Entry #2
This has been one of those weeks. One that has really tested my patience and pushed my limits. A couple of unexpected roadblocks have shown up and given me a much harder time than I expected. Honestly, things are going really well, and I'm extremely grateful to have the problems that I do. It's a privilege to worry about some of the things in my life. If you asked me how I'm doing right now I might say
Not great. But grateful.
I've realized there is a limit to how much I can do. It's not healthy to push myself as far as I would sometimes like. Waking up early and staying up until midnight or 1am every night for the past couple months is finally catching up to me. I've been running on less than 5 hours of sleep for a couple months now just trying to stay on top of everything. I thought I was doing a good job managing everything with no sleep, but I was not. As much as I would love to keep at this pace, and get everything done, I have no need to. Nobody is setting these expectations except for me. Constantly, I choose to have nearly perfect standards for things that don't even need it.
My video. Here's the first thing that is troubling me. Originally I wanted to stay on a once a week schedule for posting a video. All of the information I take in says to post as much as possible. To be successful you should be posting three times a day. Well dang, I can't keep up with that. So every other week became my standard for myself. And even with an entire week in between posts, I still feel like I'm drowning in work. Like I'm constantly running out of time. I feel like Alexander Hamilton. Always running out of time, and I'll never be satisfied. I always move the bar a little bit further. Just one more thing. One more hill to climb, until I'm standing on a mountain top looking around only to find I'm still not satisfied. How far do I need to move the bar until I realize that I'm already enough just the way I am?
Wednesday is the post day. Every other Wednesday. Tuesday comes along and I'm not even close to finishing the video. Not even close. The clips aren't even all loaded into the editing program. Shit. There's a lot of work ahead of me. I sit down at my desk around 8pm every night. My "Clock in" time it's called. Tuesday night, 8pm and I'm looking at a screen that shows hours of work left. I can do it. I won't be late. I WILL publish this video on time. So I worked. A task that has taken me over 20 hours in the past (yes. 20 hours for just 1 video) I was able to accomplish in 3. Whew. I was glad to have it done. I knew I could do it. All that's left is to export. Shit.
The program is not letting me export. Fine, whatever, it can be fixed. About a year ago, I was almost completely computer illiterate. Email was difficult to use, moving files was a complete mystery, and I was unable to do literally anything on the computer confidently. To say I've come a long way to where I am now is an understatement. Still, diagnosing an issue can be extremely frustrating. After 2 hours of trying to save the project that took so much effort, I was left with a computer that somehow wasn't even connected to the internet anymore. Like the wifi option wasn't even there anymore. No clue how I'd managed this. I accepted my defeat.
Several unresponded emails to customer support have left me with no choice but to do the entire video over again. I'm very frustrated about this, but with already being behind, I've been beating myself up about it. As much as I want to stay up late and push through another tired night, there has to be some recovery. My whole "thing" is mental health, and yet my own well being has been neglected. Some time with the family has helped me a lot. Really difficult therapy sessions ending in tears have helped me a lot. Taking time for myself has helped me a lot.
Anger has been something I've had to work on so much. I get so angry and have the hardest time controlling it. It grows inside me and the only way for it to come out is rage. A very strong desire to yell or break things makes me feel like I'm a horrible person. When I was younger, in a fit of anger I threw my Ipod, hitting my TV and destroying both. That was stupid, I thought. Now I don't have either of those things. I never yell at Jess, or anyone else and I never break anything other than my own. It's myself I feel this anger for. I'm angry at myself. But why? Why am I so angry at myself? Why do I always feel like I'm not enough?
I want to love myself wholly so badly but I struggle to have compassion for myself. Why does my mood shift so much? One day I'm on the top of the world experiencing the highest of highs. The next moment I'm in the trenches. Deep in the darkest parts of myself feeling nothing but hatred and anger. I end most journal entries with affirmations. Trying to convince myself I'm a good person. I'm a good person, friend, father, husband, everything. I tell myself these every day and still have a hard time believing them.
The military part of my brain is telling me I need more discipline. Structure and rigidity will provide me with what I need. A strict adherence to schedule and consistency give me a lot of relief. I work best with structure. I crave it. When things are up in the air or unknown I feel lost. That's why I'm getting back to my 3 basics.
There are 3 things that helped me through some difficult times.
Cold
Breath
Meditation
Cold is the hardest one to talk myself into. It's the only one that's painful. But it has such a payoff. For the rest of the month of March I will do these 3 things every day, and I will miss no more than 3 total days. When I complete this goal, I will reward myself with a treat. If I do not complete this goal, I will give myself a punishment. The reward has not yet been chosen, as I can't think of something I would really want. It has to be something worth doing hard things for every day. The punishment I've chosen for myself is no social media on my phone. For the entire month of June, I will delete them as an incentive to be more productive. Anything I need to access will be on my computer at home.
This might seem extreme to some. Maybe it is. But I use this reward/punishment system all the time and it is always very, very effective. By setting S.M.A.R.T. goals I give myself the best chance of success.
S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Time
I think I learned this in a book by James Clear, but it could have been somewhere else. Setting goals like this every week, even for some smaller tasks helps me stay on track. I've been able to get some incredible things done with this method. Give it a try. It works.
Cold – I will take a cold shower every day. At the end of my shower, not the whole thing, I turn the valve as far cold as it will go. I stand in it as long as I can take it. I breathe deep to fill myself with as much will power as possible. Forcing myself to stay under, and get the frigid water on my face, back, and body give me the biggest rush. This shit will wake you up. Stepping out of a situation like that gives you so much power. I feel invincible not just for a few moments, but for hours!
There's just something about making yourself do a hard thing like stand in cold water every day that gives you the confidence to do other things. I'd love to get a cold plunge, but it's crazy expensive.
Breath. Every day I will do at minimum, 3 rounds of Wim Hof breathing. This is game changing. Breathing deeply and intentionally has brought clarity where my mind was otherwise clouded. Wim Hof breathing, if you're unfamiliar is essentially 30 deep breaths followed by a breath hold at the bottom. There are many ways to do breathwork but this one has really connected to me. Using this method usually in conjunction with meditation for me has brought wildly vivid hallucinations. At round 7 or 8 I usually start to leave my body in a sense and go somewhere that only the most important messages are clear. There exists no static and no noise. When I can really focus on my breathing, and get out of my own head, the things I most need to hear come to me. I know it sounds crazy, but it's unlike anything I've ever done. It makes me feel good and it's the best way I've found to keep myself grounded. At first I got super addicted to it, then I just quit doing it.
Meditation. It's not always that I do my meditation with my breathing. A lot of times I just meditate focused on my breath at a normal pace. Everyone I talk to says that meditation is hard or not possible for them because they are too anxious, have too many thoughts that keep popping up, or get bored. You may be surprised that I feel all of these things as well. It's not easy to sit with yourself quietly for 15 minutes while trying to focus on one thing. You sit down and think "okay I'm going to focus on my breath for fifteen minutes" Then you think "this will never work" and you're off on another thought. That's okay. The point is not to get angry with yourself when these other thoughts arrive. It's what you do when they show up. Teaching myself to be gentle with myself, and not get angry for not staying focused is the whole game. I may sit down for half an hour and all I do is have one thought, then bring myself back to center, then another, and another. That's okay. It's a practice. Then, at some point I can just sit down and be clear. I can feel my breath come in and fill my lungs, expand my chest, then exhale. Getting rid with it all the negativities and impurities inside me. And I can stay on my breath without being distracted by everything else. It's rare and it takes a lot of effort to get to that point, but the relief is so worth it. That's why for the rest of March, every day I will dedicate 15 minutes to myself to sit quietly and do nothing other than breathe.
What am I hoping to get from the end of this 3 part goal? I'm not really sure, to be truthful. I guess I just know that by doing what has worked for me in the past will work this time. And I also know that even if it doesn't "work" the benefits of doing something hard, breathing deeply, and meditating every day will be so great that I can't even predict all of what I will get from it. And I'm okay with that as well. Today is 3 days in a row that I've done my 3 tasks. I'm already feeling much better.
This has been a very long journal entry, and I cannot promise they will all be this extensive. I wanted to sit down today and tell you about the work I'm doing on Rising Valor. However, much as I've learned this week that hard work is important, so too is rest and recover. Taking it easy when you need to should not be overlooked.
Updates: After attending an ADAMH board meeting I was fortunate enough to have a private meeting to discuss the mental health needs in Franklin County, and learn ways I can fit into them. D. Malone, the Vice President and Advocacy and Engagement representative of ADAMH was kind enough to spend some of her valuable time with me to answer questions, and even put together a resource bag for me to take home. I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity.
My neighbor, Tony was kind enough to take me with him to my first city council meeting. This was a big deal for me because I believe the best place to start making meaningful impact is within your own community. I want to be a productive member of society. That means being involved, and at minimum having a basic understanding of what's going on in the city I live in. There is so much happening behind the scenes that I had no idea about. It's absolutely fascinating how a local government works. I plan to attend more council meetings, and continue to learn about what makes the city run.
This week I was also able to attend a webinar exploring the intersection of AI and suicide awareness/prevention. Put on by the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation I was able to learn a lot about some of the programs in ohio and some really interesting facts about AI and how it's playing a role today in the mental health field. I learned that AI is already being used in mental health systems to identify suicide risk through pattern analysis of medical records. It's also being used to monitor language signals in messages and social media. The biggest thing I took away is that everyone is concerned about the ethical risks. Mental health data is extremely sensitive, and who owns and controls the data are big questions.
Although many concerns about AI in mental health were brought up, there seem to be optimistic opinions that AI could expand prevention. Discussed in the webinar were practical uses such as assisted chat systems, risk-screening tools for healthcare systems, and monitoring online content for suicide signals. The overall message from everyone was that AI has real potential to strengthen suicide prevention, but carries with it some real ethical responsibilities.
UPCOMING:
Today is the 10 year anniversary of MASH pantry and Jess and I will be joining a pot luck at the Legion post to celebrate. Look for pictures on the Facebook page!
Next week on the 10th is the Voices for Suicide Prevention Advocacy Update. This is a monthly update on mental health and really interesting to hear about some of the things that are happening today.
The MASH gardens are having a planning meeting coming up that I would like to be at if scheduling allows. In addition to taking in donations, the pantry also maintains over 75 garden beds that they use to distribute food. I haven't yet gotten to see this in action, so I'm excited to hear more about it.
Non Rising Valor related; I have individual therapy as regularly scheduled, as well as couples counseling with Jess. We love our therapy sessions together. After a year or so of going together I don't know how we could go without it. It's something we both look forward to.
The video will also be out as soon as I can re-make the entire thing. I'll be switching editing platforms which really makes me nervous to learn another program. Any recommendations are welcome. I feel bad for not getting my video out on time, but it is what it is.
Thanks for reading.
Don't have a good day. Have a great day.
Logan Williams
Rising Valor,
Founder