Three Good Things
Its been about two years since I would consider myself on the healing side of depression, suicidal thinking and catastrophic anxiety, after having our babies. The consequences of negative thinking from those years are still in affect today.
At the end of the day, it becomes very easy for me to be overwhelmed with the family needs, managing feeling tired and wanting a bit of space. My default is to fall into the headspace that everything is falling apart and spiraling out of control. When actually, I just need to take a step away from the circumstance, take a deep breath and get a new perspective and figure out what is the priority for now.
These moments are when I find it very helpful to dig from the tool box of mental wellbeing exercises that I have been taught over the years by various health professionals and research. Its not always easy to remember to do in the moment and honestly I could probably do it more than I currently do now, but we are a work in progress.
This week I am going to share one easy exercise that doesn't take up to much brain power but also is a really great tool for any support person to have up their sleeve.
Sometimes its hard being the support person listening all the time, not always knowing what to do or how to help, having exercises like these become little gems you can pull out and hopefully bring some relief and support. In the right moment you can ask these questions and also help to answer the questions when the person you are supporting is struggling to find something good to see.
I know this is what got me through, having people beside me that could remind me of the truth and good things in my life to try to break through all the negative thoughts, feelings and emotions.
Three Good Things . . . What are three good things about you or about your day or about your family.
I love the simplicity of this exercise, all I need to do is ask myself what are three good things about whatever topic (that's what I do). You could keep it just as a day focus, but I like to change it up a bit so that I'm distracted into thinking about something different to the situation that has triggered the negative mental space I am in.
Example would be I have had a really bad day, knowing who I am, I don't want to think about that bad day anymore because that's why I'm feeling so out of control and negative, so I might ask myself what are three good things about me, or three good things about my husband or three good things about having a loving pet. I do it this way because for me I am positively distracting my brain that I get this sense of calming down so I can take a deep breath and refocus.
Maybe your someone who isn't as wired and intense as me but can get really melancholy and thinking of three good things about your day helps to lift you into a place of positive thinking.
You might even be someone who finds these exercises don't really work, or require more energy to process than you can give. That's fine too. It could be that your a person who is great at suggesting these exercises for others.
I can only really share from my experience, for me it shifts my perspective, it challenges my negative thinking and feeds into a more grateful attitude. This exercise is simple enough that you can do it on a toilet break, changing a nappy, cooking dinner or picking up the kids.
The biggest thing I have learnt through my mental health challenges is that I have a choice, a choice to get better, to work on change, to sit in the negative or try to find the positive. I have a choice to ask for help or not, to try to trust people or tell myself I am a burden. I have a choice to help myself through the day, not always to expect others to carry me through.
Thinking of three good things, doesn't mean you need to then become full of energy and excitement (well this is my opinion). For me it means that I can be who I am, feel what I need to feel however this exercise contributes to building a positive, grateful, kind and healthy perspective regardless of the emotions, it helps me to get my mind back into a rational place where I can figure out what I need to do next instead of walking down the path of negative thoughts where I often end up questioning the point of all of this. Again, I'm simply sharing from my experience, my thought processes and personality and hurdles I have to jump but hopefully there is something in this that you may find helpful.
Look at our friend Eeyore again, he is a very depressed little donkey but he does have a knack for finding some good in situations. As I end this post I shall finish it off with a couple of quotes and hopefully leave you to ponder whether you need to exercise seeing more good in a situation than bad and maybe you could challenge yourself to a week of saying three good things each day.
Thank you for taking the time to read these thoughts and please feel free to comment, give some feed back, add some of your advice or tips, we would love to hear from you!
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