Save My Mental Health: Recent Episodes
Joshua Couture
Mental health is becoming more important by the day. How you care for yourself and manage your experiences will dictate what your life will look like. Learning how to be comfortable in your own skin is one of the most sought after things in the entire world. I’m going to speak candidly on the different facets of mental health and action steps that can be taken to potentially change your situation. I am a certified mental health professional and have personal experience working with hundreds of individuals over the last five years.
Things are changing constantly in our internal and external worlds. How do you go about balancing the scales of change to not feel like life is an injustice? Seeking the changes you wish to see is a balancing game that makes it easier to accept the ones you’d rather not have to experience.
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It’s a weird time to be alive and I can’t say I’m a fan of it. Watching the people of society degrade and erode while large entities enjoy record profits, what a time indeed. My question will always be, why are we allowing this to happen? Why have we decided to lay down and take it? Where is the collective banding together that would bring change immediately?
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Perception is everything. Your favorite company or entertainment source knows that. They prey on that fact. They collect billions from you in that vein because you perceive you’re getting something in return. When you start asking yourself what you perceive, what do you believe, what comes up for you? Why aren’t you willing to go against what you think you know for a different outcome? Are you afraid other people won’t support you? Are you afraid to stand by yourself?
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Being shadow-banned for posting about this makes me want to do it more! There is no place for free speech anymore. Hopefully Spotify will uphold their platform. Anthony Fauci has been essentially using the world as his testing grounds since 1987, specifically Africa. The US won’t allow these research tests to be conducted, which is why he used Africa because it’s more relaxed for him to experiment on people. So nice, isn’t it?
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The American framework has contributed greatly to the rise of mental health struggles. Any physical ailment is accompanied by mental and emotional stress. Invariably we’ve been exposed to these experiences in spades since the 1970’s. Fauci seems like he could be one of the most evil individuals on the planet. At least other forms of evil have the courtesy of showing their true colors from the beginning. The worst forms of evil maintain their cleanliness amidst worst of circumstances.
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Need I say more?! Whether you like him or not, and if you don’t, I have questions. Any instance where the media wants to shut down a narrative, you should follow it. If you’re still drinking the kool-aid that conspiracy people are crazy, you’re not paying attention. I’m a a seeker of information regardless of the findings, regardless of who gets questioned. That shouldn’t be labeled anything other than what it is.
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What has happened to the educational system? Why do we as humans say we value education yet where our money is spent says different? What needs to happen moving forward for better development of humans so we can have a society that is worth saving in the future.
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Well what the hell does that even mean?? It means you get to experience something in your present life that was previously considered negative in nature. When is the last time you had an emotionally corrective experience that benefited your life and possibly the lives of others? Are there current experiences that haven’t been acknowledged?
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Well, what’s the fuckin problem? Is it you? Is it him, it is her, is it them, is it anything but you?! Because well, the problem couldn’t be that we don’t understand how to map out what the actual issue is, which is why I exist as a clinician ha! So again, what’s the fuckin problem? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/smmh/support
Well, it’s come time for me to celebrate myself. I think normal people do this, I’m really not sure. I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that I have accomplished something for myself that I didn’t think was possible. I did good job, and I want to recognize that. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/smmh/support
Stress seems like it’s life, if we allow it to manifest as such. We have the opportunity to live comfortably within ourselves if we so choose. How much choice do we actually have? How much control over stress can we exert? How much emotional control do we have over the things that happen to us? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/smmh/support
Men don't just have emotions, they feel deeper than you could possibly imagine. Depending on their upbringing, it will determine their relationship with emotions. Men are unknowingly conditioned to compartmentalize their emotions, as if they aren't valid. I'm here to tell you they are real and valid. There's pressure on men to perform, to lead, to guide, to understand, to put themselves second, and to push through no matter the circumstance. I believe in these ideals in concept but there's a better way to go about it that doesn't expense your emotions or yourself in the process. Humans need love and care, regardless of whether they are man or woman.
My guest for this week is a doctoral candidate and practicing therapist, the wonderfully esteemed Kimberly. This weeks topic is stress and how to manage it. We all experience stress in some form or another. There is no avoiding it, so the question will always remain, how do we manage it? Some of us manage it with maladaptive coping mechanisms and others have found positive methods for coping.
This weeks guest is my good friend, Ana Garcia. She is currently a graduate student in a clinical psychology program. She also works with at-risk youth as a case worker. All around good human. This weeks topic is Trauma. We have all experienced trauma in different forms. If you feel like you're experiencing trauma at any level, don't be afraid to talk about it. There is no trauma too small to speak about. Enjoy the conversation.
This weeks guest features Ashley Lombardi (LCSW/clinical director) from Mission Connection, which is an online mental health treatment program that operates in four states. The topic is 'human connection' and how our level of connectedness plays a role in every aspect of our lives.
The world is an interesting place and never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes it amazes me in the worst way possible. Other times, I get slivers of hope. Things have change over the last few years, seemingly forever. Things don’t feel the same. Seems like I take more to peak my interest than ever before. Existential dread comes in all shapes and sizes these days with the growing lack of certainty in our future.
This is my story (part 2). This continues the experiences I’ve had with mental health and substance abuse.
I figured I should tell you all a little bit (or a lot) about myself if I’m going to be throwing advice out there all the time. My story is obviously very personal to me and I hope you can resonate with it.
Feeling overwhelmed is more prevalent than ever before. There’s things happening outside of our control on a daily basis. It’s difficult to not feel overwhelmed when it feels like you have zero control over what happens in the world. Managing our thoughts is one method of circumventing the fact that so many things can’t be controlled. You have the power to get involved with your thoughts or not. It might not feel like you have an opinion but I can assure you, you do. The ability to manage my thoughts turns into the ability to manage my emotional responses to things. Remember, you are only capable of so much output in a 24 hour period, give yourself a break sometimes. It doesn’t mean you won’t achieve your goals or realize your dreams, it means your human.
Expectations are premeditated resentments and can operate on a subconscious level. The system we live in is setup to provoke you to expect things to be a certain way. This is something we can unlearn so that we can be free from experiencing unnecessary internal conflict. If we are able to establish our wants and needs within ourselves, it will put us in a position to be able to adequately communicate that to others. The problem starts when we have magical thinking and don’t communicate properly, still expecting others to behave as if we did. If we don’t let other people know what we expect of them, how could they ever know? I also think it’s important to mention that no one was put here on this earth to live up to someone else’s expectations (yours included).
The concept of change can provoke anxiety just at the thought of it. When things happen in our lives whether directly or indirectly, we have a choice to make thereafter. What do we do with the changes that are taking place? Do we try to pretend they’re not happening? Do we react poorly? Do we find acceptance and a path forward? Do we fight it until the bitter end (my personal favorite)? We always have a choice on what to do about changes that are taking place. Maybe it’s changes that we already know through our intuition that need to happen but we aren’t ready yet. The longer we wait, the more devastating the emotional consequences can be. Pain is also a great motivator for change, isn’t it?! Take charge of the things you CAN control so it’s easier to deal with or manage the things you can’t.
The concept of having an existential crisis seems to be more prevalent than ever before. In the age of information being readily accessed at our fingertips, it’s easy to feel lost. There are so many things happening outside of our control that it’s easy to feel like everything is pointless. I would encourage you to find meaning and purpose in your life. Do what you can to make a positive impact on the world around you, no matter how small it might seem. I don’t know what the fate of the world is but it doesn’t feel good at the moment. I would encourage you to transact with loved ones, call someone you haven’t spoken to in awhile, forgive someone, give back to the community, and immerse yourself in being the best version of yourself possible.
Isn’t time a wonderful thing? Well I guess that depends on your perspective and current life status. Time can be viewed as the enemy. The culprit is ourselves and how we utilize the time we have. The clock will consistently do its part to either make us feel good about how your day/week/ month is going or it could make us feel utterly defeated. The choice is yours to include things in your schedule that seem like a burden that cater to your self-care. If you do this, I promise it will feel like time is being stretched. You can make time feel like it’s on your side but in reality you’ve simply shifted your perception. Often times we feel like we don’t have enough of it and other times too much. Time will always remain consistently moving and if we do the same, our experience will reflect that.
It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to dislike the trajectory of your life. It’s okay to not want to be what your parents think you should be. It’s okay to not approve of the direction society is headed. It’s okay to not approve of the way the government handles things. It’s okay to not get married and not have kids if you don’t want to. It’s okay to not be okay with the fact that you have social pressure, family pressure, work pressure, school pressure, and self-imposed pressure. I think as a whole, we get too caught up in trying to cover things up quickly to get back to whatever our status-quo is. It’s okay to take time to grieve and heal. It’s okay to not be on someone else’s timeline. At the end of the day, I can only be myself, whatever that looks like. I have to live with myself and the decisions I’ve made. I have to live in my skin, no one else does. What works for someone else might not work for me and that’s completely okay. It’s okay to feel depressed, anxious, angry, confused, and a million other things that coincide with those categories. Find your truth and forge your own path, you deserve it.
The Inner-roommate is maybe terminology you haven’t heard. I can guarantee you have one and it’s been living rent free in your head throughout your entire life. It mindlessly narrates our lives and we mistakenly think it’s our own voice when in fact it is not. This narrator is simply a vocal observer, you are the true experiencer. The narrator will attempt to throw you off course before you even get out of your bed on a daily basis. Did you know you have a choice, that you don’t have to take stock in what it says, that you can be free from its judgement?
Facades are part of the way we exist as humans. I can count on one hand the amount of people I can actually be myself with. The other moments of my life that are spread out at work, in public, at events, with acquaintances, at school, at the gym, or wherever you find yourself. I have different facade or persona for each of those places. I would encourage you to think about how much time you actually spend being your true self and how much you spend accessing facades. These can also serve as protection when he have experienced a trauma for example, using the facade to protect myself from the horror of events past. I find that a lot of facades are born from fear. If I can face my fears, there’s no longer a reason to hide.
The idea that we have to be a completed work before being in a relationship with another person is just not feasible. We all have things we are working on at any point in our lives. Someone once told me they have been married 30 times and she didn’t mean literally. She meant her husband has been 30 different versions of himself over the course of their marriage. In the context of dating, if I’m undergoing an evolution then maybe I should take some time to let that cement before I add someone else to the mix. This has been happening for me lately where I feel like I have too much internal movement to give of myself to someone else. My identity is shifting and my self-image is shifting as well. What I think about myself and my relative place in the world is changing as well. I would encourage you to identity how many worlds you’re trying to straddle at one time, which could be causing identity disturbances. If my feet aren’t planted firmly on the ground, how can I expect to move efficiently in the direction I wish to travel?
So often as humans we want to reach back into our past to re-experience something we miss. We reach back into the past to recapture an opportunity we regret losing. We reach back into the past to find validation that no longer exists or serves us. We reach back into the past because it’s comfortable and we’ve been there before. Being present in the moment seems difficult and often times trivial. There are times when we reach into the future that doesn’t yet exist and expect things from ourselves as if it does. The past has already happened and we have evolved from those experiences so why would we want to travel backwards? Staying present allows you to experience moments or a series of moments. When you tune into yourself, only at that time can you see how tuned out you’ve actually become. We can get so focused on outside things that we forget about ourselves and our basic needs for extended periods of time. It’s time to check back in with yourself and see how you’re actually doing…
Being burnt out with life is a well known concept so why do we allow it to still happen? Why with the knowledge of things do we still repeat the same patterns or similar patterns that seem different that have the same results? Having an emotional breaking point is sometimes necessary to make an assessment of self and figure out what it is that I’m doing too much of or not enough of. These last few years have been emotionally traumatic in a way that I don’t even think we realize as a society. Maybe take some time this week to check in with yourself.
The concept of identity can be relevant to many different areas of your life. When it is tied to something that can change or that is mostly external in nature/outside of your realm of control, it can break your sense of self. This can cause identity disturbances that can impact your self-image and cause an existential crisis. I would challenge you to assess what your identity is tied to and who you are without that person/career/thing in your life.
The concept of ‘a good life’ is something you’ve heard about many times. We see it in movies, tv shows, hear it in songs, and have it modeled for us by people directly/indirectly involved in our lives. What if you had a good life and didn’t know it? You could have a great life on paper and simply not be able to see it. The whole idea of not being able to see the forest for the trees applies here. What if having a good life meant that you were completely self-satisfied, wanting for nothing? What if you didn’t have to assess yourself and compare yourself to your colleague or neighbor? What if you decided you had a good life and started living on that basis?
The human experience can be endless suffering if we allow it to be. Are you controlling the things you can and accepting the things you cannot? My mental, physical, and emotional well-being are tied together. If one falls it can impact the other two without even a second thought. Anger is something we see everyday as people display it in a variety of ways. Are you living with anger and don’t know it? Is anger impacting your ability to breathe a spiritual breath? Is anger masking things that are happening under the surface that you’re not aware of?
Self-acceptance is something that gets overlooked because I think people don’t take it deep enough. I need self-acceptance at my core. That means, the absolute worst parts of myself are included in this, not just the good ones. You will see in your journey (hopefully) that accepting the worst parts of yourself will bring the most relief. What if I told you that you could everything you need to be for yourself (inside and out)? Is that something you might be interested in (Entourage reference)?!
Depression is a term I’m sure you’ve heard so many times that it doesn’t even register with you. I think we need to reel that back in and take a look at how we’ve become desensitized to the severity of depression episodes or elongated periods of depression. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Don’t let anyone tell you that your experience is not valid. Don’t let your depression win.
Firstly, we as humans need to be better about being nice to each other. Take that how you will but there’s a lot of controversy at the moment. Personally, I don’t think we need to keep adding to it. Now moving on to the concept of the ‘ideal self’ or this new me that I constantly search for. I consistently feel bad about myself for not living up to this idealized version of me that I haven’t gotten to yet. Sounds crazy but it’s an absolute driving force in my life. We need to take time to be proud of ourselves for just everyday things while on our quest to conquer the world or get to the next versions of ourselves.
Anxiety is wildly common and maybe even too much so. I would assert that it’s so common we overlook it and don’t give it the time it deserves. Haven’t you ever felt invalidated when you told someone about your anxiety? Did someone tell you that everyone has anxiety so you need to just suck it up?! Those messages are not only harmful, they’re downright detrimental. Never let anyone tell you what you’re experiencing is invalid because they don’t have to live in your skin, only you do!
Self-dialogue is the language I use when speaking to myself in my mind on a daily basis. The things I allowed to be said about me in my head will dictate my reality. The voices being heard are not your own but that of what we can call inner-narrators. People have said things to you over the course of your life that have been morphed into what you believe to be your own voice. We can learn to dis-identity from those narrators and take back control of how much commotion we allow in our minds.
Self-esteem is such a buzz term these days. No one really wants to explain how to get it or why it’s important. There’s also a huge different between self-esteem and confidence, which maybe you weren’t aware of. I can fake confidence. I can’t fake having true self-esteem because it shows through my behaviors.
Perception dictates our reality. How we perceive information will silently determine the world we live in. You can have more control over the placement of the information you’re perceiving than you might think. I’m going to provide a simple framework for beginning to shift your perception and in turn, your reality.