some reminders about managing them.
Continue readingBreaking Down Mental Health Terms: What Are Automatic Negative Thoughts?
I’d been in therapy for a few years when I first heard the phrase automatic negative thoughts for the first time. It wasn’t hard to deduce the meaning of the phrase, but I found it interesting nonetheless. Like everyone else, I deal with negative thoughts every single day. They might be about myself or other things, but one thing is certain: they’re negative. It’s the automatic part that I find interesting, and I wanted to learn more about this concept. That’s why today, I’ll be breaking down what automatic negative thoughts are, what they look like, and what we can do about them.
Continue readingForming Healthy Habits Amidst Setbacks
Living with mental illness can make people feel like they’re failing all the time. Moments of progress can feel impossible to recapture after a misstep. We can be very harsh on our failures, and our reactions can exacerbate those failures. Mental health setbacks happen to everyone, but they can be hard to deal with. Despite our failures, we should still strive to build healthy habits and goals to work toward. So, how can we form healthy habits when we feel like we have constant setbacks?
Continue readingReceiving Permission to Feel Tired
I was reflecting on my most recent therapy session when I realized that there was a recurring phrase I was using over and over again. No matter what the topic was or how I felt about it, everything came back to me saying “I’m tired.” Listen – at some point or another, we all get tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally, we are tired and need rest to prepare for what’s next. But the way I was saying it – the tone I was using, the way I thought about it – is what caught my attention, and it’s what I’d like to talk about today.
Continue readingI Am Not My Anxiety
This post comes on a heels of a similar post I wrote recently called “I Am Not My Depression” (you can check it out here!). A big part of my mental health journey is the way I’ve noticed that language has built up the stigma surrounding mental health, which means I’m constantly trying to find ways to break down that stigma. And just like in my recent post, I want to share why instead of saying that I’m more than my anxiety, I explicitly try to reinforce the notion that I am not my anxiety – and here’s why.
Continue readingWhat Are Mental Health Myths?
I like to bounce around many topics here on My Brain’s Not Broken, especially surrounding anxiety and depression. However, one of my other favorite things to do is break down myths surrounding mental health. Usually it happens on a whim, when I feel there’s a need to debunk a certain aspect of mental health. The more that I do this, the more I see a need to debunk and breakdown these mental health myths. Right now I feel inspired to break down these myths, and I want to explain how I’ll work to do this in future posts.
Continue readingTaking Care of Our Mental Health During the Summertime
I don’t know about y’all, but I feel like this summer is flying by. Even though this is what happens almost every summer of my life, the strangeness of the summers of 2020 and 2021 have made this summer feel very foreign and unlike any other one I’ve experienced. It’s been years since I’ve been this busy, and expending that amount of social energy is taxing. It’s this dichotomy that I want to explore today – how do we take care of our mental health when time is flying by and we’re constantly on the go?
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My Brain's Not Broken 