How I taking care of my mental health

Today's topic is a little diff, I'm going to share some of the things I did for the past few months and how I taking care of my mental health. For those who followed me for some time or maybe more than a decade, you probably noticed that I stop making videos on my YouTube, not much updates my dear diary on my blog and stories might become lesser compare to a year ago.

To be honest, I never felt so bad and lost before, all these pandemic and the lockdown thingy brought me a huge change in my life. I’m not sure if I’m really okay now, but I feel much better compare to who I am and how I reacted to it for the past 2020 until mid of 2021. I’m alright now so to all my sweeties and readers, no worries, but I just wanna highlight and shared a few thoughts with you guys and hope this helps you (as if you are feeling the same too).

I started to realize I feel so bad for having 0 improvements and progress over the time, not being able to go travel and work, just feeling stuck at home, unable to do things as planned and feeling so useless and i’m afraid of uncertainties & feeling just so freaking lost. I started to compare myself to the 'old me' where I feel I'm much happier. For a person like me who live with purpose and get satisfaction mainly through my work, really hit me hard.

All the stress on my mind is so freaking hard to get rid of and I don’t have any solution at that point of my life, I feel hard to breath sometime, like having a heavy stone on my heart and I just tears for no reason. 

I tried to work, I turn on my laptop and try to blog but when I look at my throwback travel photo, I see the way I smile and I miss it then i tears, I asked myself what happened to you Chanwon, then I feel so sad and I just tears. Tbh too, I never see myself like this. I’m always energetic, passion and looking forward to live my life to the fullest and when things like covid making my life feel so ‘out of control’ I just can’t do anything with it. I feel quite hopeless and sad, part of me feel that I’m not myself anymore and just felt so lost on myself, dunno what should I do, how to feel better, I lost count on how many times I tears at night. Lol I can share it out now because I feel way way way better but it wasn’t a joke at that point of my life, I feel like I dropped into a dark hole and no one could help. The same issues hit me over and over again, I repeated it for so many times and it still there.

Moving forward then, I finally see the better side as these are the few things I do to get better and I realise there are part of you are feeling the same as me. I read all your dm and I finally feel so much relieved thaT I'm able to share and talk about it with you guys. If you are still feeling depressed and anxious please ask and seek for help. I'm sharing this as it's from my personal experience, if you still can't feel better it's a good thing to seek for the pro to help you and give you a new perspective on your life too.

So here's the few things I did to take care of my mental health:-

✅Live in the present
Helps to stop me from overthinking, just do my best to live and do good for TODAY. Not to plan too far ahead. Not the past and not the future, just focus to enjoy it TODAY and make the best out of it. Not next month, not next couple of weeks.

✅Get to do thing that brings me satisfaction

Previously I prioritize my work and the feeling of satisfaction was 100% rely on work. Without getting able to work like how it will be (before the pandemic) has been a nightmare for me. I feel lost and stuck at the stage where I can’t proceed my plan as planned and all the stress came from delaying and postponing my work. Therefore, I found new things to do which can brought me the same satisfaction level like my job does like cooking, becoming the plant mama and learning a new song every few days. 

The main idea is we can’t control the virus and we still need to stay home, we can’t work like in the past so we gonna find something that we enjoy and like. Like how I enjoy my work, now I also found that I enjoy cooking and challenge myself to complete few new songs a month. This brought me back with the same kind of satisfaction like how I found on my work.

✅ Stop compare ourselves with our old selves in the past

As a human being, we will always have times when we feel anxious or depressed. That is normal and natural. Just like there are days that it rains, there are also days that the sun shines. We will only feel more depressed if we constantly compare ourselves with our old selves in the past that seemed to be happier, while we forget that back then we did not have this much on our plate to worry and we did not experience what we have experienced recently that gave us hurts and pain. Therefore it isn't fair to our current self if we always think about how to go back in time, that isn't possible anyway.

And because of all that comparison I forgot to look at the point that I have gone through and done so much within this pandemic time. I did not do nothing, I'm not having zero improvement at all. I learned how to cook like a pro, make so many yummy bread and desserts, even daifuku, I'm taking a Japanese language course, I get my house renovation done, a room makeover and went to new workshop learning things that I always wish to but can't in the past. There are so many things that I'm didn't see and only realised when I hear it from my closed friends or from all your msg. Thank you for reminding me and I'm really thankful to go through these now. 

✅Go for a work or exercise 

Exercising, workout, go for a walk at your nearby park or gardens and basically I just sleep better when I workout or exercise. Now every weekend I book basketball court and having some fun with my bro and Smelly. At night I sleep better and deeper & I feel like when I do so, I feel so grateful that I’m all good, healthy and looking forward to the weekend.

✅Understand that there are things that is out of your control and it’s okay to let it be

A huge part of my life that I always found that my life is always under my control. I can always plan and control over things like my work, meetings, schedules and stuff like that. But the whole pandemic thingy, the covid is something that out of my control, I can’t control the lockdown period and therefore the delay and postpone of my wedding day is fine, is okay. The shooting job is delayed and it’s fine too. No one will blame me on that, everyone is so understanding on that too.

I realize I put so much blame on myself all these while because I feel so bad to my team and my clients for the projects which we prepared for months and gonna postpone until further notice. Most of the time don’t even have a date. I’m not sure why but I feel so hard for myself to overcome this, because things is always under my control but now I’m so done with that lol. Everything just out of my control and all the uncertainties just hit me really hard. 

After accepting the fact like it is now, I’m no longer feel stuck. As long as it get postpone then just let that be, everyone knows the reason, no one gonna blame me and just follow the flow. Maybe I have a hard time to accepting the fact that we gonna waste so much effort again on the same repeating project but also, is fine for that and I’m not alone too. 

✅1-3 things that you are looking forward to everyday

Previously I always hope and pray for the covid cases to be as long as 0, or maybe less than 4 digits. That’s the only thing I looking forward to but everyday news is hitting me so hard lol. I only see it goes up until 20k daily and every time I look at it, I just think of ‘oh no, not gonna happen on that and I can’t xxxx, I can’t xxxx, this gonna delay again…’

Now I only looking forward to thing like

‘I’m gonna cook wagyu this Saturday let’s prepare some cooking ingredients today’

‘I’m gonna read a new book that seems to be something that I’m interested on and I’m looking forward to reading it’

‘I’m looking forward to receive the flowers I bought and gonna put it into my favorite vase’

‘I’m looking forward for this weekend because I’m going to a workshop and learn, experience pottery and painting’

‘Today I’m gonna learn how to use procreate to create new gif and I’m looking forward to learn new things’

So I looking forward to all these instance of looking forward for the daily covid cases to drop lol. I just don’t care it already and found so much new to-do list instead of standing in front of the TV and watching all negative news, which I really hate lol. Also to fill up your free time so you wont think too much or worry too much on the uncertainties.

Remember that the grateful book to write down 1-3 grateful things everyday? Now you can simple change it become 1-3 things I’m looking forward to do it today such as, looking forward to try my home cook wagyu, looking forward to finish reading this XX book today and so on. 

✅Talk to yourself or look at your favorite / new / motivational or positive quote every morning before you start your day

You can simply just telling yourself that you gonna be having a good day today, gonna done shooting the video at home smoothly today, you look pretty today with your new hair color, or simply just give lots of good thought to yourself.

Stop wake up in the morning and looking at all kind of negative news on the phone or tv. Start your day with something that can brings you happiness or make you feel good and the simplest is by verbally speaking good things/ thoughts to yourself in front of the mirror 👍🏻 if you find it is weird to do so then buy some 心靈雞湯 療癒 book and normally in the book there are lots of diff inspirational stories, read one every morning. Or talk to yourself on what are you good at, giving positive thoughts every morning is the easiest thing to feel better.

❤️Side note:

If you are not feeling any better please don’t feel bad about it and must remember to seek for help. Don’t ever hide anything underneath and think you are okay. Is okay to not be okay too and it doesn’t means that you are bad or poor at managing the stress. Sometime it just happens, out of nowhere, or something just hit your right and out of your control. Anyone could breakdown for anything as well. 

Just remember that if this feeling still hit you really hard and you start to realize that you have been suffer for quite a while and nothing can make you feel better or you can’t cope anymore please please please remember to seek for help with clinical psychologist or a counsellor for psychotherapy.

You will be alright sweetie. Hope this little sharing can be helpful for you. See you on my next post. Have a nice day! Love, xoxo