One of the best decisions I made last year was to start therapy. Ostensibly it was to help with job burnout, but I’ve found it extremely useful to have someone listen to my worries about all the weirdness in the world and my own reflections about personal happiness, relationship stuff, chronic low-grade anxieties, and portents of mortality.
For most of my life I’ve resisted any sort of emotional/mental health counseling because I believed that a) whatever was wrong didn’t rise to the level of needing professional help, and b) that a therapist would identify that something truly was wrong with me, and I didn’t want that.
What I got instead is someone who is an advocate, an ally, and a sounding board.
I think it helps that I went in with an open mind and a desire to weed out bad habits, and old frames of reference, and a willingness to sincerely try new strategies for improving my emotional health.
At around the same time I also did a 40 day mindfulness meditation ‘class’ (Mindfulness Daily at Work with Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield). A non-trivial part of what I want to change is my self-talk, and the mindfulness meditation has helped me with that.
And so, as I contemplate what brings me joy and how to turn toward that, I’ve decided to shoot for one hundred days straight of blogging in an attempt to re-establish that habit.
(100 Days of Blogging: Post 003 of 100)