My last post was an almost-too-perfect-of-an-ending tale about how I’m feeling happy and content, despite my life being very much “in progress”. In fact, that was the whole point–that I haven’t reached any milestone to feel that way.
A big part of those “in progress” plans is my mental health. Coping with a mental illness (or 6) follows no linear path. You can feel like you are on the cusp of becoming The Most Awakened and Fully Actualized Spirit, and then something happens that knocks you back down to regular Fucked Up Human Being. I’m somewhere just above Fucked Up–maybe Fucked Up But There’s Potential.
The good thing about it not being linear is that you don’t have to start over. Once you have your meltdown, breakdown, or relapse, you can jump back in, more or less where you left off.
I’ve talked before about Pacifica and how helpful it is for tracking moods, setting self-improvement goals, and journaling (my fave part). I highly recommend you check it out if you want to make a small and easy, but effective change in your life. The trick though is the dirty P word: perseverance. Keep using it! Even if it’s not every day.
Pacifica is how I made the gratitude list in the picture above. Now, I hate gratitude lists. Let me tell you. I always feel so disingenuous coming up with these things because, I don’t know, there’s something somewhat false to me about reciting things you think you should be grateful for. But talking about positive memories is good for re-building the neural pathways in your brain so I really tried to take it seriously.
So I’m not just all talk when it comes to doing the dirty work to building a better me. It is work and it can get dirty (i.e. incredibly tedious), but I’m putting in the effort. There’s more changes to come for myself and more I want to do in every aspect of my life, but hey, I’m making progress.
And like I’ve been trying to say in the last post: progress makes perfect.
The Unplug Initiative 