Mental Elephant

Mental health is many things to many people. There is no singular experience that defines how it affects people.

• Mental health is massive and strong much like the river flowing. You drown not by failing into a river but by staying submerged in it. • Outlets at Silverthorne • Location: Silverthorne, CO

There is no preparation. Maybe a few signs. My first experience with mental health was the loss of my father, six years ago, is very different from my recent experience being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and Graves' disease. My experiences with mental health is different from my ex-boyfriend or my good friend and probably even your mental health issues. There is an overall environment and process of dealing with mental health shared by many.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "mental health includes are emotional, pyschological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices."

1 out 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year. More than 50% will be diagnosed at some point in their lifetime.

Mental health illnesses can occur over a short period of time or be episodic. It comes and goes with discreet beginnings and ends. Did you know there are more than 200 types of mental illnesses?

The internal experience of mental health, much like grief, is likened to finding yourself in a small, dark, musty room, perphaps a small closet. The #anxiety and #depression weigh on you like a 10,000 pound elephant sitting on you. You are constricted, it is tight and feels like you are suffocating. No matter how you move to get relief, movement is impossible. You start panicking and #hyperventilating, sometimes it is overwhelming that you just shut down. It is overpowering and the mental illness is in control. The days can get rough and messy and painful. When you look back, it is the moments that you felt #lost and unsure that you'll remember.

You learn to co-habitate. You become very best friends.

Moments feel like hours and days like months. Eventually you feel a slight sense of release of pressure. You can take small breaths. It was hard to process that I was navigating in unknown territory. I just go with it and try to survive the moment, the day. Mental health illness has no concern for your well-being. You learn to co-habitate. It is like having a second layer of skin that attaches to you. Sometimes it gets irritated and flares up. Other times, it is dormant and laying in wait.

There are days I feel good and refreshed from the constraints of anxiety and its mucky presence. At times, it will decide to upstage my great attitude and remind me I can still get kicked in the arse and pulled down. It will be those moments after, those dark moments that lead you to #happiness. The days that break you are the days that make you. It does get easier and becomes a normal part of your daily routine.

There is No Road Map. No Clarity. No Time Stamp.

Managing your mental health is as important as managing your physical health. I was one of those that found I could operate and function in a daily routine. I could go to work. I could have a killer workout at the gym. I could read books on mental health illness and anxiety, but nothing provided solace or a better understanding. Some days I gave myself permission to not think or feel anything. I let myself be and try to sit being present in the moment. There is no road map, no clarity, no time stamp when the feelings would pass or come back.

Research. Perspectives. Comparisons. I was turning the kaleidoscope to understand by talking to therapists, friends who suffered mental health issues, was even in a relationship with someone who wore that blanket of comfort far longer than I had. You don't know yourself. That sort of makes you feel even more alienated.

For me, it was periods of isolation, some times self-inflicted, some times inadvertent. I did not have answers for people that asked how I was doing, especially during my early stages of being diagnosed diabetic. Honestly, I did not think people truly wanted to hear about the struggles. They were used to the happy-go-lucky positive cheerleader I generally am known to be. Though if I had to admit, bringing up my struggles with mental health and anxiety, bringing it out in the open, I truly felt better and it helped me not feel so isolated.

The truth of the matter is you are going through something and you are not in it alone. I think when you do not deny what is happening, you feel more capable, more visible to the world. When you acknowledge your situation, while things do not always go as expected, the bandwidth of goodness will keep coming. Over time, it is less overwhelming. Life is still going on outside. Fill your days with small pockets of #joy. Be your own hero. This is especially true for all of us. You have to show up for you. You have to reach out for help. I want to impress how valuable your state of mind is for you. Spend time with people good for your mental health. On particularly rough days, when it seems you can't possibly endure, you have to remember, it is not the baggage of our life that weighs us down, it is the way we carry it.

Too often, we believe we are stuck. When in reality, simply you are committed to certain patterns of behavior because they helped in the past. Now those behaviors have become more harmful than helpful. The reason why you cannot move forward is because you keep applying an old formula to a new level in your life. But if you change the formula, you will get a different result.

Elephants have a long life span. So does your mental health illness. Just never give up. Keep taking time for yourself until you are you again ♥

Cherry Creek State Park : Wetland Loop Trail

bon_vivi_ant_eats • Location: Cherry Creek State Park - Wetland Loop Trail - Greenwood Village / Cherry Creek, CO

♥ Here’s how the story began. World’s okayest hiker decides to move to a state where hiking is literally prerequisite for residency. Heard that saying "I'm outdoorsy. I like to drink on patios"? Hiking sits well like feta for me - meh and doesn’t go with my vibes...so I find a tribe of avid hikers to challenge myself.

Cherry Creek State Park is a natural prairie and wetland park with a 850-acre reservoir in the center of the park. While there are so many routes to get to the park, as a novice hiker, I started out at the southwest area near cities Cherry Creek and Greenwood Village, off the SH88 and Belleview.

Couldn’t stop catching rainbows on this portion of the state park and knocked out eight miles for a sunset view on my first hike in beautiful Colorado. Ladies and gentleman…meet your newest hiking member Snackity Smiles of the Cherry Creek herd.

#diabeticfoodie #tinygirlbigappetite #delishcarbs #eatprickworkout #cardio #fitness #mentalhealth #cherrycreek #localparks #toomanymilestotrek #hiking #trailstoexplore

Hopeful Romantic

There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either you need to change your life, or you are the one that will change theirs.

"And please, say to me

You'll let me hold your hand

Now, let me hold your hand

I want to hold your hand"

• Heritage Square • Location: Flagstaff, AZ

Even the most wonderful "perfect" couple can break up. Two genuinely great people start off head-over-heels in love but then somewhere along the way, they arrive at a break up, shocking family and friends. No one but the two people in the perfect relationship know who they feel perfectly right about sharing their lives with each other. Every person has unique needs they hope their partner will fulfilll. In truth, you’re always going to love a person that you saw a future with. But one day you’ll wake up and that feeling won’t matter as much as it once did. Accept that someday what pains you now will surely pain you less.

At this juncture of my life, I believe in commitment but it isn't a husband I necessarily need. In my 30s, I had more than seven #engagement proposals I could live without. While we do not choose who we are attracted to, we definitely do choose who you fall in love with and more importantly who you stay in love with. Real love is a #commitment to an imperfect person. Real love is a constant and true. It's your safe space, #lighthouse, north star. Whenever we are lost, we anchor ourselves and find strength in the love we have chosen. Everyone needs someone to share the emotional burdens of every day life - #rejection, career setbacks, money worries, adulting responsibilities, despair...someone who has your back. Someone steadfast. Someone committed.

Dating brings out lousy behavior in people.

In the past, I developed a proclivity for falling for men who did not value commitment or worse, did not value me. Men who wooed me zealously would ultimately criticize or try to change the adoring elements that drew them to me. I was too fiercely independent, too optimistic, too strong willed and driven. I started to wonder if I was uniquely cursed. Maybe if I played the card of being less pretty and dumber I could have a man commit easier. But that is not yours truly. I have an unshakeable worthiness and self love for myself. I deserve the love I give away.

I have come to know so many people who decidedly give up on love. I believe so many choose solitude because it offers freedom and possibility, no more wanting or keeping an eye out for love, dating. Their happiness was solely up to them.

I am not one of those people. I would not advocate for solitude. I am a hopeful romantic.

I believe in the power of words. It helps us reset our intentions, clarify our thoughts, and create a counternarrative to the voice of doubt many of us have murmuring in our heads. It is why I am compelled to scribble pen to paper in journals, writing even on the backs of ripped-open envelopes, words tacked on post its of every space I know. There are stories hidden in the language we use, whether we are conscious of them or not. They tell the truth of our hearts and minds.

Words having these five characteristics are words well-spoken, words that the wise do not criticize: spoken at the proper time; spoken in line with the #truth, spoken gently, spoken beneficially, and spoken with a friendly heart. Don't raise your voice. Improve your argument. Here's my argument for love.

I have cleared, created a space in my life for love. Choosing to love someone is one of the most beautiful things about love. Real love asks us to do hard things - to #forgive one another, to #support each other’s dreams, to #comfort in times of grief, to stay steady during times of crisis and despair, or to care for family. Real love isn’t easy - nothing like your first dates or the first month dating - but it’s far more meaningful and wonderful.

No one stays in love without work. No one falls out of love without choice.

I believe love is plentiful as oxygen and you simply have to breathe it in. Personally, I thrive best in a relationship because being partnered is far better to me. I have such a joyful life that I fill each moment with the very things that would make me happy. I do things for my own pleasure and prosperity. I prioritize myself exclusively. My self care makes me healthier and much happier. I experience my life and thrive.

The question about who you will love and when you will love them is out of your hands. It is a mystery that you cannot solve. It is not about fretting over your romantic status. You don't have to move fast or far. You can go just an inch. You can mark your progress breath by breath. Breathe in acceptance and breathe out love. Breathe in gratitude and out forgiveness.

Whatever happens to you belongs to you. You do not have to be stuck in the narrative of heartbreak. You can move forward after a break up. It does not have to absorb all of your emotional energy or determine your mood. There is still life and love out there. That is how you become a hopeful romantic ♥