Happy Mental Health Monday! Today's focus is how does one find their spot? This can be in the physical environment, or in their own mental health spot. For me, I focus on the physical environment to put myself in my mental health spot. This spot is somewhere a person can feel at peace, connected with the environment, and can let their thoughts wander. My spot is The Island Line Trail in Colchester, Vermont. This is the area where I retreat to when I need a breath of fresh air from the polluted world we live in every day. Here to clear my thoughts I take the 15-20 minute walk out on the trail that goes through the middle of Lake Champlain, get to my spot on the trail that I always sit at, and just take a moment to look around. No phone, no one around, just you, the earth, and a journal to collect your thoughts. Journaling is very good for mental health, it's a way to release everything that is inside while also keeping your thoughts private. If you don’t have anything to write about, write about that. A professor once told me that if you can’t think of anything to write about, write that. “I don’t know what to write about, I don’t know what to write about, I don’t know what to write about.” And eventually, something will begin to formulate in your brain on how you are feeling. Need some ideas still? What do you see around you? How does being in this new spot make you feel? What has been going on in your life recently that has affected your mental health? What is one thing that went really well this week? Something I try to do is to always end on a positive note. For example this week I wrote in my journal that senior year is really starting to stress me out, so much homework, not enough time, am I ready for graduation? But then I ended it with this weekend I got to meet new people and form new connections with them. This made me feel good, I had fun and that is what you want to focus on in this mental health journey. What makes you feel good and how to notice that more than what makes you feel bad. “Being positive isn’t pretending that everything is good. It is seeing the good in everything.”
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