Living with Anxiety and Depression: Things that help- #3 Take small steps on your journey

Cliches like “Rome wasn’t built in a day” can be useful if they have elements of truth, which in this case is that taking small steps every day towards your goals means you are moving forward. Sometimes that’s all you can ask of yourself if you’re feeling rubbish. It doesn’t have to be a major thing- did you start a blog post, go for a five-minute mindful walk or have a quick hot-cold shower? Did you say no to sugar for the first time in ages on your lunch break? Brilliant. Slow and steady wins the race.

From my experience with mental illness, I know that trying to live good habits each day moves me towards more mentall wellness. It is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to transform yourself overnight. Our brains have neurones that are set in their ways, but new habits can gently create new ways of being that accumulate over time. Watching productive YouTube videos each day is a great way for me to reinforce and build new pathways upstairs in my head. My life is made up of small actions that will lead to me being brilliantly well. I believe it will happen and I can feel it happen each day. It is a physical inevitability that I will feel better over time because I am building my life around wellness.

An example of a great video on cumulative gains

These days many of us don’t have much to truly worry about. We aren’t going to be eaten by tigers, we won’t have to go to war, the next illness we get isn’t likely to kill us. There is so much room to focus on biochemical bliss, feeling wellness in the present moment, as the here and now is all we have. So take steps NOW to feel well. Have a cold shower to reduce your inflammation. Eat some wholefoods. Stretch. Do a few yoga poses. Dip into the wellness of life.

If you’d like to help me become financially self-sufficient then please visit https://www.patreon.com/DavidJamesNaylor

Living with Anxiety and Depression: Things that help- #2 Pursuing self-development

Similar to my last blog that mentioned finding and popping fear bubbles, the second thing that has helped me to deal with anxiety and depression is the pursuit of self-development.

I’ve recently loved exploring Mindvalley’s free masterclasses and have received many insights. The most important one is that of doing things that grow me. I try to make concious decisions about what I do. Will watching this film grow me? Will I learn something new or reinforce an important insight? I try to watch films that will develop my knowledge of the craft, such as from a director’s or actor’s perspective. Will taking this action grow me. Perhaps not everything we do is going to be part of out self-development, but unconcious choices such as food shopping decisions and how we spend our time can be steered towards developing ourselves. Will this bottle of Pepsi help me, or could I choose to drink a healthy smoothie to give me energy instead?

When you have anxiety and/or depression, you can get stuck. Trying to make decisions that grow me helps me to feel like I’m following a more fulfilling and healthier path. If I look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I feel like I’m pursuing self-actualisation and not just existing. It’s like I’m on a path of abundance where things come at the right time, although I feel like things have come at the right time throughout my life. Even depression and anxiety came at a time that allowed me to learn how to live healthily. They have been a huge positive in my life as feeling free of them means trying to be my best self. Failing is ok, as are mistakes. But I’ve got to try or I feel unfilled and fall back in to a pattern of rumination and unhealthy habits. That’s not to say that every waking moment has to be a beacon of self-development. You’re still allowed to pick your nose, but the general direction of my today is one towards growth.

Living with Anxiety and Depression: Things that help- #1 Facing Fear

As I begin writing this post, it’s been 3 years, 5 months and 10 days since my last blog. What I’ve been doing in that time will be the subject of further pieces, but this one is about my mental health, something that has had a huge and constructive impact on my life.

I have had anxiety and depression ( I’ll refer to them as A and D respectively and as AD together) for several years. I’m not sure when the onset of either was, but I’d say they crept up in the years before I turned 13, and became very acute when I went to University in 2013. But don’t worry! I am OK and feel stronger, more fulfilled, more secure, resilient and happier than perhaps ever!

I’d describe A as being too much fear and uncomfortable feeling. Many of us feel anxiety but it feels like I have too much because it affects how I feel, my mood, and possibly my actions.

D is low mood for me, and feeling apathetic with some hopelessness. AD together are a chemical unpleasantness- on a basic level they can make me feel bad/unwell.

But they are constructive because they have encouraged to push myself in a pursuit of lessening their impact and hopefully eradicating them from my life. I have pushed through several fear bubbles to build a better me and a more fulfilling life- going to Univesity, studying abroad, doing a first aid course, travelling alone or with people I don’t know- the list goes on. That brings me to #1 on my list of things that have helped me:

Finding fear, facing fear and coming out of the other side

I’ve just finished Ant Middleton’s second book “The Fear Bubble” which details (I think) how pushing through fear builds you. It hurts. But going on that year abroad, being a first-aider, it makes me stronger when I face fear and just go with it. Life is scarier in a way but it is more fulfilling. I do stuff that makes me anxious if feel it is part of being ‘on purpose’- taking opportunities that come in to my life. So after googling ‘acting classes West Yorkshire’ last year I signed up for a free taster. Going to the bus stop to go to the taster brought anxiety. But I did it….and then the bus didn’t turn up on time (typical) so I wouldn’t have been able to get to the class on time. So I had to face fear again by ringing up the phone number for the acting school and saying I wouldn’t be able to get there that evening….and the nice lady on the phone said to just turn up the week after! Which I did. I face anxiety every week turning up to class. But I feel like I’m on purpose. It feels good to go, and then it feels great when I get the bus home after (or leave the zoom meeting these days as it’s online). It gives me a buzz. That’s smashing the fear bubble.

You only live once, so live your best life, but don’t feel guilty if you feel that you’re not

Cheesy but true. Follow your instinct. Google those acting classes. Dip your feet in. Follow what feels right. It’s not always easy, and that makes it scary and fun. It’s OK to not be facing your fears all of the time. Be kind to yourself. I sometimes have big breaks between doing things that feel on purpose. I did an acting course in 2014 or 2015 and then started more classes in 2019. I have probably procrastinated away a lot of time, and that time felt dead rather than alive. But I don’t blame myself because that leads to more negative thoughts and feelings. I try to use mistakes as motivation to keep going and playing with life.

If you do something and it doesn’t work out, and you feel like it’s not for you, then that might help you choose the next fear bubble to tackle. Write about what happened. Journal about your fears to ease the pressure on your head. Journalling brings resistance too but I think it helps me get things in perspective. Write for a certain amount of time each day, say 5, 10 or 15 minutes, and try not to ruminate on things the rest of the time. Ruminating has been a stinker for me. It involves thinking about thinking, going over things again and again in a way that has made me feel miserable. Techniques such as journalling and mindfulness help me to break the cycle and focus on being constructive instead.

I will try and blog more often from now on, sharing my thoughts to try and help myself and others. I will just go with it! I have set up a Patreon account to set myself on a path to financial self-sufficiency: https://www.patreon.com/DavidoHereHeIs. Feel free to help me out if you enjoy my work. Thank you for reading.

Love from David x