Tag: mental health and wellness

  • facing your fears

    “Fear is a friend that you misunderstand.” – John Mayer

    Lately, I have been filled with fears. I have been obsessed with my fears. I have been talking about them, and about the concept of fear.

    Today I realized that I don’t have to let those fears consume me.

    At the root of fear is what is important to us.

    Now, if you have a fear of losing someone, it means you have an attachment to them, usually love. If you have a fear of losing anything, it means you care about it.

    If you have a fear of dying, it means you love living.

    The opposite of fear is love.

    Irrational fears? That’s a slightly different topic.

    The brain likes to invent little imaginary stories about what bad things could happen. I like to attribute that to our cave-faring ancestors, passing down their instincts to watch for sabretooth tigers.

    Today, I’m addressing those deep-rooted, lifelong fears: the ones that will come and go and circle back around until you learn to conquer them or accept them as part of life.

    The list of what they could be is quite long, and they are usually universal as well as individual. Whatever your fear is, know this:

    You don’t have to act on every impulse your brain says you need to in order to conquer the fear. Sometimes the best medicine is to simply acknowledge it and continue about your life.

    I’m not claiming you can just be immune to fear, but you can try to understand it as a concept. Fear is what shows you what’s important; in many cases, fear is used as a motivator and that is for a reason.

    If you are afraid of something, supervillains would call you weak. If you are afraid of something, there are people who will exploit that.

    My TikTok algorithm is testament to that. A bad boss could be testament to that. A particularly jarring Ad campaign could be testament. I don’t think I need to defend the idea that exploiting fear has its own economy.

    However, while we cannot stop fear from being exploited at large, (not in a single day), we can stop it from being exploited by our own inner voice.

    I’m an expert in trying to fend off the brain’s unique brand of spiral-inducing intrusive thoughts, all correlated to fears of mine.

    I am understanding that this is just a shadowy projection of my consciousness and that however uncomfortable, it is a necessary evil.

    The Yin and Yang show it’s never fully one side of the story. There is bad in the good, and good in the bad. On the other side of that shadowy side of my mind, there is the light fighting right back.

    There was a fable about two wolves, a white wolf and a black wolf both starving, representing light and dark, and the stronger one will be the one you feed.

    You don’t have to starve your fear if it motivates you, but if it is debilitating some days like mine, then you don’t have to feed it either.

    I did a few things to face my fears: I changed my TikTok algorithm, I took a week off work, I try not to look at too many bad news stories. I had to calm myself, reach out to my support system, I have to use grounding techniques. I have to remind myself that not every fear is an ultimate truth.

    If you have a fear today: put it to bed, tuck it in, kiss it goodnight, and go find the root of it – Find the love that caused it and cling onto that until the fear goes away, or at least quiets for a while.

  • the matter of time

    “We are infinite and we are finite, all in the same breath. This is the way of natural things.” – Hannah McPherson

    I found myself on a staycation for a week.

    I’ve tried to read a book, listen to a podcast, listen to music.

    I’m not even 3 hours into my first day, and I’m already bored and not knowing what to do. Now, since the point of this staycation is to get relaxed and settled, which I sometimes struggle with, I should be comfortable doing nothing.

    However, I work hard, even at things like relaxing. I plan to take the week and clean house, run errands, work on my own creative projects, and take the world by a storm through personal productivity.

    These are high goals I may not reach, but there is no harm in setting them. I’m sure my indecision will stop tasks, my need to relax may delay cleaning, errands may hit complications, but alas – I can still aim at the stars. Even if I only make it halfway, I will have gone farther than going nowhere at all.

    This brings us to the title of this post, “The Matter of Time”.

    This week may go by quickly or slowly, depending on the fluidity of each and every collective moment. However, when it is done it will feel as though it was quick and a lifetime all at once.

    I stress a lot about time.

    In the matter of our mortality, what we have is so limited, but in the moment, things tend to happen very slowly. They say things speed up as you get older, and they do, but not in the way you think.

    We tend to, later in our lives, fill our days with more things. We fill our lives with so much purpose we can hardly contain it. In this sense, I’m defining purpose as things that get us out of bed in the morning and give our lives meaning, whatever that looks like for you.

    So how do we deal with the Matter of Time?

    We don’t. We simply show up. We witness, we participate, and then we (I would hope) go home. We go to wherever we came from. We did what we did, we saw what we saw, and those who knew us know and those who didn’t will never be the wiser.

    We can look forward and backward at time, we can live in the present moment, but we do not control the current.

    The current is a natural thing that runs through all things, specifically in this case the perception of time passing in our lives.

    Some people call this “The Flow”.

    They’ll tell you to go with the flow, which is perfectly acceptable. If you never did anything a day in your life except that, I think you’d turn out just fine; for example, when Harry Potter drinks the luck potion. He was in flow, and things just fell into place.

    However, we are creatures of creation and action, so we like to move and swim within the current. We like to try to direct the flow. We, like old cowboys, try to wrangle and wrestle our time to get the most out of it.

    Life is, in fact, just one wild ride.

    As I look down the barrel of time for the next week, the next month, the next year, or for the rest of my life, I have one piece of advice for you: Go with the flow, wrangle the flow, whatever you choose…do it with intention. It is our free will and our choice that makes time so valuable.

    I will try to live my next week with the intentions I had when I set out on this journey, but if they don’t live up to my expectations, it will be okay, because God-willing, there will be more time.

    When you choose intentionally, just know time itself, the living-breathing phenomena it is, will sometimes veto your intentions and direct you somewhere more aligned for you.

    Is time alive?

    Not in the sense that a squirrel in the tree is alive, or you might be, but in the sense that electricity is alive, in the sense that nature itself has life and can be classified as parts of the whole that move us through the system we know as existence.

    Time isn’t going to literally call you up and tell you what for, but it will gently guide you. Time is often misunderstood. If you start giving time the credit it deserves, you may find you’ll enjoy it quantifiably more.

  • my best work – uninspired

    “My best work comes to me while uninspired.” – Hannah McPherson

    Irony finds me in the best way, I believe.

    On a day where I’m alight with creativity and I know exactly what I want to create, my work can be a beautiful masterpiece. However, my best work comes to me while uninspired.

    On the days where I’m detached, a little lost in my head, and quiet on the creative front, yet I sit down and create anyway, there is an authenticity and a rawness that is hard to find.

    Usually, this is due to the magic mist of optimism being thin, the enchantment is gone. I tend to paint a very realistic picture of what the world is as I see it.

    No one sees the world like you. No one sees the world like me. This is the beauty of individualism on our planet. It can be lonely, being the only one who really knows what and how you see, but there are moments of honesty, where people can see what you see and go, “I relate to that.”

    That is where the real magic is found.

    There are few who can relate to my more cosmic musings, but there are many who relate to my rawness and realness in states of lacking inspiration, myself included.

    To make the graphic for this post, I opted for comfort in sunrises, birds, and galaxies. Those are my go-to inspiring things. To name this post, I was going to make it something grand, but I couldn’t think of anything.

    It’s like I just ran out of juice.

    The truth is I have been balancing a lot in my day-to-day life, and that means the creative aspects of myself are suffering slightly, because once again, I’m in the fight or flight of survival, not thriving in comfort.

    Which is ironic because I’m in my robe, with my candle, my playlist, with a coffee beside me. It’s Saturday morning and it’s been jubilant, but I’ve had a lot on my mind.

    There is no mantra today. There is just this:

    “Not every thought will be long lasting, not every moment will be magical, and not every creator can create all the time. We leave that to the divine. Human limitations exist for a reason, listen to that reason.” – Hannah McPherson

  • today is gentle

    “Not everything in life will be comfortable, but then again, comfort is subjective.” – Hannah McPherson

    Today, you could say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

    My dream was truly wonderful, but the moment I woke up the house was chaos.

    Now, as someone who likes it when life is gentle, today was the opposite. However, I took the opportunity to practice gratitude. I took a deep breath, said “okay, this is the moment, but this doesn’t have to last the day.”

    My new mantra today will be “Today is gentle.”

    Why? Because when your nervous system is under attack, there is no stopping the discomfort and displaced feeling until you’ve convinced yourself that you will be okay.

    I’m already bracing for “the worst day ever” in my mind, so by introducing this mantra, I am telling my body to stop bracing for pain and start embracing the possibility of miracles.

    By miracles, I mean an easy day at work, I mean problem resolution without strenuous effort, I mean things turning in the right direction after a little disruption.

    In doing this, my entire demeanor will change from being on guard and in panic state to something softer and more open. I will be attracting these good things with my own mentality.

    Instead of worrying over every outcome, I will be accepting and loving towards myself and others so that positivity can shine through, even if things are hard.

    We create our own comfort.

    Today could go either way, but I have a feeling it will go much better if I change my own mind about how it turns out ahead of time.

    If you ever have a hard morning, don’t let it sully the endless possibilities of the rest of the day. There is beauty in it all, even in the discomfort. It is our job to find the beauty and bring it into our perspective, in order to keep from being swallowed by all the harshness of life.

    As someone who values feeling safe, snuggled, and cozy; life rarely offers this opportunity without a little effort on our part. Don’t be afraid of the effort it takes to regulate yourself, because on the other side, there is comfort waiting.

    The song attached is about always reaching for the next great thing. It came on as I wrote this post.

    I wrote it about our need to find our next happy moment, our next success, our next plateau. In waves, there are troughs and crests, we always want to be at the crest, but when in the troughs, we forget that we are bound to rise again.

    It is important to remember that it is all part of the process, and the pain will pass.

    “There is always a new horizon, there is always another for finding.” – Hannah McPherson

    The song also talks about how we find that next horizon on the other side of a hard choice, but sometimes the hard choice is the guiding light of loving yourself enough to get through discomfort.

    It mentions that there is no way to heal your mind, because the thing is you’ll always need healing. Healing is a task you come back to over and over for different things, or the same thing, but you’ll always want it and need it. The key is to grow through it. The key is to keep showing up.

    This song stood out to me because it was originally written about my writing journey and where I’m at in my career, keeping up with my household, growing up in all sense of the word and where I thought my life would be.

    Here’s the thing: it will always require work and that work may not always be comfortable, but if I stay true to myself and take care of my needs, working out those goals is totally reachable. Once they’re complete, I’ll have new goals. So, the process will start again.

    Which leads me to the cover image: subjective comfort. What is comfortable to you, may not be comfortable to someone else. You have to find your own vision for comfort. Whatever it looks like to you, it is up to you to attain it. The world is not set up to freely give comfort, though we are sometimes rarely gifted with a kind gesture, it still comes at the cost of the giver.

    You are always the first option for being the giver of your own comfort. When no one else is offering it, offer it to yourself.

  • Today’s Self vs. The Cosmic Self

    “If you look at the small picture, you’ll see ‘Today’s Self’. If you look at the big picture, you’ll see your ‘True Self’.” – Hannah McPherson

    I was lying in bed last night running through all the scenarios in my head of how the day went, trying to go to sleep. Then, I remembered I am a being made of stardust and I have a whole cosmic journey. Sweating over the smallest things takes away from the biggest picture.

    Each day, we are new. Each day, we take on a new set of experiences, challenges, and memories. However, when you zoom out to the whole – we have an entire lifetime of those.

    Now, unless you’re a savant, you probably don’t remember every single day of your life – even ones you thought were the most important day ever, or alternatively the worst day ever.

    Some part of you will keep that knowledge, but your day to day “Today Self” will not.

    Now, the “True Self” or what I like to call the “Cosmic Self” will remember. It is my hope when we end our time here, we get to review it all and recall what we have lost in the sauce of everyday existence.

    Until then, I’m aiming to paint the whole experience, not just today. I’m determined to paint a picture so grand and colorful that it will fill me with joy and surprise at all I did and forgot about.

    So, with that in mind, I’ll refer to how I started this thought last night: I cannot get so caught up in how today went, that I forget to get excited about how my whole entire life will go.

    My message to you is this: “Today’s Self” whether it was the best version, the worst version, or somewhere in between, is just a small fractal of the “Cosmic Self” – and all of it is wholly and one hundred percent you. You are able to look in whichever magic mirror you want to, at any time, free of charge. I recommend looking through the mirror that is most true to you.

  • I AM THE MOUNTAIN

    “I was panicking, and I thought to myself, ‘I am the mountain.’ – Suddenly, I was unmovable. I was solid. I was ancient.” – Hannah McPherson

    Today, I was having a particularly hard time at work with a rush last minute deadline. I could feel the panic welling up in my chest like a tidal wave.

    Before I could react further, something inside me simply said, “I am the mountain.” – Now it has become my new mantra.

    It also became this song. Now I have an anthem.

    I keep repeating it in this post because I’m still trying to get it to set in. There is so much power in being a tall standing, unshakable, larger than life mountain.

    To be a solid form of land and rock that strikes the sky with its peaks, to be older than anything that could stand on it, out of this world structure of nature, is to be untouchable.

    I think mantras are very important to training the brain for positive and imaginative thinking. They are keycodes to bring you back to a moment or a feeling, especially if they’ve been picked up in a moment of inspiration or connection. They don’t have to be cosmic in nature, but I find it is fun when they are.

    If you repeat things to yourself, your brain gets to really dive into the meaning making process, adding layer after layer of emotional and physical and mental memory to your understanding of whatever it is you’re repeating.

    This can be said for positive and negative things.

    If I had simply reinforced my panicking with a mantra of, “I am panicking” then I don’t think I would have made it confidently striding back into the building but rather would have spiraled into a sort of impulsive need to jolt from the property.

    So, if you’re going to repeat things, try to find things worth repeating. If you’re going to tell your brain what to do, make sure it has an effect on you that is desirable to you.

    The brain listens to the body. Today, my brain told me I was a mountain, and the body listened.

  • A GOOD DAY TO BE TIRED

    “Hot Take: It’s a gift to be tired.” – Hannah McPherson

    Today, I find myself alive and energized. I am grateful for these moments.

    I have no doubts that later in the day, I’ll hit a wall and be tired. Life tends to wear us out.

    I had a friend who was telling me she was tired; not sleepy but in her being, that life had just taken her for a ride, and she was feeling the effects. I resonated with that.

    However, my advice to her was that it was a gift to be tired. I think Earth does that to us. Being “beings” is exhausting. There is a cost of energy that we must pay to participate in existence.

    Whether the things you’re going through in life are good or bad, we’re all paying the energetic price.

    I’d like to open up a framework in your mind to consider, no matter the way that life is treating you, you can be grateful to be tired.

    Someone who is having a really hard time might think I’m insane to say so, but hear me out:

    Tiredness can be evidence that you have lived and that is the whole point.

    From the good times to the bad, if you are living, you are doing something right. Tiredness does not mean that you have failed. It’s quite the opposite actually. If you are still here to be tired, then you have made it through whatever it is life has given you.

    Tiredness is an unavoidable part of life.

    Yet, if you don’t fight it, and allow it to be part of your being’s experience in this life, if you choose to be grateful for it, then the path to healing, the path to energy opens up.

    We have ways of replenishing ourselves: rest (first and foremost), self-care (whatever that looks like for you), relaxation, meditation, comforting ourselves with positive affirmations, breathing exercises, etc.

    So, being tired is an opportunity to replenish. It’s your body telling you it’s time to take some time to do what makes you energized.

    For me, this is being creative. For me, this is feeding my soul. For me, this is a requirement of everyday life. Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Health is the most important part of my day, everyday.

    Because being tired is the cost of life, taking time for our health trinity is the currency we pay it with, and it is a gift to be able to even transact on this system at all.

  • the creative process

    “I just feel like I’m not good enough for creative spaces. I am worried people will judge me. I’m scared people won’t like me.“ – Hannah McPherson

    These are real things I’ve said.

    Today, I made a website, I made graphics and branding materials, I made videos and I made art.

    I made an attempt to get my voice out into the world. I should be proud.

    Instead? I’m devastated.

    Why? It’s not perfect. I’m going to be seen and I don’t like that the simple act of being seen these days has consequences.

    Or worse, I may not be seen and I won’t feel like I’m enough.

    This is the wrong way to do things.

    I was in my creative space and I was sitting in total darkness except for a candle like I was some midnight Victorian lady. I was going into the classic shame spiral. The one that most artists suffer from.

    I realized something important, though. I could let this defeat me, never touch this website again and continue my life unbothered.

    The only problem is that I really would have been bothered; bothered by not trying, bothered by not letting myself share my creations, and bothered by the looming feeling that if I don’t ever do it, I never will.

    As much as I can’t stand to be imperfect, I also will not stand for giving up before I’ve even started.

    If you’re someone out there who feels this way sometimes, I have a few things to tell you.

    BE GENTLE ON YOURSELF

    I had forgotten to turn on my favorite nebula light. I turned it on, and I instantly felt better. Remember that self-care is important. Give yourself the things that you need to be in your best mind-space.

    BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

    You were not put here at random, at least I don’t believe we are. It helps to know that you are an entire existence, and though it is limited, you have purpose and power in your free will and choice to live it as you please. The best use of free will is to follow your heart, and if your heart is telling you to create, then create.

    WORRYING STEALS OPPORTUNITIES

    If you never got out of bed this morning because you didn’t want to seize the day, I get it. If you didn’t chase that opportunity because you weren’t sure how it was going to work out, I understand. However, every doubt is a wall in your way. You have to break down those walls, or jump over them, to get to the next opportunity is on the other side.

    LAST THING: CARPE DIEM

    Everyone feels a little down, a little uninspired, a little worrisome about how life will treat them; You are not alone. Yet, when the day comes to put your creations out there, you take it. That day can be today. That day can be as soon as you finish reading this post. Why? Because you want to. If you don’t, and you’re just here to appreciate, that’s fine, but I hope that day finds you. The joy I feel we humans get from creating is a rare gift; not because not everyone has it, but because few people actually want to use it. I know I will use it every chance I get, because there is no greater reward than sharing my expression with the world.

    Run out with your rallying cry of, “I THINK, Therefore I AM!!!”

    CONCLUSION:

    I turned on the nebula light. I made a post about being insecure. I let the website be imperfect. I let the video I made sit for a minute. I left the candle going, and I took a moment to reflect. I will be okay, and hopefully in these moments you will be too. The answer was to love myself enough to let myself have what I want, while being afraid of it.

  • The art of inner literacy

    “I want people to feel comfortable in their own mind.” – Hannah McPherson

    I wanted to explain what I was feeling; it came so deeply. I thought of how science had not yet come across a way to measure the subjective experience, so it doesn’t get talked about nearly as much.

    But what if we found a way?

    I want to teach an ‘Inner Literacy’ course, which would be me learning alongside others.

    This course would outline and help me and the fellow students identify their internal world and how it signals our thoughts.

    This is not a therapy, this is not a crisis center, this is not forced participation in a group setting. ‘Inner Literacy’ is designed for those who want to get to know their own inner voice better. It is for people who want to find a system to learn about their internal self.

    How does it work?

    We notice a feeling, name a feeling, then pause to reflect on it, we weigh the possibility of action/reaction, and then we make an informed decision on how to proceed or integrate the feeling.

    Will there be more to come on this?

    Yes, I just want to give a light introduction to the topic. A lot of my work currently revolves around this subjective experience course framework, so I just want to give a definition. If you see a reference and are curious, I’d be open to discussion and discourse about the idea.