Alive & Unbothered with Sherrie Lanell

Welcome back to another episode of Alive & Unbothered where I share with you what I've been avoiding from the start of this movement.

Welcome back to another episode of Alive & Unbothered. Today, I have a suggestion for you to take when setting goals for this year and beyond. It's not a popular one and yet, it's super effective in helping me reach my goals and I feel it can support you too.

Welcome back to another episode of Alive & Unbothered and today's episode is shorter than usual because I wanted to expand a bit on setting goals for the new year with this one thing I need you to keep in mind.

Welcome back to another episode of Alive & Unbothered. Today we're taking a look at setting our goals for an alive and unbothered life. I'm going to share with you the framework I use to set up mine so that you may be empowered with knowing that any goals you set, can be achieved. Reference Episode: https://sherrielanell.com/podcast/ep21

Welcome back to another episode of Alive & Unbothered. Today, we’re taking a look at the guilt stories we form around partaking in conveniences meant to make our lives easier. So why feel guilty? STIGMA that’s why. Tune in…

Today we're talking about how being triggered by our symptoms can make us forget the coping skills we've learned to manage them. So I'm sharing a strategy I use that helps bring me back to "unbotheredness."

Today, we’re taking a look at our lives and creating the possibilities for becoming the YOU you desire to be. And for me, it all begins with this simple phrase I say to myself every morning that sets me up for the day.

You are doing ALL the things right? If we’re not careful, pushing our limits can lead to experiencing stress emotionally and physically which poses the risk of triggering our mental health challenges. Today, I’m not going to tell you not to do ALL the things, instead, I’m sharing three techniques I use so that you can. Resources mentioned: Participation Page for Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk for the AFSP Resources to create unity, equality, and affinity: The BIPOC Project Anit-racism Resource Collection Anti-racism Resources for White People Thank you for listening! Subscribe to my newsletter and grab your free gift here: sherrielanell.com/gift Join the podcast’s Facebook Community here: sherrielanell.com/community

On today's episode, I’m continuing the conversation around what’s going on in our country around civil rights for the BIPOC communities and the black lives matter movement. Today I’m sharing the outcome of a conversation I had on social media with a stranger whose comment nearly set off undesirable bipolar mania triggers and what I did to self-intervene. Resources mentioned: Participation Page for Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk for the AFSP The article that sparked my conversation with Brian Resources to create unity, equality, and affinity: The BIPOC Project Anit-racism Resource Collection Anti-racism Resources for White People Thank you for listening! Subscribe to my newsletter and grab your free gift here: sherrielanell.com/gift Join the podcast’s Facebook group here: facebook.com/groups/aliveandunbothered

Today’s talk is really near and dear to my heart. I’ll be talking about confronting my fear story about being black in America in order to cultivate the possibility of global change to end racism. Resources mentioned: Participation Page for Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk for the AFSP The BIPOC Project Anit-racism Resource Collection Anti-racism Resources for White People Thank you for listening! Subscribe to my newsletter and grab your free gift here: sherrielanell.com/gift Join the podcast’s Facebook group here: facebook.com/groups/aliveandunbothered

Today, I’m sharing an enlightening conversation with a dear friend that ended up unpacking some unhelpful beliefs in my self-expression and what you can do to liberate yourself from it. I also mention a suicide. If you or anyone you know are struggling with suicidal ideas, please seek help immediately by contacting the suicide prevention hotline 800-273-8255. Topics discussed in this episode:  Summary of a conversation I had with a friend who called me out on my stinking thinking and the glorious revelation that came from it What it means to be fully self-expressed and the signs to look out for when you might be giving away your power What happened after we ended the call

Do you know how amazing it is when you let go of the need to be right in any given situation? Today, I’m sharing a funny bit of wisdom that came about from a story my kids were telling me about their recent trip to the dog park.In this episode:I talk about how one shared trip presented two very different accounts of what happened.I give my thoughts on what opinions are, how you can give up your need to be right, and how to let go of making yourself or others feel wrong about their opinions.I share what you can do when someone else's account of an event doesn’t add upStay in touch:Subscribe to the Alive & Unbothered Community Newsletter and grab your free gift here: sherrielanell.com/giftJoin the podcast’s Facebook group here: facebook.com/groups/aliveandunbothered

Topics discussed in this episode: How my family and I are handling being sheltered in My daily routine with this key tool to boost my emotional intelligence How you can create your own tool to boost your emotional intelligence Resources mentioned in this episode: What is Emotional Intelligence - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/emotional-intelligence Calls-to-action: Subscribe to the Alive & Unbothered Community Newsletter and grab your free gift here: sherrielanell.com/gift Join the podcast’s Facebook group here: facebook.com/groups/aliveandunbothered

Today, I’m talking about measures you can take to protect the integrity of your mental health progress when there’s no escaping the COVID-19 chatter or any type of trigger inducing chatter for that matter. 

Hello everyone! We’re living in some uncertain and weird times right now, right? With the spread of Covid-19, I’d like to do my part in spreading hope. We’re going to get through this, y’all. Check out this special episode where I give you a bit of what’s been going on in my household and some words of encouragement - plus a surprised visit by my little bean ❤.The #ALIVEANDUNBOTHERED podcast will resume recording on Monday. I've also decided to appear LIVE on Facebook and Instagram (starting next week, maybe sooner, who knows lol) to check in with ya and serve your mental health needs as best as I can with the strategies I use to keep my bipolar issues in check. Especially the depression side of things...know what I mean? So if you have questions or concerns about keeping up with self-care, DM them to me and I'll try to address them. In the meantime, I am sending you all my love and good vibes.

In this episode, I'm talking about a common challenge we face in the space of possibility, how it activates the “stinking thinking” mind, and a system of strategies you can use to get back to an alive and unbothered way of being.

Hey there! Today I am talking about where to find motivation (and you may be surprised where) and a breakthrough

Hey everyone welcome to the first episode into a brand new season of the Alive & Unbothered Podcast. In this episode i’m sharing details of what I have been up to since the last episode (why i’ve been quiet) and what you can expect in this season.

I’m sharing a breakthrough that I had with my son. Recently, I was in a bothered state of mind over something my little man did (and continues to do). And after he did it, it felt as though everything in my life was getting on my nerves and I was irritated to no end it seemed. The truth is though, everything wasn’t getting on my nerves. I was letting this interaction that happened between my son and I mean more than what it was and allowed my imagination to create a disempowered story, and through that lens, every moment that followed was not joyful, in fact, it was downright awful. So what happened? Well let me tell you what happened through the story I created and then I’ll really tell you what happened ok?

Hi there friends, In today’s episode I’m sharing with you how I recognized criticism as a trigger to activate my bipolar behaviors and how it made my journey to being Alive and Unbothered possible. For a long time in my relationships, if I was met with any type of criticism, I was being a person who would on a dime switch moods to being defensive, confrontational, passive-aggressive, and holding grudges just to be angry at the world. Even the smallest slight, I was being a person who has a lack of emotional control and unable to think in a clear or sensible way. The thing is, I wasn’t aware of the switching as a bipolar mental illness at the time. I got along with being this way as just who I am. I shared this part of my journey in Part 1 of the FAST Journey to Mental Freedom episode, so you can hear more about it there. But I bring it up here to give you some context of how I came to realize---through research, therapy, and coaching---that my bipolar symptoms are triggered when my ego or a sense of myself is bruised in some way. It didn’t matter if the criticism was external or came through my own stinking thinking. In my mind, the story of me was being challenged and I would become unhinged over it. And what is criticism exactly? I like to be clear on the words I use so I went to the literal definition of the root critic which is one who expresses a reasoned opinion on any matter especially involving a judgment of its value, truth, righteousness, beauty, or technique. And criticism is the act of criticizing usually unfavorably.So in not so many words, criticism is simply someone else’s point of view on an issue. And someone else’s point of view is simply that...their point of view and it belongs to them. It’s a glimpse into their thought process on the matter. Although it’s their opinion, you’ll consider it to affect change in you and from there you can do one of two things...take it or leave it with them with gratitude for sharing it with you. I’ve seen this play out well for other people. My friend and colleague, Shannon, has this thing she says that I love that she shared with me and others in her online community. If someone is giving her an opinion that doesn’t sit right with her, she “returns to sender” like when you receive a piece of mail you didn’t ask for. You mark the letter or package in big letters, return to the sender, drop it off in the mail, and go about your day. You don’t take it personally because it is just what it is, mail you didn’t ask for. In contrast, this mail you didn’t ask for could be the best thing to happen since pancakes and you take it with joy; criticism is so much like that. So what does this look like in my life? Well in the not so distant past, my husband and I would have huge arguments when he’d give me an opinion that went against my story of self and I would totally blow up in defensive mode at him, my kids, my neighbors, and anyone else in my path following...and that would be my state of mind for weeks or longer. It was hard to recover or other words get over it. I would be overwhelmed with guilt and shame over the aftermath of my behavior as the impact of it stirred everyone up and caused a domino effect of tense conversations between us. Fast forward to a situation recently when another one of these “conversations” began. I had covered my hair up in a scarf because I didn’t feel like fixing my hair and my husband didn’t think it looked good. Well instead of taking my default stance of taking his opinion and telling him off, I paused. I said nothing. He said it looked like I was setting up to blow but what I was really doing (and explained to him) was that I was taking in what he said and filtering it so that I can digest it. It was in that moment of pause that I could make the choice to take his criticism or leave it with gratitude for sharing it. So I chose the latter and thanked him for his opinion and kept on the scarf. There was no fight. There were no hard feelings. It felt good on both sides.We don’t have to take someone else’s point of view, their judgments and the like, and indoctrinate them. We get the final say in who we are being. When you recognize your sense of self is being negatively impacted by criticism, you can remind yourself that it doesn’t belong to you and affirm your mental freedom in being Alive and Unbothered.There is so much freedom in the knowledge that we have choices in how we experience relationships. If we stopped taking criticism or any type of opinions personally, we get to experience giving and receiving unconditional love, understanding, and compassion in our relationships AND we get to be completely expressed in how we are being. And for those of us with mental illnesses, this might seem like a tall order and I get it because it wasn’t exactly easy for me to get to this point. I had a lot of resistance to ideas because having a mental illness presents challenges in thinking. But I’m here to show you that IT IS possible to have a new way of being about it. It’s possible to live your life completely alive and unbothered.

You’re listening to a previously recorded epidsode from my first podcast called Notes & Musings containing some adult language and content. On this episode of Notes & Musings, I'm talking about being aware of stinking thinking and offer a strategy you can use to uncover its triggers so you can take action to move forward in your business.

Hey there friends! I’m gonna get right to it in this episode about an epiphany I experienced about having made the connection that our words are powerful. Our words are powerful enough to create anything. I’m sure you’ve heard this before or some variation of it as it’s not a new thought. But what happened for me is that knowing that our words are powerful, drove it home how we really need to take care of how we use them. How we use words to communicate with others and how we use words to communicate with ourselves. So with that said, I began looking at how I think. I’m an overthinking machine. And what I realized is that my thoughts were stories filled with destructive words like, “I can’t do, I shouldn’t do, I suck, why am I like this, who do you (meaning me) think you are’ and more. I spent the better part of my life using words against myself to destroy my confidence, my self-esteem, which in turn communicated to others a version of me who is not the real me and therefore our interactions were inauthentic. It’s a frustrating existence and I found this to be rather fascinating. So much of what we create in our lives is first created with the words we use on ourselves which drives our actions and impacts our way of being. Think about it for a second, when you’re in a depression, what are your thoughts like? For instance, when you think that no one cares, or you’re a failure, or not good enough for this or that, ever noticed how what you think will show up as real and appear to you in kind. Sometimes, those thoughts can get dark and scary. But check out what it is you’re saying to yourself and about yourself for that matter. It’s not real. And if it’s not real, then you can create an alternate thought, and it will show up as real and appear to you in kind. It’s all in how we shape these thoughts with our words in how it will manifest in our reality.So here’s a thought, again, not a new one but one that can open the door for you to become objective and have a choice in the way to be, how you show up in life for yourself and others. If you are aware of the words you use on yourself, you will then become aware of what you’re creating. And in that awareness, you can see what’s possible at the moment you choose to use words that are empowering and drive your actions toward a reality of your choosing. It will take practice but you can do it. You can start by using the power of affirmations multiple times a day, every day. If you’re not sure of what affirmations are, they are words strung into sentences that are designed to empower you to take a stand in the reality of your choosing. For instance, if I’m having overwhelming thoughts of being useless, I grab hold of a new thought that says I am useful and needed. It’s the reality I much prefer to live in and when I say this and believe it, sure enough as the sky is blue, this reality shows up for me as an opportunity to be useful and needed. Try to come up with a few affirmations of your own. Observe the words you use when you’re talking to yourself about yourself when you’re depressed and write them down. They’ll likely start with I am this or that followed by a disempowering word. Review the words strung into sentences you’re using and replace the ones that create pain for you with empowering words. Then write these words down and place them where you can see them and recite them every day and often. These are your unique affirmations that you can use to now create something that wasn’t there before...possibility for opportunities for joy. Now go get you some.

Hey there friends! It's awesome to have you back for another episode of Alive & Unbothered and welcome if this is your first time here. In this episode, I am sharing a tool and a practice I use to activate awesomely good energy on demand. These are helpful especially for those times when you can feel your depression symptoms creeping up on you. For me, these symptoms look like apathy, fatigue, irritability, detachment, just to name a few. Sometimes I'm able to stop the symptoms from manifesting if I can pinpoint the triggering event and deal with the story attached. But sometimes, I'm hitting a low point without any particular warning or clarity on why it is happening and I'll stay in that dark place for a while. With this tool and practice, I'm able to spend less time being down. So what is this thing I do? I time travel.I mentally travel back in time to when I felt my best self using a vision board which I call for this exercise an energy mood board. And on this energy board, there are pictures of me experiencing good energy and I reflect on the event or situation. I also add photos that are symbolic to me in representing good energy. Such as photos of my kids laughing, photos of quiet destinations where I've gone to get clarity and peace. Like the park I like to walk laps in. I always feel good after a peace and clarity walk.With my energy board, I take a few moments to review and visualize those past moments of experiencing good energy and from that space create the intention of being the source of good energy to experience in this new moment. After a while, I began creating the being of the source of good energy within me on demand from nothing ...not needing the energy board.Getting to the place where I can activate good energy on demand from nothing, took actively utilizing my energy board. I made sure my board was accessible to me by displaying it where I am the most. I even took a photo of the board and saved it to my phone so I can time travel from anywhere. This exercise isn’t exactly my idea in that it’s adapted from the teachings on the laws of attraction. I won’t get into it here but I encourage you to look into how it works and how it can work in your life. And what I’ve done with the law of attraction is to use it to bring more moments of emotional balance and stability and with the aid of the energy board, can bring about these moments quickly.I invite you to create your own energy board using images that represent an actual time in your life where you experienced good energy. The board will help you time travel to vividly recall the experience and relive it. And it will do you a great service if you kept your energy board accessible to refer to it quickly. If you have difficulty creating a full-on energy board, start with just one photo or if you don’t have one get something to write with and draw it out. You don’t need to be an artist or even know how to draw, as long as YOU know what it is in how it represents your moment of having good energy is what matters here. And if you feel up to it, I’d love to see your energy board, photo, or art in the Alive & Unbothered group on Facebook. Or if you have questions about this process, head over to the group and let me know. Thank you for being here with me on this journey to becoming Alive & Unbothered.

If listening to this episode is not an option for you, I’m providing the full text below for you to enjoy.Hey there friend, you’re listening to another episode of Alive & Unbothered and I want to thank you for hanging out with me and if this is your first time, welcome, welcome, welcome. To recap for you, I’ve been sharing the steps I’ve taken in becoming Alive and unbothered by the stigma around mental health challenges in order to fully step into my being. These steps are part of the FAST Journey to Mental Freedom, where the journey itself isn’t one that’s meant to be quick but FAST - F.A.S.T. an acronym where the F lead to me finding acceptance with my condition of bipolar disorder depression without judgment, A to assess my abilities and strengths, S to standing strong in who I am and letting old stories die, leading me to share with you now, another powerful step on this journey where anything is possible. And from this space, I am free to create anything and design a life that’s a perfect fit for me. The final step through the FAST Journey to Mental Freedom, the T which is to Think, Act, and You Shall Be.And friends, from this space there is freedom. Gone are the days of giving credence to another person’s perception of you, of who you are because from here, you can be anything and whoever YOU want to be. You get to choose how you’re going to design and live your life. Anything is possible. Whatever you envision for yourself, for your life, is possible. I honestly didn’t believe this until I did the work prior to getting here - letting go of old stories that shaped every belief I had. This work gave me something like a blank sheet of paper to create new stories that serve my higher good. So with a new blank slate, I designed my dream life. So what does this look like - to Think, Act, and You Shall Be?First, think of how you want your life to be, how you want to exist in the world, how you want to BE. Give yourself permission to be extreme with your imagination because in this space, you will find clues and inspiration to set long and short term goals to make your dream life real. Once you have goals, you can then create a plan to reach them. I'm not talking about the kind of plans where you say something like, my goal is to be this or that and then you start randomly doing all the shiny new things trending online with little to no results. I'm talking about setting a goal knowing exactly what steps and in what order you will take to be successful along the journey. This is a plan you can physically see and touch. It's not a wish. It's a map to the end game...which is being and living a fully Alive and Unbothered life. You will then have your tool to take action, which is the second point to this. And finally, friend, watch yourself transform into a new being through the process of taking action. There is a revelation I've heard, believed, and put into practice that goes something along the lines of "transformation doesn't come from reaching the goal but from within the journey". My list of goals changes as I grow in transformation as yours will too. And what's amazing in all of this is how motivated I've become in spite of my mental health challenges. The drive, the fire, has given me that something to get excited for every day that I open my eyes. It's the fuel that powers my feet to hit the ground running. So here's what I want you to do to see this process work in your life. Go to sherrielanell.com/podcast and head to this episode to grab my Think, Act, and You Shall Be Alive & Unbothered goal setting workbook. It is priceless and will help you set into motion a chain of events that will motivate you, stretch you, and empower you to BE. So go ahead and grab yours and then when you're done, make your way over to the Alive and Unbothered podcast group on Facebook where I'll be hanging out, answering questions, and sharing more insight into the FAST Journey to Mental Freedom. Well, friends, that's all until next time and until then, you got this. Think, act, and You Shall BE.

If listening to this episode is not an option for you, I’m providing the full text below for you to enjoy.Hey there, and thanks again for tuning in for another episode of Alive & Unbothered. In the last episode, I shared with you how I crushed stinking thinking in how I viewed my intelligence and abilities by taking stock of all my skills and talents and recollecting how great it feels to have accomplished wins through tough times in the past. That step set the stage for what I'll share with you in the next step of Standing strong in who you are and to do that is to embrace all of who you are unapologetically.I couldn’t get there though without doing one of the hardest things I had to do along this journey and that was to look in the mirror at my reflection without any judgment. I needed to see me exactly as I am and be ok with what I saw. It is my reality. And friends, my reality was hard to be ok with because what I saw was a burden to my relationships with my brain flip-flopping cycles between depression, rage, sadness, irritation, contention, elation...bliss. These cycles are both consistent and unpredictable.With deep work with my therapist and guidance from several coaches, I took a look at my reality and the events that would activate these cycles. What I discovered was the events themselves aren't the issue but the meaning I made behind them was. In other words, the stories I created about events would activate these cycles throwing me completely out of alignment. Now here's a word that is said a lot when describing feelings of balance or instability (or in my case unhinged)...alignment. In this talk, the meaning I'm giving to being in alignment is to know and live your core values.And to do that, we’ll pinpoint where we are in alignment and out of alignment with our values, our HAPPINESS, our BEing by reviewing your past experiences dealing with feelings of joy, regret, frustration, inspiration. For each feeling, check out and notice how you behaved, how you moved, and how you responded in situations you determine were ideal or not ideal. It's important that the focus is on your actions and not of those who are in your story. This is important because we can’t do anything about what others do, say, or feel. We can only do this for ourselves.Then ask yourself these questions with as much detail as you can to discover your story:What was the event/situation?Where were you?What were you doing? Who was with you and why? What other factors contributed to this particular feeling?When I did this exercise, it revealed the following core values of my soul, what makes me whole, Alive, and Unbothered:Expressiveness + FreedomLove + EmpathyHonesty + AuthenticityContribution + FairnessGrowth + DependabilityAs I shared with you in the first episode, accepting that I’m challenged with bipolar depression 2 meant coming to terms with having a lack of emotional control and unable to think in a clear or sensible way. I know that this mental health challenge can hinder my expressiveness + freedom and contribution to the world. So again, leaning in on creating my life through the lens of having a life that’s alive and unbothered, I examined my stories with the questions I mentioned earlier and ask myself “how does this story break integrity with my values?” When I discover the breakdown, I create a new possibility of getting into alignment with my values. Since a story is what triggered me in the first place, I can choose to let the story go, what's left is the truth of what happened, and from there I am free from attachment to it. In other words letting my stories go, frees me from attaching any meaning to lose control over or even think about in the present impacting my future. What happened...happened. It's over. The end. What's left is me, alive and unbothered.If I'm making this sound easy, I apologize because it is not. It is work. Hard work. But you are worth the effort. The fact that you're listening tells me you want to come out to the other side of stigma, standing strong in who you are. From experience, I can help you and would be honored to walk your journey alongside you. Head over to my website to get the worksheet I used to discover my core values and get on my email list for more tools and strategies to help you live life Alive & Unbothered. Get My Core Values Workbook Sign up with your email address to receive more tools and strategies to help you live life Alive & Unbothered. First Name Last Name Email Address Yes, Please! We respect your privacy. Thank you!

If listening to this episode is not an option for you, I’m providing the full text below for you to enjoy.In the previous episode, I shared with you how I found acceptance with my mental health challenges by taking the literal definition of the terms I used about it and challenged its truth. I went from believing that I'm unstable and unhinged to understanding the truth of my having emotional control issues with an inability to think clearly. With that clarity, I was able to get help to address this more deeply and work on healing past wounds causing more breakthroughs in transcending depressive episodes.This realization helped debunk another self-defeating belief that I am a failure and will always be a failure since I'm unstable and unhinged. I doubted my intelligence and abilities to be a good wife, mother, entrepreneur, and overall human being. Since getting to the truth of what having a mental illness meant about me helped me to understand that I needed to get to the truth of what I've been suggesting to myself about my track record for success. That truth is to know failure at all is to have known success. How else could you know that you failed at something if not by having a record of success to compare in measure? So I charted out my wins by asking 'What have I ever done in my life that I was proud of?' and I segmented this in all areas of my life - family, friends, career, financial, community, etc. I went as far back as my childhood. It wasn't easy because I still had all my failures in mind that I've referred to for years. But this exercise helped me see the contribution I made by being alive and confirmed my strengths, abilities, and intelligence. Looking at all the wins (big or small) I've made I realized that yes, I did that! I won in life before and can do it again. I remembered how it felt to win and what it took to win...all while dealing with my mental health challenges. Even when I couldn't accept that I have bipolar disorder, the core of who I am made great things happen and that person is not a failure. You are not a failure and you're not dumb. You simply forgot how much of a success you already are and how you got there. Well to jog your memory, remember this: the key to winning is taking action. You won before because of the actions you took. So make a timeline of all of your accomplishments, compliments, and how you felt then. Go back as far as you can remember, even back to your childhood. Reminisce on how great you felt at the moment. It feels so good.You might be thinking your accomplishments are too insignificant to count. Listen and listen good ok, THEY ALL COUNT. One of my earliest memories of a win was when I was a kid and I can't recall my exact age but I made pancakes that weren't raw on the inside. It wasn't my first time making pancakes, past attempts were a disaster. But I finally figured out how to cook them thoroughly with time and patience. It may be why pancakes are my favorite to this day.Doing this exercise is an action to help you win back your confidence. You'll start remembering more of how you contributed to your life and to others which will start overwriting your thoughts of being a failure. After you do this, start a new list as you make small wins every day. Did you get out of bed for more than 2 hours?...winning. Did you shower today?...winning. Did you make pancakes??? Double win!!! Small wins lead to big wins. You are a winner! I know this and so will you.

If listening to this episode is not an option for you, I’m providing the full text below for you to enjoy.In the premiere episode, I shared with you about how sharing my story created new possibilities in managing my challenges with living with bipolar 2 disorder. In this episode, I’ll tell you how I got with some acceptance with having a mental illness. Back in March of 2017 when I was officially diagnosed with clinical depression wasn’t when I got with some acceptance. It wasn’t even when I met with another therapist who clarified my depression was the bipolar kind - moods cycling between depression and mania. In fact, I wrestled with the diagnosis because I had a story already in my mind of what I believed having a mental illness meant. It meant I would forever be labeled as unstable and unhinged. My story gave a reason to why my friendships didn’t last or why I couldn’t hold down a job or why every entrepreneurial venture I embarked on failed. The story of being unstable and unhinged became the prelude for all other stories I would write going forward from there. The good news is that the breakthrough came sooner rather than later allowing stories of progress and growth to emerge by first finding acceptance with my situation like this...I needed to go deeper into how I defined being bipolar in my mental health story. I took a look at the words and wrote down what unstable and unhinged really meant. Like in straight up dictionary terms. Well according to Merriam-Webster’s definitions - unstable means:: not stable : not firm or fixed : not constant: And it goes on to list 5 variants of the definition with a : not steady in action or movement : an unstable pulseb : wavering in purpose or intent :c : lacking steadiness : apt to move, sway, or fallan unstable towerd(1) : liable to change or alterationan unstable economyunstable weather(2) : readily changing (as by decomposing) in chemical or physical composition or in biological activitye : characterized by lack of emotional controlSo with regard to my mental health, the last variant fits. Unstable means having a lack of emotional control. Next I looked into what unhinged meant. Well its definition is UPSET, UNGLUED especially : mentally deranged. ESPECIALLY MENTALLY DERANGED. WTF? Deranged? What does that mean exactly because I know it to mean ‘crazy’ well good old merriam-webster said it does mean to be mad or otherwise insane. Going even deeper...what the hell does it mean to be insane outside of what stigma has told me. Well the dictionary says to be insane means 1.exhibiting a severely disordered state of mind : affected with mental illness2.unable to think in a clear or sensible way3.informal : outrageously high or extreme; also : exceptionally good or impressiveI sat with these definitions for a long while and I accepted these terms to describe my mental health as having a lack of emotional control and unable to think in a clear or sensible way. Because many people on this planet has some degree of emotional control and mental clarity issues, this self-awareness of having mental health challenges made it possible to be relatable to those with healthier minds. I began to treat the real issues with weekly therapy and coaching. I uncovered what my emotional blockages were and did the work to overcome them. I’m still doing the work as every day there is a trigger and an opportunity to grow. I leaned in on creating a life through the lens of having a life that’s no longer unstable or unhinged but rather alive and unbothered.So if you are having a hard time working out acceptance for your particular mental health challenges, try starting with discovering what meaning your putting behind it and ask if it’s true for you. I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean it literally. What words are you using to describe its meaning and ask yourself if they’re the truth? Not just accurate, but true. When you can do that, you’ll find acceptance and you’ll be able to make changes in your life transcending your mental health challenges and grow rather than reject this part of yourself and prohibit self-expression.

Welcome to the Alive and Unbothered podcast premiere episode. It’s about being You, Loving You, and Doing You! My soul purpose for this show is to help folks get out of the fear and shame of living with a mental disorder and live a life that’s completely ALIVE AND UNBOTHERED by transcending limiting beliefs and taking inspired action toward goals.