YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Our good friend Mental Fairy stated plainly what has been rattling around in my mind for weeks:

Mental Fairy wrote: ↑August 4th, 2023, 12:42 pm Use your skills elsewhere if possible Oak. Make a plan, forge ahead. If possible of course. But this job is sucking your soul dry.

For now, here are two things I can admit to myself, and my friends here:

1. My soul has been crushed.

2. I have an idea of what an un-crushed soul would look like, a year from today: I want to do yoga teacher training (YTT) in September 2024.

That's all I can handle, anxiety-wise, to admit for now. I'd like to come back to this thread in the future.

A related, perhaps, vignette

If I can add, to the above, a sort of "you had to be there" moment I had when talking with my friend/mentor the other day.

I explained that I've always been drawn to hippies, that I have a bit of a hippie heart.

My friend: "Wanting to be a hippie is not shameful."

Me (passionately, and without a hint of irony): "I'm not ashamed! I've just been repressing it for years!"

Hi friends.

I see more and more Americans being lost to conspiracy theories. I see many of these same people filled with rage. They are so certain, and they scare me.

While I increasingly avoid them, I realize it will take all my energy to pursue my goals. I can’t spend any more time or energy worrying about them. I can wish them well, from afar.

I’d like to participate in a kettlebell competition in December, and do yoga teacher training this time next year.

After a hellish start (and middle) to 2023, I am excited for life. I could just use a little good luck. Or less bad luck, until I can get I my feet again.

Thanks for listening!

Follow the good feelings Oak, anything that doesn’t feel in alignment with your true self can just fall away.

Thanks, Mental Fairy. I’m already, in the few days since our posts, taking action.

Friends, here is visual representation of my year, when I demonstrate courage:

I am clearly visible on the right, and 2023 enters from the left:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Eyebleach/comments/15qau1t/the_cutest_scare_ever/

Ha! That .gif is the greatest!

Oak, would you say that you enjoy constant improvement, month-in month-out?

Hi Manuel Moe . I hope you’re doing well.

Week to week is the the natural rhythm for me, since I was in graduate school twenty years ago: if I can just make it to Sunday afternoon.

Then, after a year of (at best) two-steps-forward-one-step-back, I can often see gradual changes after about a year.

How about you? What is your natural timeframe to effect change?

Hi Oak

My pace for a mental change (where i know the right thing to do intellectually, but I don't "feel" it, and i definitely don't feel it in my body), would be 6 months to a year

just having it constantly in front of mind, thinking it out, over that large a span of time usually does it

but I would say that each month is better than the month proceeding it, even if the growth is minuscule