Month: March 2022

Getting Out of Bed – Christina’s Story

The conundrum is how to find a purpose for getting out of bed when you are depressed.

Sometimes you don’t have the energy to move your body off the mattress and press your feet to the floor.

What can be done to feel better?

Some of us will need to take an anti-depressant. Others can make lifestyle changes.

After reading the disability memoir The Pretty One I took to heart how the author disparaged that able-bodied Americans rush-rush-rush around filling their days with nonstop activity.

From then on, I decided that it was okay to rest in bed for two hours on a Sunday afternoon.

The irony is that often we fill our lives with busywork that deters us from doing what’s truly meaningful. When the space of time in our days is filled up like a bursting closet something has to give.

Limiting the tasks, we take on is one way to feel better about getting out of bed. Knowing our daily calendars are jam-packed could disempower us.

Finding a purpose for getting out of bed can be made easier when we recognize that it’s okay to limit our choices as to what we want to do and can do on any given day.

My tactic is to decide when I wake up what my one “job” is for that day. I talk about the tasks I do even when at home as being “jobs.”

Sometimes it’s at the end of the day that you realize what your one “job” was that you fulfilled.

Not knowing what you want to do that day or with your life can be made easier.

Who says you have to be the same person or do the same things for the rest of your life?

Figuring out what you want to do today or in the coming weeks can be as simple as talking to a therapist. Brainstorming ideas with them or with a friend or family member.

Keep an open mind and be curious about what’s possible. That’s the first step: realizing that what pops into your head shouldn’t be ruled out before you think about it.

In a coming blog entry, I will talk about how doing “volunteer work” gave me a purpose for getting out of bed at a time when I no longer liked my job.

Purpose Powered Productivity

It can sound woo-woo if that is the term to continue to link who you are with what you do.

In terms of how acting false to get ahead will backfire. However, I stand by my assertion that acting true to yourself is the only way to live.

The Bullet Journal ethic is rooted in “purpose powered productivity.” That is in there being a reason that you’re doing what you’re doing.

The type of disability a person has shouldn’t limit them to only one type of job. Though if this disability makes them more suited for a specific job that job shouldn’t be ruled out.

It’s radical to propose what I do when I’m talking about the livelihoods of individuals living with mental illnesses.

What I propose is eliminating “busywork” from our lives. Finding our life’s purpose and doing what we can to fulfill this purpose.

And who says this purpose should only be linked to our disability?

For some of us it will be. My life’s purpose is to advance my vision of recovery for everyone. From whatever illness a person has. In whatever guise recovery comes to them in.

A simple mission with two tenets.

Why I propose that peers living with mental health issues find our purpose is because we are no different from people who don’t have a disability.

No one wants to feel like their life has no meaning. Like they are adrift going in circles or going nowhere.

Countless motivational books are written about “how to fulfill your potential.”

In a coming blog entry, I will talk about how to find a purpose for getting out of bed in the morning.

In the winding down of the COVID outbreak all of us could be faced with this choice: how to spend our time when tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to arrive?

Living for today has a new resonance.

I for one wouldn’t want to spend my last day on earth cleaning my apartment.

The Bullet Journal Method

Today I’ll talk about how a nifty little product saved my life: The Bullet Journal.

The creator of the Bullet Journal Ryder Carroll had multiple learning disabilities. His invention was born out of his need to manage his workload.

A fellow Visionary Carroll sought to control his life and overcome the obstacles he faced.

The detail about Ryder Carroll having learning disabilities impressed me the most. He “turned his trials into triumphs”–the topic of a book I’ll review shortly.

I tell you: “No you can’t” is not an acceptable answer. In the first place why should we place the direction and outcome of our lives in another person’s hands or control?

Ryder Carroll invented a product to help himself. Then he crowdfunded the journal to sell it to others.

It cost me $31 total to buy the official hardbound Edition 2 of the Bullet Journal with the blush-color cover.

Every year or when the stock runs out a new color is introduced for the cover.

Keeping the Bullet Journal saved my life. I had checked out of the library the Ryder Carroll companion book The Bullet Journal: Track the Past Order the Present Design the Future.

The purpose of keeping and using the Bullet Journal is to align your actions with your values. It’s “A mindfulness practice disguised as a productivity system.”

The Bullet Journal Method book is available in over 20 languages. If you sign up for the Bullet Journal emails you get 15% off your first journal order.

There’s true empowerment to be had in this story.

I’ll end here with what resonates with me the most:

Ryder Carroll was not afraid to risk acting on his vision to help others by selling a product he invented first to help himself.

Executing a plan despite fearing what others will think of your vision is the only way to live.

It’s not easy to dream of doing something that you’re told can’t or shouldn’t be done. Having the courage to follow through with doing this thing is vital to your happiness.

T.S. Eliot is quoted: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

The older I get the more determined I am to go after my goals with gusto.

Using the Bullet Journal, I think I can achieve what I set out to.

See these links:

Bullet Journal Website

Plans vs Goals vs Resolutions vs Intentions

Identity Compass

A Remedy for Neoliberalism

Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment exposes the life cycle of a pair of jeans from production to selling to our disposal when we no longer like them.

President Reagan first advanced the neoliberal political ideology. Sending clothing manufacturing overseas was supposed to elevate the income of workers in those countries.

A curious line of thinking when the ulterior motive was for American businesses to cut costs. To allow them to reap millions if not billions of dollars in revenue.

U.S. clothing companies have the money to afford to pay workers a higher salary in other countries and in America.

So does a company like Verizon that I won’t do business with because their union workers went on strike twice in 10 years. To get better pay and working conditions.

In the 1970s commercials on TV told clothing buyers to “Look for the Union Label” in clothes made in America.

Sadly, the neoliberalism that took root under Reagan continued to flourish through Clinton’s term as president and ever since then.

The “trickle-down theory” fails in real-life practice.

In the counties where Amazon sets up distribution centers it gets multi-million tax breaks to do so. To recoup this money the local government imposes higher taxes on residents.

At Amazon warehouse jobs workers have been killed by machinery. Amazon isn’t fined. Amazon doesn’t pay benefits to the families of the workers who were killed.

What can a person in rural America who doesn’t have a college degree–and doesn’t want to move to a big city–do?

An Amazon warehouse job should not be the only job in town.

There’s a solution that lies right in front of our faces. The remedy is to stop viewing an elite Ivy or other college degree and a standard set of prior jobs and skills as a predictor of who to hire for a job.

In an internet news article, I read how hip employers are seeking out job candidates who don’t have this kind of homogenous background.

The result was that more women and BIPOC individuals were hired.

In coming blog entries I’ll talk about cutting-edge ideas and solutions for peers with mental illnesses.

In April I expect to host another Podcast to go live for blog readers to listen to.