The Emotional Rollercoaster of Moving: Mental Health Warrior Lessons We Can Use Everyday

Moving homes can be an exciting but equally daunting experience, intertwining emotions, logistics, and personal growth. In "The Emotional Rollercoaster of Moving: Mental Health Warrior Lessons We Can Use Everyday," the host shares a heartfelt narrative of past moves, highlighting the unexpected challenges and triumphs along the way. Through personal anecdotes, including light-hearted stories about retail therapy, the episode emphasizes the power of vocalizing mental health struggles and maintaining a positive mindset during transitions. Host, Bruce Schutter, introduces Mindset Rule 22, which states "Don't Predict the Future, Create it Instead!" which underscores the importance of adhering to our values as a guiding compass amidst chaos.

The episode delves into the significance of the Mental Health Warrior Program, presenting it as a toolkit designed to equip individuals with strategies for resilience and self-management. This includes the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin, a symbol of commitment to personal growth, is highlighted as a physical reminder of our resilience.
 
Self-Empowerment is also a central theme, with Bruce encouraging listeners to take control of their life's direction and transform challenges into opportunities for growth. The episode concludes with a powerful message: within each of us lies the potential to effect change. By embracing the tools and mindset of a Mental Health Warrior, we can navigate life's transitions with courage and optimism, reaffirming that the strength to thrive resides within us!

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Bruce Schutter & the Mental Health Warrior Program:

After struggling with Bipolar, Alcoholism and Anxiety Disorder for over 20+ years, I reached a breaking point where I attempted suicide. But with a second chance at life, I set out to find an answer to my life’s challenges. I discovered that Mental Health is the key to triumphing over any challenge in life!

Armed with this knowledge, I created the Mental Health Warrior Program. A new self-help approach, centered on mindset and lifestyle changes, so you can triumph over your life’s challenges! 

For you are a Mental Health Warrior, and “The Power to Change Your Life is within Your Grasp!”

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Positive Challenges as a Warrior
• 10:08 Importance of Values in Mental Health
• 14:08 Empowerment as Mental Health Warriors

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everybody, bruce Shooter here with the Mental Health Warrior Program podcast, no Surrender. You know what I want to talk about today. Well, I am going to talk about what to do when you have a good challenge and you're actually trying to tackle it, but it threatens to become a negative or a really tough challenge and maybe perhaps even send us back into depression, anxiety, all of those negative or tough emotions. The reason I'm bringing this up is we're in the midst of a move. Now, you could say this could be a fantastic opportunity, and it is and we are looking at moving several states away. We're looking to change our environment. We're looking to go to an area that we have some family in and some other activities that we like to do that are different than where we live now in the South. We're moving back up North. Now, all of those things sound amazing, and they are, but what do we do when that good challenge or something we are trying to do to change our life threatens to take us down? Because I will tell you, if you've ever moved and we have moved a number of times, matter of fact, I added it up and we have moved 16 times yes, we like to try different places we like, and we have moved for jobs, for personal reasons a lot of variety. Now, on the flip side, you'd think we have this mastered, but the funny thing is even a positive, even the most positive challenge can have some elements where it can turn the tide or flip to a negative if we're not careful. So I thought it'd be kind of fun and interesting to take a really good challenge that we are going through right now, and how I am dealing with this as a mental health warrior, and how you can deal with big challenges and make sure they stay positive as we're working to triumph over them. So one of the first things I did was I realized here we are moving and there's a lot of positives to it.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Now, the first thing, though, is got to remain centered, got to keep our emotions in check. So how do I do that? Now, if you've heard me before, you know one of the great warrior tools we have is we have 53 mindset rules. Now, those are things that remind us of a certain truth, and we use them to keep us emotionally centered, and we do that by breaking through the noise of the day and using that mindset rule A lot of times. As I mentioned, there's mindset rule number one which says make your mental health a priority. And I made that the duh rule, but the number one rule, because it's very easy to forget when life gets really busy and we're in the midst of change and we're in the midst of going through everyday hectic pace of life. Well, guess what we can forget such a simple thing. Now, that is just the first of 53 mindset rules.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Now, the one I've been turning to today, I pull this out here in the book 53 Mindset Rules of a Mental Health Warrior which keeps us fully armed, we're going to use Mindset Rule 22. Now, it's a really neat rule, and I like this rule because it says don't predict the future. A really neat rule. And I like this rule because it says don't predict the future, create it instead. And that's like wow, that is fantastic, because what I'm saying is we have all this warrior power. Let's use it to go after the things we want. Let's use it to set that course for our life, even a new course like what we're doing right now, with a move.

Speaker 1: 3:22

You could liken this to going after a new job. You could go after just a new activity, even if you're in the same town, same job and you're going after a new activity, you're going to meet new people, new environment or a new challenge. Maybe it's mountain biking, maybe it's skiing, who knows but you're going to be faced with a lot of challenges, even though the end result is this fantastic, great, positive challenge. But the trick is we have to stay emotionally centered and make sure, as warriors, we can handle all of the challenges that come up. So the first thing we turn to is that mindset rule and it's saying don't predict the future, create it instead.

Speaker 1: 4:02

Now, I love that because what it's telling me is every time in the last number of weeks, as I'm stuck with piles of things to go through, as I'm stuck with a million extra decisions in the day, do we keep this? Do we take it with us? How are we going to take it with us? How are we going to move? Even All of those choices? And you may be familiar like again, if you're going through a positive challenge, you're suddenly surprised. You're like wow, there's a lot of challenges at this. Oh my God, I never realized. And I'm saying that and you can laugh feel free to laugh, because this is a guy who has moved, as I mentioned 16 times and you would think I have it down to a science. Well, we do and we don't, because everything is different. We're always at a different point in our life, different amounts of stuff, we have different challenges and maybe even how far that move is, and sometimes it's a time issue. So you can see all these other factors, which, again, is like everything we're always dealing with when we go after something positive. There's a lot of challenges that come along.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Now the other thing that I'm going to mention here. So the first thing we have is that mindset rule, and we have lots of other tools, but we're going to use mindset rule 22. And we're going to not predict the future. We're creating it. So we are creating a new future right now as we're moving to a new area, an area where we want to be in, like I said, a different geography, a topography, different activities we can do up there, maybe different opportunities with work and other things. So you can see all these pauses and we are building a future that is aligned with what I believe in today as a mental health warrior.

Speaker 1: 5:44

And I'm saying that because, if you remember, we've talked about this there are four components of a warrior, and one of them is first way of the creed. But the second one is your values, and that is how you want to live your life and what you want to pursue, things you want to go after. So we are going after these changes and I remind myself of that. I am actually following through, I am working with my wife and I'm working with all these other people who are going to help us to follow through and turn what I've been thinking about and planning into action. And again, here we have that mindset rule don't predict the future, but create it. So I keep reminding myself of that end result. I keep reminding myself of why I'm doing this. It is two parts on that.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Again, we have those big challenges. So when you're stuck in the middle one, don't let your emotions get the better of you because as warriors, remember, our goal is to stay in control. Secondly, the most important thing is tap into some of our warrior tools and weapons and use those to follow your values, because I've mentioned this before values is one of those key components. Even feel like it's often overlooked Because we think we're going to take care of our mental health. Learn to manage all of the emotions, but remember if we don't set a direction and figure out what we want in life, well, guess what? We'll be happy, but we'll be spinning in circles and again, or we'll end up in the wrong direction. Now I'll give you a quick little story on that. This is back to my challenges. So we've got my challenges bipolar disorder, alcoholism, ptsd, anxiety disorders I've mentioned those a bunch of times.

Speaker 1: 7:25

I want to talk about alcoholism. I want to talk about stopping drinking. Now, at one point I was determined to stop drinking and I started doing that. But I also realized I was very anxious, very stressed, very over the top. So what did I do? I got some medication to help me with that anxiety. Now, this was back when you could do things, you could get medications and you could just order them online. This is a whole new world. Now, again, I'm stuck with these medications, these anxiety medications that again are bringing me to where I'm calm and I'm not drinking. But now I feel like I need a pill. I need that extra help. It may be familiar.

Speaker 1: 8:05

We're basically substituting the one challenge alcoholism short-term solution to not handle my emotions for another short-term solution of not handling my emotions. And after a while I realized I'm celebrating success in not drinking, but I'm now taking medications and I'm going nowhere because I still haven't learned to manage my emotions and I certainly would not be able to handle the things I'm today because I would just need more and more much like the drinking went. Now I tell you that little story because I've mentioned it before and I have lots of stories like this, but it shows you how, if we're not clear on where we're headed or what we value, it's very easy to just pick another short-term solution and think we're making progress. And again, we don't want to waste our time on that. We want to go after things we value and in this case it's moving and picking a place again where we are choosing it for a number of reasons, very positive reasons, and, like you're saying, any big challenge you take on, you're picking it to improve your life, to make your life better, to go after something really neat and interesting. But it's a big challenge and so we want to make sure we stay and keep it positive. So the best thing we're doing here, remember, is we're using one of our tools and in this case I love Mindset Rule 22. We are building our future instead of just talking about it.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Secondly, we're also staying true to our values, and that is really important. So what you've picked, that is important. I, in this case, we've picked certain things being closer to some family, being closer to some opportunities for work and for fun. Those are all things we really value, and we're not finding them in the area we're at now in the South. We're going to find them up in the North because we're familiar with that area. We've done our research and so we're making this happen and we are following those values. Now I think this is kind of neat and exciting. So I know I say that a lot about a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 10:08

So this is take this with a grain of salt, but, in all honesty, values are a neat component, a very important component and an often overlooked component when we talk about mental health, and they set the direction for where you want your life to go. Because just imagine, with all the other tools and all the warrior tools and the new mindset, lifestyle changes that we're making, well, guess what. You can take your life anywhere, but you want to go where you want to go. You want to go after the interest in the pursuits you want to go after, because that's how we find that happiness. That's how we find and use all of this power to support ourselves, our family, our friends, because when we're happier and we put ourselves in those good situations, then we're going to, overall, bring a lot more happiness and a lot more contentment to everything in life that we do. So this is a really fantastic approach and it's one of those things I want to call out. And we haven't talked that much about values, but I thought this whole movie example would give a neat kind of in to how important values are, but also how important it is to make sure, when you're facing a big challenge and even it's a positive challenge that we do not let it turn negative, because that's where we can get in trouble.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Now, the thing at this point we want to do is I just want to remind you because we've been talking about how we're going to do this what I want to remind you is some of the tools and the resources that the Mental Health Warrior Program has for you, so a lot of the things we have. First off, we have nine books out, and the reason I'm bringing that up is one I want you to know, as a mental health warrior, myself included we want to be well-armed, because life's going to throw challenges at us and as we get stronger, we're going to take on more things, and so we're going to need more and more tools or solutions. And in this case there's lifestyle changes we can make and there's mindset changes we can make all powerful warrior approaches and solutions. So we've got all these books out there and you can go to BruceShootercom to see all of those. We've got the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin, which I've mentioned a bunch of times. It is a physical representation of being a warrior that you can carry with you. Now that's. I want to bring this up because, again, with this move, there's a lot of stressful situations, a lot of challenges that we're going to face throughout the move. A little tougher to carry the books around, and so you get where I'm going here. One of the neat things is with our warrior coins is you can carry a warrior coin in your pocket. You can hold it in your hand when things get tough, and I have been using that because when I need to make decisions or I'm going through the house and it's all torn apart as we're preparing to do this fantastic move, well, I can turn to that coin and remind myself. I'm a warrior and I'm using my tools and I'm making sure that I follow my values and that we are going in a direction that I want the life to go to, our life to go to, which is why, again, this is a positive challenge, so we're going to keep it positive. Again, let's keep going back and remember you can always turn back to the Warrior Program for so many tools and solutions and so much support.

Speaker 1: 13:29

Rootshootercom there's a free book out there too. So if you're starting out these challenges or starting out this way of living, or starting out to just listen to the podcast, I encourage you to go there too and start picking up all the tools and solutions we talk about here and talk about in the book itself, in the free book, to get you started. So I'm going to sign off with just reminding you when you're facing a positive challenge, make sure, first off, don't be surprised. There will be challenges in there that will try to turn negative. Okay, that happened with us, it is happening with the move, but you can fight back. Secondly, make sure you some of the warrior tools.

Speaker 1: 14:08

I'm going to reference mindset, rule 22. Don't predict the future, create it instead, and you have that power. I'm going to add that addendum to it. You have that power as a mental health warrior. You can change your life and you can meet any challenge life throws your way. So we're going to sign off here because again I got to get back to packing and moving, but hopefully you found this enjoyable and when you're facing those positive challenges, don't let them turn negative. Remember to stay true to your values. Use your warrior tools and we will see you here for the next lesson or the next exciting thing we talk about with how to be a mental health warrior and keep moving forward. For, as I like to close with, the power to change your life is within your grasp. The only question out there is are you going to use it? And I know you will Talk with you more later, bruce. Signing off.