Stepping out of Your Comfort Zone and Embracing Change: Build a New Mindset and Transform Your Life

Ever wondered how stepping out of your comfort zone can transform your mental health? Join us as Bruce Schutter from the Mental Health Warrior Program shares his powerful story of moving to Pennsylvania and battling bipolar disorder, alcoholism, anxiety, and PTSD. Bruce's journey is a testament to the life-changing impact of facing and embracing change. Through his candid insights, we explore how managing emotions rather than fearing them can lead to significant personal growth and a better quality of life. This episode is a must-listen for anyone struggling with mental health challenges and seeking inspiration to break free from destructive patterns.

You'll also learn about a power Mental Health Warrior Weapon - Mindset Rule 7: Focusing on what you can control and letting go of the rest. Bruce provides real-life examples, including his move to a new location, to illustrate how this mindset can help maintain control during tumultuous times. We discuss the importance of becoming a Mental Health Warrior and how you can harness the power within to improve your mental health. Ending with an empowering message, we invite you to embrace change as a pathway to growth and improvement. Tune in to discover the tools and resources that can help you triumph on your warrior journey!

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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 lifestyle and mindset changes, so you can take charge of your mental health and triumph over your life’s challenges. 

Each book in the program offers a unique solution, drawn from real-life experiences, for building strong mental health. These books are designed to serve as your daily companion, guiding you on a life-long path to mental wellness. And to further support your journey, I've designed the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin – that you can carry with you every day, so you can celebrate your achievements and support your mental health. 

For you are a Mental Health Warrior, and the power to change your life is within your grasp!

Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Change for Mental Health Warriors
• 7:52 Embracing Change
• 15:31 Becoming a Mental Health Warrior

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everybody, bruce Shooter here with the Mental Health Warrior Program no Surrender Now today. As a mental health warrior, you are powerful, but we can get stuck if we are afraid of change. I want to bring this up because this is a powerful leaping off point. It's also a powerful starting point, but because it is so powerful, it is very, very scary. And I also want to relate, because I have just been through a lot of personal changes as we just moved. Now, of course, mental health and moving kind of seem a little distant. But and again, if you're watching the visual and if you're not, I'll explain to you. But again, I'm doing a background here where there's nothing behind me, and it's kind of scary because it's like I'm restarting over my life because we just completed a move. But, however, one of the things that's amazing is there's a lot of power when we are willing to change. And that is something I want to talk to you about today, because you are probably stuck, like I was, in a rut when you have mental health challenges, because a lot of times we go with those short-term solutions, we go with something we feel works and I'm using air quotes here if you can't see me, and I'm saying that with a lot of sarcasm, because I tried the same thing over and over and over again. Now you've probably heard the saying that insanity is when we keep trying the same thing and expect different results. Now, the funny thing was I actually didn't expect different results as I tried short-term solutions with addressing the challenges that come with bipolar disorder or alcoholism, or again my anxiety disorder or PTSD that I struggled with from my time as an EMT, emergency medical technician on a rescue squad. Now all those together, they vied for control all the time and, as before I should say before I was a mental health warrior they won out a lot. They won out, matter of fact, all the time. And, as before, I should say, before I was a mental health warrior they won out a lot. They won out, matter of fact, all the time. And, matter of fact, truth be told, they took over and basically ran my life for about 20 years because they influenced every decision and you may have heard me talking about this. They led me down a very dark path.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Now we want to stop that, but the key element is facing change Now, much like a move. We are facing a lot of uncertainties, and uncertainty does not make us feel comfortable. I know I didn't feel comfortable. I certainly can't even imagine things like what would I do without drinking, or how would I handle bipolar disorder. For the rest of my life my emotions are going to run amok, they're going to go from mania to depression and they're going to bounce in between or all at the same time Anxiety disorders through the roof. How could I ever possibly manage those?

Speaker 1: 2:58

So I felt the straightforward course and the course I was trying was to either self-medicate with alcohol or to try short-term solutions. I just wanted to get through the day, anything that could help me get through that day. And I'm repeating that because apparently that really was the only thing I accomplished. I didn't see it at the time. I was kind of living life but I was really getting nowhere. I was pretty much spinning in circles because I feared change. Now I'm bringing this up because what's really interesting is this move challenged me again Because, again, my anxiety or the bipolar swinging of emotions.

Speaker 1: 3:38

When you undertake a move as anybody who's done that, even if it's across town, you know how stressful that can be because we lose all of that solidness that's in our life where the grocery store is where we can go to get gas for the car, our route to work, anything that we've done for years, and we build that foundation. So we cling to that. But a lot of times, when you're facing mental health challenges and in order to become a mental health warrior, I'm going to encourage you to face change, to embrace change, because we need to try a new path. And this is where the program comes into play. And this is what I learned personally because, again, I'll read you one of the quotes I wrote down at the beginning, when I started working on this program and taking control of my life, and that was don't be afraid to erase the board and start over. Now you may say that's a good quote, but what does it really mean? Why were you afraid of that? Well, because it meant giving up all of those routines, all of those solid, quote, unquote, short-term solutions, anything that I used to get through the day, and it meant embracing a new path, where one I was going to embrace all my emotions, I was no longer going to fear them and, secondly, I was going to learn to work with them and manage them. Now, these are completely unknowns at this point and that is a lot of change.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Much like I'll quickly use my story here much like recently, we moved three states away. Now we moved from the south back up towards the north, to PA, to Pennsylvania, and we did it for a number of reasons and those reasons were very strong. We were well, let's put it this way we like the temperature and we like topography better in the north. Frankly, I was melting in the south. So you can imagine that was not helping my mental health or just going and doing things. I always felt like humidity never left and I got tired of wearing shorts at Christmas. It just wasn't doing things. I always felt like humidity never left and I got tired of wearing shorts at Christmas. It just wasn't for us. It might be for you and that's fine. But when we moved we knew this was going to be a great new change to our lifestyle. We knew it would be near some other people, near other activities, it would expand what we could do, all sorts of positives. But here we go again.

Speaker 1: 5:55

The biggest thing I had to face was that word change Because again it came with uprooting everything, from boxing, as you know, every little piece you have in the house to deciding what comes with you, even Should it even go in those boxes and then unboxing it and resetting up your life. Now I've been working on that for the last week and a half and I can tell you I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. If you will, the positive reactions, the positive environment of being up here it's already affecting everything, everything day to day, matter of fact. I'm so excited. I'm talking over myself, so I'm going to calm down because this is the power. This is what's so neat about something where we make change and then the benefits start rolling out, and they roll out for a long time, lifetime changes.

Speaker 1: 6:46

That's also what you can get when you become a mental health warrior, and that's how I designed the program. So one of the first things I did was I built the triumph book to show you I triumphed over bipolar alcoholism, anxiety disorders and other host of other challenges by becoming a mental health warrior. Now, in that book, which is available on the website and it's at Bruce shootercom and I bring that up because that book is showing you don't be afraid of change. And that was one of the biggest steps I had to take, because we can only get these results if we're willing to change how we view mental health and we can change how we view it, particularly from a weakness to a strength, because I'm telling you, it is so powerful. It has allowed me to change everything about my life and take it in directions I never imagined it could go. But, as I mentioned, we have to get past that first hurdle and that's embracing change.

Speaker 1: 7:52

Now, one of the things I want to bring up is we can use a variety of the tools. So when you are facing change, one of the things you want to do is we're going to use a mindset rule. We're going to use mindset rule number seven, and that states work on the things you can control and let go of the rest. I know you think let go of things, bruce. That does not sound good, but it is. What we're saying is, you have to focus on what's right in front of you and we're going to work to manage things as we change. So we're going to use mindset rule all the time. We're going to work on the things you can control.

Speaker 1: 8:33

We're going to let go of the rest, because we are going after some big changes here, and I'm talking about dealing with mental health disorders, but also it may bring in other changes in your life, because example of me moving I could never have done this in the past. I moved but I crumbled, I did not handle it well. So I guess technically you can move, but I did not move with things under control. I did not feel I got the full experience and all the benefits of moving because I brought all those problems with me. So again, this whole idea of being a mental health warrior is very powerful in that we are going to make a lot of changes and we're going to learn to deal with our emotions. We're going to learn to manage and triumph over our challenges and no matter what throws us, we're going to be prepared so we can keep moving forward.

Speaker 1: 9:30

But one of the things is then you'll find you'll take on new changes. So you'll take on a new challenge or a new change, and one of the things was we decided to move and we decided to move several states away. We also decided to embrace some new activities as we moved up to an area that had different activities we could do to help our mental health. So we're getting outside more. We're going out to some of the parks that we did not have access to and it's fantastic in.

Speaker 1: 9:58

These are all the different things you can manage as a mental health lawyer, but particularly remember that mindset rule number seven we want to work on the things you can control and let go of the rest, because there are some things we're just going to have to let happen, if you will, because, just like my move and the anxiety crept up and if you've ever moved and I know I spoke about this in a couple other podcasts, but it's a great example because I am so impressed that I was able to handle all this because in the past, first off, letting people in your house picking and letting them pick what to put in certain boxes. Now, if you have anxiety or anxiety disorders, like I do, you know that can be very, very overwhelming because you're thinking, oh my God, this is letting somebody into your personal space, it's letting them almost make decisions for you and just think about it. You really can't move if you can't put things in a box. Now, that's very logical. Let's take it to the other side, where we're dealing with a mental health disorder.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Well, if we're afraid of breaking out of those routines, like I mentioned, I used to just crumble at night and drink because I wanted to hide from my emotions. Or if they got the better of me and I was so depressed, I would use what people call retail therapy or I'd go out and do some crazy over-the-top thing, not because I was so excited about something, because I was basically trying to buy my way or force my way out of depression. But today, as a warrior, I've learned to work through it and even listen to depression a little bit to see what it's telling me I'm depressed about. And I'll tell you, funny enough, 90% of the time I find it's lying to me. Things are not that bad. Anxiety is not that bad, because things are not going to end up as terrible as I'm imagining it. Now you can see these challenges. They like to try to get control of us. That's what they're trying to do and as warriors, we are going to keep them from taking control.

Speaker 1: 12:08

I'll bring you back to that tagline we are never going to surrender, and that is a fantastic, great, powerful way. It's an essential way to keep moving forward, and it will allow you to embrace change each and every day and be open to that which, in turn, if we're following the logic here, opens the door to being able to take your life in the direction you want, accomplish what you want, because, again, nothing will stop us, and that is something we can do. So I thought this was really fun to talk about, the move, and it just kept resonating in my head. We need to be okay with change and that's a first step you can take today as a mental health lawyer. Matter of fact, we can take it right now, as you're listening to me.

Speaker 1: 12:56

Just don't be afraid to change and you're not because you're listening to a podcast, or maybe you're going to go explore some of the tools and you'll see there are other avenues, other ways to go, and they are very powerful and they're things you can use each and every day. So I should tell you at this point if you're excited, like I am, about being a mental health lawyer, go to the website. There's your first starting point for change. Go to BruceShootercom so it's S-C-H-U-T-T-E-R. If you don't remember how to spell it, just type in Mental Health Warrior Program in any search engine. It'll get you there.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Go out and check out all the resources. We have nine books there. They are lifestyle and mindset changes that each one can help you out in building that strong mental health, taking charge of life and building it so you can triumph over your life's challenges each and every day. There's also the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin. It's a way to carry the program with you. It's like I carry the coin and in my hand I've got motivation, I've got support and I've got guidance, because on the back of each coin there is warrior guidance that helps me through the day. Much like I suggested using mindset rule number seven when you get stuck and remembering to just work on what you can control and letting go of the rest, because that is the key. It's the same thing with the coin or carrying the books around. Now there's also a bunch of free resources. You'll find other podcast episodes so you can dive into the program a little bit more. You can also take action with some of the other episodes I want to mention. There's some five-minute Mental Health Warrior Challenge episodes putting together those so if you only have a couple minutes in the morning, you can get started with a little challenge and take even further control of your day.

Speaker 1: 14:48

I hope you're excited at this point. I know I'm excited, having talked to you. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed a little bit and a glimpse into Bruce's moving experience Again. I know I've talked about it on a couple episodes, but I will tell you this whole experience is completely different than the other times. We've moved as a mental health warrior. I'm in control, I handle each one of the emotions and I was able to move forward all the time, where we ended up now setting up a new house, setting up a new location, and I'm actually excited. I am telling life, life. Bring on the challenges each day, because I am ready, bruce. I am ready.

Speaker 1: 15:31

Bruce Shooter is a mental health warrior. Guess what? You can say the same. You can say all that the same, because I know you can. And I want to leave you with this thought because the power to change your life is within your grasp. You become a mental health warrior. It is there. All you have to do is say yes, we will talk with you more. Thanks for joining in, bruce. Signing out Bye.