Build a new relationship with uncertainty throughout your life or your daily practices will just logically and rationally have you struggling and suffering and relapsing back into a depressive anxiety hole. This video explains an approach that I credit with helping me recover and maintaining great mental health for the past eight years:
Tag: work
Recently, Matt and I did a couple of videos exploring intrusive thoughts or anxieties and why it’s useful to look at why we’re afraid of the consequences of those thoughts or anxieties coming true. There’s an exercise for doing that, The 5 Whys, which I shared in my book, The Mind Workout, and Matt explains near the end of this video:
Recently, Daniela posted over on the Everybody has a Brain Tumblr about some anxiety challenges she tackled after getting laid off, then searching for a new job, and then at her new workplace. Her story was such a great example of all the skills we’re always talking about, and it includes vomit! It’s so useful to talk about overcoming these challenges and often that means overcoming very real physical symptoms, like nausea. So I wanted to share Daniela’s post and …
I think back to when I was a pre teen and there was so much happening, not only physically but also mentally… That’s when I first recall OCD happening to me–I was around 12 years old and I began to count and touch doors, handles, count my steps, turn off the TV at the “right time”. I had no idea what was happening, it all seemed innocent to me back then, just a little quirk I had. I just wanted …
I was part of a panel discussion at the University of Toronto recently on community engagement work in the mental health sector. It was exciting to see so many people interested in working in mental health. The questions and comments from the audience made it clear that they understood the need for patient-centered innovation and they wanted to create change in the sector. But with innovation, there’s turmoil, in any industry. So here are five things to consider if you’re looking at …
I got this question over on the EHAB Tumblr: Can I ask why it’s not good to define yourself based on your mental illness? I mean I understand that I am complex and interesting beyond my depression, but sometimes I feel like people who say things like that are trying to get me to stop talking about it/get over it. Can you explain what you think the goal of “you are not your illness” mantras are? The simple answer is: …
If you struggle with anxiety, you’re very likely going to work in a way that’s built around trying to avoid anxiety. So you’ll do things like: Not delegate or let other people handle things for you. Try to fix problems alone before anybody finds out. Avoid leading because you’re worried about things going wrong. Avoid leading because you like to correct others. Avoid leading because you think you’re not good enough, or people will think you don’t deserve it. Create …
That ad pictured above for the book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, suggests that avoiding people is just part of being quiet. Actually, crossing the road because you don’t want to make small talk with somebody is an anxiety disorder symptom. Reacting to that anxiety will only make you experience more anxiety in the future, along with all of the depression, regret, and other co-morbid unpleasantness that goes along with feeding compulsions. Quiet makes an argument …