Mental Health Warrior Program: No Surrender

Busting the "No Time for Mental Health Care" Myth: Daily Practices for Mental Health Warrior's

Bruce Schutter Season 1 Episode 26

Ever felt like there's simply no time to care for your mental health amidst life's chaos? Today, I dismantle this pervasive myth by sharing my own journey through Anxiety Disorders, Bipolar, Alcoholism, and PTSD, illustrating the dark path taken when mental well-being is neglected. 

Tune in to discover practical, innovative ways to incorporate mental health care into your daily routine with the Mental Health Warrior Program. By weaving mindfulness into mundane tasks like cooking and pairing workouts with gratitude exercises, this program offers a seamless integration of emotional management into your life.

Join us as we redefine what it means to be a mental health warrior, unlocking personal growth and strength through consistent, manageable practices. I'll share stories of my own unexpected achievements, proving that by rejecting the misconception of 'not having enough time,' you can unlock new potentials and directions in your life. 

Plus, explore the resources available at BruceSchutter.com, including 9 books, a mental health warrior challenge coin, and free materials, to support your journey. Don't miss this episode packed with actionable tips and inspiration to help you manage your emotional wellness throughout each and every day! 

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Disclaimer: *Please keep in mind: The Mental Health Warrior Program: No Surrender podcast does not provide medical or health advice, but rather general information that does not serve as a substitute for a licensed healthcare professional. Never delay in seeking medical advice from an appropriately licensed medical provider for any health condition that you may have.



Speaker 1:

Hi everybody, bruce Shooter, here with the Mental Health Warrior Program podcast, no Surrender. Now, in today's episode, I want to talk about the fact of a common statement that people make, and I even am guilty of making, is I don't have time in the day to take care of my mental health. Well, that certainly may be technically true, because I know our days get busy and we think we don't have the time, but I can tell you the outcomes of not having the time, of not taking care of our mental health. That is a very bad approach, and I'm saying that personally because that is exactly what happened in my life. So today I want to talk about the power of the Mental Health Warrior program and how being a mental health warrior solves that common problem that you're putting out there of I don't have time to take care of my mental health. So let's jump into it.

Speaker 1:

But first let me talk about my experiences, because I definitely fell victim to this mindset. Now, remember, we're building new mindsets as a mental health warrior. So first I had to challenge this, because I first had to see what happened. Well, the first thing was when I didn't take any action on my emotions. I basically tried to hide from them, avoid them. I just wanted to get through them. So my anxiety disorder avoid them. I just wanted to get through them. So my anxiety disorder, my bipolar disorder, which sent me into depression or a mania. My alcoholism, which basically meant not dealing with anything as I tried to hide from things or dull down the experience, as you could call it, or the PTSD, again using a combination of short-term solutions to try to downplay my emotions, to downplay what was really being presented to me by my experiences, by everyday life, and by doing that, it took me to a very dark place where I didn't even want to live anymore Because, again, I didn't have time to manage my emotions, which led me to the place of then. I guess I didn't have time or felt like I couldn't live a life. Now, I do not want you to be in that position and no one should be in that, but I understand and I will tell you how I got there and I understand if that's where you're headed.

Speaker 1:

But I want to offer you the solution and I'm offering today the Mental Health Warrior Program that I created based on my 20-year experience with having none of that control or having no time to take care of my mental health. Now, the whole Mental Health Warrior Program is based on the concept of a self-help approach, and self-help leads to self-empowerment. But the approach is what's important today because it solves and it will address. So it addresses and solves the challenge we put out here, which is I don't have time, life is too busy to take care of my mental health. Well, the way I've designed this and the way I've created this is all of the warrior solutions, all of the tools you use you can use seamlessly throughout your day, and that means we can be doing other activities. We can feed them into work, personal activities, everyday chores and everyday tasks, everyday interactions with people. By weaving in the warrior tools, the warrior mindset, some lifestyle changes, you can get the picture that we are not going to disrupt your day with this mental health or a self-help mental health approach. And now that's exciting because at this point you're starting to get a peek under the covers and you're seeing what I saw when I took on this new approach, and what that means is we can continue with our life without having to set up and disrupt it in order to take care of our mental health. Now, I'm not saying there aren't times when you need to focus on your mental health, and I'm not saying there aren't certain challenges that are so tough, but we are talking at the majority of the time, that this self-help approach will allow you to seamlessly keep living your life and working your day while you can manage your mental health, and that is exciting because that allows us to continue taking on tasks and learning and growing as we go. So some of the tools for example, when you get down, I like to merge things, so we use some of the mental health warrior tools such as like mindfulness, cooking, or if you were going to do a workout and you could do a gratitude list while you're doing your workout.

Speaker 1:

Now I want you to imagine those two situations. So you have an emotional challenge in front of you. Maybe you're in depression, like I find myself a lot of times with my bipolar disorder. It sends me into depression. Or maybe my life just doesn't seem to be where I want it and it sends me slipping into depression itself and I go out and I do some mindfulness cooking, and that's one of the tools I have in the first book because it was so powerful.

Speaker 1:

So the smells, the aroma, the act of cooking, it is a way to manage our depression and stop it in its tracks. And it's a way to get out of depression too, because by the time you finish cooking something let's say, you're building a soup, like I am and you're creating that soup and you're cooking it and you're chopping and doing things. You get to calm your mind. You're chopping all your vegetables, putting in whatever you're putting into your soup. You're creating something. Again, you start to pull yourself and feel depression lifting because you are creating something. Again, you start to pull yourself and feel depression lifting because you are creating something. You are building something positive and you can see it right in front of you and you're also getting to smell the mindfulness. Cooking is big and is the aroma of the food you're cooking or something you're baking. It goes and wafts through the kitchen. You will be instantly in a better mood.

Speaker 1:

Now, the beautiful part, as I mentioned, is, with this whole program and our solutions, is that we haven't disrupted the day because at the same time, well, we need to eat dinner. So I'm actually making dinner and I'm actually taking care of that task at the same time as I am my mental health. How exciting is that. And that again, is that self-help, self-empowerment approach in action, because we are doing two things and we are getting multiple benefits. So at the end of this, I have lifted myself out of depression and I've made an amazing meal for myself, for my family. That's pretty exciting and that is an excellent way to work through that challenge.

Speaker 1:

Now let's just say, as I mentioned too, what if we have a workout schedule and a lot of us go and do a workout after work, or maybe you're running out at lunchtime? You can focus on just a workout. But what if you have an emotional challenge at that time? What if you're in and racing thoughts or you have a really tough project at work or home that you can't come up with a solution on? Well, one of the things you can work on is you can try to problem solve.

Speaker 1:

Focus, while you're doing your workout, on your workout. Obviously, pay attention to whatever you're doing. Don't want you dropping weights on your foot or anything like that. But we're going to focus half our attention on the workout and the other half on dealing with the emotions or dealing with that challenge. We're going to work through some solutions. We're going to go maybe even work on a gratitude list if we're finding ourselves in depression. So, again, I like to marry up those two things.

Speaker 1:

Marry up, I guess, is what I'm trying to say, as I mix my words, but I am looking to combine. Let's my words. But I am looking to combine, let's go with that. I'm looking to combine two things. We're combining a therapeutic technique with a real-life activity, and that is mental health warrior tools, and these are just some of the warrior weapons that you have. We also have mindset rules, but those are a little bit different. Now, these are all things, though, that we can use seamlessly throughout the day without interrupting our life, but we can get results. We can weave them into the day, and that is what makes this so powerful and such a neat approach, in that you can keep moving forward each day and triumphing over any of those challenges that pop up. So I want you to get excited by that.

Speaker 1:

I also want you to just see that one of the biggest things is I think you'll see, at this point we are certainly making a case that there isn't a lot of weight in that statement of I don't have time to take care of my mental health, because that statement is not showing up as true when you're becoming a mental health warrior, because you don't need to carve out that extra time. Now we also can see that as we weave this throughout the day, we can build upon those successes. Again, we are building a path forward. We're building a forward progress on this again, which means we obviously can work it in throughout our day and we can put to rest the idea that we don't have time in the day to work on our mental health. Now that is pretty exciting and I I know I'm just talking about the surface on these right now. Okay, I know my goal at this point in showing you all those different ways that we've just touched upon.

Speaker 1:

Being a mental health warrior helps you in fighting back from that concept of I don't have time to take care of my mental health by showing you the numerous ways you can do it throughout each and every day. But let's remember the important and the powerful part that comes from that approach and that's what's exciting here is, if we can do this throughout each and every day, think of the strength and the growth we can have. So think about it. We are essentially saying or in my case, we're saying each day, I'm working on my bipolar. Each day, I'm working on my anxiety disorders Each day. I may be working a little bit on my PTSD. So, again, if you have multiple challenges, we have multiple solutions and things going on throughout the day where we're doing real-life activities and we're also using the tools of the warrior throughout the day.

Speaker 1:

Look at the progress we can make because we are addressing multiple things and that is what I find so over-the-top exciting in this mental health warrior approach. This is why, again, when I keep saying it's a self-help approach, think about it. The more effort you put in each day to working on your challenges, the more you meet them, face on and you don't surrender, you will make even more progress. And it comes down to your choice. You get to decide. You can find the time throughout the day and use the tools and then you get to continue to use them and decide to use them even more and empower yourself even further.

Speaker 1:

And that is really at the core of what it means to be a mental health warrior. It is about us building that inner warrior strength so that as we move forward, we can continue to take on new challenges and take our life in a new direction. And I know we're getting kind of top level from something we started with which was very day to day, and I don't have time to work on my mental health. But we are seeing so many benefits and we are realizing that we actually have time each day to work on it, which means we'll have results each day which, follow my logic here, means we will make that progress we desire and we will be able to go after tougher challenges and keep moving forward. So one of the best things I found, by putting aside that wrong notion that I didn't have time to work on my mental health, is that my life today has gone in directions and I'm doing things like writing books. This is a person from an IT field. This is a person who was a project manager or writing code to now writing books and giving talks Certainly something I did not expect, but because I became a mental health warrior, because I'm so involved with managing my emotions each day, I was able to unlock inner strength to do this.

Speaker 1:

Wow, I still struggle with an anxiety disorder. That is a great proof, I think, of what you can do, and I know you will have stories just like that as you further embrace and realize I do have time to take care of my mental health each day, using the warrior tools and solutions. And then I will get so excited because I will have more and more control over where my life goes and I'll be able to take on those new challenges. Take on those new things as we grow into a job, into learning, a skill, into learning and wanting to learn more about things in life. We can go after those things knowing that we can manage the emotions and the challenges that will come with them. So I've kind of gone over the top here, but I think you see how we can spin something that was a negative where we said we didn't have challenges, into something almost like a powerful tornado of positivity that will take over our lives, as we find we do have time as a mental health warrior to manage it each and every day, and that path is a path to success.

Speaker 1:

So if you're excited at this point, remember you can start your journey at any time by going to bruceshootercom. That's the home of the Mental Health Warrior Program. You can type that into a search engine and find us, and you will find on that site all the resources that I've built to empower you so you can find the time each and every day to work on your mental health. You will find nine different books at this point with all sorts of tools and warrior solutions that you can use throughout, each and every day.

Speaker 1:

You will find the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin that you can carry with you. It's very discreet to carry it in your pocket, but know it's a reminder that you are a mental health warrior and to celebrate those achievements each day as you move forward and handle your life's challenges. Fantastic reminder that, again, does not disrupt your day. You'll also find lots of free resources, including this podcast and other episodes, plus a free book to get you started. And again I'm going to reinforce all these things can work into your day and you can continue living life as you triumph as you go. So please check out all the resources. I hope you are a little excited today to disprove that thought that you may have had, or disprove, as I did it is a falsehood that we don't have time to take care of our mental health and when you find the time, which you will, as a warrior, you can triumph over any challenge life throws your way. So I'm going to sign out on that note. Hope to talk with you more at the next episode. Thanks.

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