The whirlwind of life and letting your thoughts get the better of you is crazy. I normally start the year off with a post about positive vibes and good energy but I definitely wasn’t in a good mental space starting off the year. I literally forgot to challenge my thoughts and was overthinking a lot of situations happening in my life. I let my anxiety get the better of me and eventually just had a full on anxiety attack, with the therapist being on the zoom call. She was able to get me back on earth but lordt, was that a rough ride. A rough ride that I haven’t had since my sister (2016) and my dad (2017) died.
Talking to my personal therapist, the biggest take away I got from our sessions was challenging my thoughts. I could have a thought of “Are you doing enough in life?” and that could just keep going in a downhill spiral as far as “Nah you aren’t”, “You aren’t where you’re suppose to be”, “what would *so and so* say about the lack of effort.” Just a million unnecessary questions in my mind that serve no purpose. Challenging my thoughts has really helped me stick to me and stop second guessing a lot of things. Anxiety can look like a lot of things, like you are worried, afraid of something about to happen or you feel tense. It’s different for a lot of people but for me I freeze. I get lost in my thoughts. My breathing gets crazy heavy and my chest gets tight. If it gets that far, in most cases, I want nothing to do with people and I have to disappear for awhile. I never used to get like this and it took me awhile figure out what worked for me to get better.
As men, we are always taught we are suppose to be the strong ones. You can figure it out. You don’t need support because you are the support but at the end of the day WE ALL NEED SUPPORT. I’ve learned to never allow things to stress me out to the point where I am unhappy. The moment I become unhappy, I need to take a step back and reevaluate why that thing is causing me unhappiness and if I really need it in my life. Life is way to short to be stressed and unhappy about things you can’t control. Live your life today because tomorrow is never promised.
In hard time, it’s always reasonable to seek help in professional who will challenge your thoughts and guiding you in the right path. Most importantly is holding on to hope and your sense of self. Even during the toughest time there is always lights around the tunnel. Hold on to your believe to “ Live your life today because tomorrow is never promised”
Things will get better.