Working Towards Wellbeing

See the thing is, looking back now, I can clearly see that I have struggled a lot over the years. During my teens I was an unstoppable force of confused and exponentially destructive emotions. My early twenties; a constant sense of failure and social displacement. The lead up and aftermath of the birth of my daughter; a suffocating flood of anxiety and self doubt.

Hindsight is 20/20 they say, and my newly cleared vision leaves me no doubt as to the cycle of unhappiness, anxiety, and depression. A cycle I am yet to break. A change is required. A change that, if I don't make some serious headway in, I risk infecting my daughter with the same challenges and issues that have plagued my life so far.

Don't get me wrong, progress and changes have been made. I've accepted and made an effort to reduce some of the behaviors that I had identified as unhelpful, and in some cases toxic to my well being. The vicious cycle of socially binge drinking with work colleagues and friends to combat my stress levels only for my hangovers to contribute to my daily struggle, perpetuated the issue, and has firmly been drawn to an end. I doubt I will ever maintain a fully tee-total lifestyle. I enjoy my wine with dinner and a few social pints with friends. And yes, occasionally I may drink a little too much, but its a rarity, and the extra two days it takes to recover since my early twenties pretty much remind me every time it happens why it shouldn't. I have extracted myself from the less supportive and unhealthy friendships. The friends that, although they don't mean too, drag back into those unhealthy habits and cycles. I slowly filled those vacuums with more like-minded and appropriate mindsets.

But I'm not done. Not yet. I want to keep delving into the way my minute choices on a daily basis effect my mental health. Anyone with these struggles can identify the fact that we all experience a fluctuation in our overall well being. I myself recently hit an unexpected low, it came to my attention that increased anxiety and serious depressive episode had snuck up on me. I had noticed, but in review my overall mood had been in decline, effecting my quality of work, my social interactions, and even my daily relationship with my daughter. I was struggling to get out of bed in the mornings, experiencing a significant lack of motivation, and a general disinterest, while growing more irritable and short tempered. On inspection there are many, many factors that could have contributed to this latest episode, my antisocial and draining shift pattern, lack of contact with my family, strained relations with my daughter's father, taking on additional challenges in an attempt to improve my family situation by gaining more qualifications. Some or all of these more than likely contributed, so I have had to take a step back. Accepting I am out of my depth is not something that comes easy to me, so I have decided to flip it on its head. I'm going to use this opportunity to examine what will allow me to maintain as stable an emotional state and level of happiness I can. I'll be looking at all my daily habits, my diet, how I manage my life in general, and see what I can uncover and adjust. If you'd like to join me, give me a follow on instagram @thepath_tohappiness where I will be sharing my progress, and regular articles on here on my overview of the process.