Embrace a No Limits Mentality: Discover the Power of a Solution-Focused Mindset for Mental Wellness

What does it mean to live a life without boundaries? Join me, Bruce Schutter, as I pull back the curtain on my personal battles with Bipolar, Alcoholism, Anxiety Disorders, and PTSD, revealing how these very challenges have shaped a path to a life marked by resilience and limitless potential. Discover how learning to ally with your emotions can unlock the strength to overcome any obstacle, transforming your mental health struggles into stepping stones for growth and empowerment.

From overcoming the stresses of a major career shift to adopting a solution-focused mindset, you can implement practical strategies for embracing a "no limits" mentality. Learn about Mindset Rule 12 and how it can be your guide through life's ups and downs. Whether you're navigating job challenges or handling everyday stress, focusing on solutions rather than problems can make all the difference. As Mental Health Warriors, we have the power to proclaim, "I have No Limits, Nor Will I Surrender," and this episode equips you with the tools to start your own limitless journey. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Unlocking No Limits
• 9:11 Empowerment Through No Limits Mentality
• 15:38 Mental Health Warrior's Limitless Journey

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi everybody. Bruce Shooter here with the Mental Health Warrior Program podcast no Surrender. But you know what today I want to talk about? Maybe the second rallying cry of the mental health warrior, which is no limits. We already have no surrender, so we're not going to give up in the face of mental health challenges, mental health disorders or everyday life challenges. We are going to step up to the plate as mental health disorders or everyday life challenges. We are going to step up to the plate as mental health warriors because we have learned to work with our emotions, we have learned to ally with them and by doing that we are unlocking the power where we can move forward, taking the steps to triumph over any challenge life throws our way, which is why today, if I can speak, I'm so excited.

Speaker 1: 0:45

One of the things I want to add is the second rallying cry of the mental health warrior. It is no limits. That's right, because I'm tired of hearing when we put the word mental health challenges or maybe mental health disorders out there, everybody starts thinking we need to put limits on our lives, we need to do less. I say that is wrong. What we need to do is we still need to do the work to learn to ally with our emotions. But when we do that, we are actually building a powerful solution, which means the world. We have no limits. We can go after any path we choose in our life. Now that is very empowering and very important because, again, as I've mentioned, we don't want to just triumph over our challenges so we can do nothing. I certainly didn't want to go over my challenges, excuse me. I certainly didn't want to go through my challenges and learn how to manage my bipolar disorder, alcoholism, stop drinking and hiding from my emotions, my anxiety disorders or my PTSD from my time as an EMT with the rescue squad. Now, with all those challenges. First off, we might say, wow, sounds like your life's going to be limited, bruce, or it sounds like maybe it will be because you have a lot of challenges. Now I do. I have four of them, four big ones right there.

Speaker 1: 2:13

But by being a mental health warrior and following that self-help approach remember that self-help equals self-empowerment and building that power from within I have learned to triumph each day over those challenges and, in turn, there's no limits on which direction I can take my life. And, matter of fact, it's really interesting on this because I'm actually doing things today that I completely could never imagine in the past, when my challenges controlled my life, that I could do these things, such as even right now speaking to you, going to talk to people every day my anxiety disorders. It put me through a lot of hoops just to talk to somebody. Now, of course, we pushed through that, but I missed out on the true enjoyment of talking to people. I missed out on maybe going to certain events because my anxiety was so intense. I actually chose not to go to them because I didn't know how to manage those emotions. I also chose to turn to drinking, as I mentioned, in order to hide from my emotions Yet another thing that certainly put more limits on my life and certainly didn't give me any way I could move forward, because I wasn't out doing anything. I was home, hiding from my emotions. So you can kind of see the logic which I'm bringing you today, and I'm adding that second rallying cry of a mental health warrior. Now, again, for some reason I'm having trouble speaking today. I don't know if I'm just so excited, but let's get the rallying cry. There's some tough words there. Let's get that in our lexicon or in our vocabulary, or any of those big words we're trying to say now because I'm trying to redeem myself, but again, I am moving forward. Made a misstep, that will happen Does not mean there are limits on our life. It also doesn't mean because you have mental health challenges or diagnosed mental health disorders that you have to put limits on your life. Now I'm going to bring out why and this is the reason Because we're going to learn to be mental health warriors.

Speaker 1: 4:27

The root power of a mental health warrior is learning to ally with our emotions. Now let's pretend we're standing here and we're bouncing right and left hand. So in the left hand we have all these challenges we were just talking about, some disorders, some life challenges, and they all come with emotions. On the right side, in my right hand, we are building our strength by what? Becoming a mental health warrior? Learning to ally with our emotions, which means accepting them, learning to work with them, that they will occur and they teach us lessons, and then learning to actually use their power so we can move past them and they don't control us. Now, if we look at that left and right hand, left hand problems, right hand solution look at the commonality it's right in the middle emotions. So that's what I love about the mental health warrior self-help approach, we are building the core strength and in my vision, here we are taking from our left hand and giving all that strength to our right hand, which is that solution, because we're working on our emotions and they are at the corner or at the center, I guess you should say not the cornerstone they're at the center of those challenges.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Now that is one of the reasons I'm going to give you a little tip here at this point. So we got a great plan we're going to become that mental health warrior. So we got a great plan. We're going to become that mental health warrior. And by learning and working with our emotions, we get to add that second rallying cry of no limits to our life, and that makes a lot of logical sense. It makes emotional sense because that's where the power is and it is something we can all do with this self-help approach and tools of the mental health warrior. So I want you to get excited about that and one of the ways to do that is we're going to grab a warrior tool.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Right now I want to bring in one that helps me. Alongside of that no limits rallying cry is the mental health warrior tool of mindset rule number 12, which is focus your energy on solutions, not problems. Now, remember, these mindset rules are part of a mental health warrior's weapons. You can be your mental health warrior tool belt, if you want to call it that, and what we're doing is we're building tools that will help us throughout the day. In this case, these mindset rules help keep us out of trouble by reminding us of certain truths before we get into the hectic pace of the day, or if we get stuck and we're in the midst of crisis and problems, mental health challenges everywhere. We can use that rule to get us out of trouble because, again, it has some very wise warrior wisdom. And remember, I'm going to repeat it here Focus your energy on solutions, not problems. So what I'm saying again, if we go back to that little corny analogy I was doing left hand holding all my problems, mental health challenges, mental health disorders holding all my problems, mental health challenges, mental health disorders, life challenges with the emotions right hand holding solutions, and we are learning as a warrior in that right hand solution here we are going to focus all our energy on that. You got it right, the solution being a mental health warrior. So what it reminds me to do is to not focus on.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Wow. Well, bruce, you have a lot of problems today. Wake up in the morning. I got four problems staring me in the face. You know what that could stop me in my tracks and it has. It has in the past. Or one of those challenges wakes me up with the anxiety or the depression that bipolar threw me in the minute I awoke.

Speaker 1: 8:15

If you're struggling with mental health disorders, you probably know what I'm talking about. They come in out of the blue, they just strike us. That's part of the challenge of these disorders. Now, again, that doesn't mean if it's not diagnosed, you could still have anxiety first thing in the morning. You could still be in depression too. But we all share that common ground of it's all centered around emotions and, as a mental health warrior, we are learning each day and building a warrior tool belt, as I like to call it, with all sorts of solutions and ways to build strong mental health and they keep moving forward through those challenges where we triumph over them each and every day. And that is possible because I have been doing this for 15 years now and it has been successful in working to triumph over my challenges, and what that means is I am, as we go, back to what I started.

Speaker 1: 9:11

I know you probably hear this coming, but there's no limit Now. That means I can decide to go after a new pursuit, a new interest in life. In this case I'll use it as an example. I was in the information technology field for 15 plus years. I was definitely not writing books, I was definitely not giving talks, I was definitely not writing books. I was definitely not giving talks. But this is today the new me with that no limits, as a mental health warrior. And you can follow the same path. And that's why I felt it was important to dedicate an episode today to this. We'll call it that second rallying cry because we don't want to forget the first one, which is no surrender. And when we partner those two up, we have a powerful approach, moving forward and something we can tap into each and every day and along the way. The best thing to remember is the program is designed to go at your pace and on your schedule, and the idea is you can pick the right tools, the right solutions that work for you. But one of them I'm offering up again, as we mentioned, is that mindset rule 12, because it is very powerful for any type of challenge, even a life challenge.

Speaker 1: 10:25

Instead of focusing your energy on actually on the problem, like we tend to and we try to blow that up and it becomes a big deal we're going to focus on the solution, and this has happened probably 10 times in the last week. A number of problems came up and all of a sudden I had a choice and it really was important because if I focused on that problem, I was going to be worrying all last week, probably stuck, not taking action. For example, we recently moved, so we're still closing out things from our old place and I was worried about whether they'd close out. The typical is everything going to be okay with they'd close out. You know, the typical is everything going to be okay with the new, the landlord coming in checking things. I could have focused on that, driven myself crazy and everybody around me. I chose to focus on the solution, which was we did a good job, we took care of everything and guess what? By the end of the week we were able to close things out.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Another example was new projects come up or maybe a new piece of software, and all of a sudden I realized there was a new update to the software I use for video recording, for making this podcast, and all of a sudden I'm thinking, oh, I don't have the time nor the energy to learn all the new pieces and tools in this problem, in this software. See, I was focusing on it as a problem. That's what I started with. But then I grabbed mindset rule 12, said, bruce, you're a mental health warrior, you're going to actually focus on the solution. And what I did was I watched a couple of the videos they gave on the new features. I realized I only need one of them and secondly, they explained it really well. So there went that mountain, that Everest of problems that I was staring at, and guess what? It became? A tiny little, tiny bump on the road, took me 20 minutes to figure it out and then I felt comfortable again using the software.

Speaker 1: 12:21

But I believe and this happens all the time in our life it's that choice of where we focus our energy as mental health warriors. And I'm going to encourage you to start using Mindset Rule 12 even right now. And you may not be at the point where you want to say I'm going to take all the limits off my life, but I'm working towards it. But what you can do is, every day, just shift, shift your mindset on where you're putting your energy and where you're letting your head go, and focus on dealing with the emotions that come with and will help you get to that solution, no matter what it is, because, again, it could be anything from as simple as corny little things happening in the house All of a sudden, working in the kitchen, spilling things left and right. Don't ask me why, probably because I cluttered up the counter, but I'm trying to bake and cook something to help my mental health, and then I knock over three separate things.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Well, that didn't set me in a good tone. It certainly didn't set the day on a good point of here. I am trying to do something positive. Now, again, I had that choice and I choose to remember. I'm going to focus on the solution, which was I was trying a new recipe and I was excited to do that because that is a fantastic way to take care of your mental health by building and cooking. It's a very rewarding process and we'll talk about that more later with the program, but it's just another example that helped me through the day of something that could have become, like I said that Everest of problems and instead was just a little minor bump on the road. So thanks for joining me and get excited for this week, next week, because even if you have a lot of mental challenges, even if you're facing mental disorders, as a mental health warrior you can add that second rallying cry in of no limits and you get to take your life in new directions as you get stronger and able to handle those challenges. I don't know anything more exciting With that result. That is a perfect reason to start to become a mental health warrior. Certainly, for me, that was a huge part of actually being in control again of my life and the direction of my life.

Speaker 1: 14:39

Now, to do this, come out and check out all the warrior resources. So there's our homepage at bruce shootercom. It's S C H U T T E? R, but you could also type in mental health warrior program probably into any search engine and it'll lead you there. I implore you to go there and check it out because you can start your journey today there with all the free resources.

Speaker 1: 15:03

So not just this podcast, we have blog articles to keep exploring and helping you take action. There's also a free book that will explain the program a little bit more and give you five tools, five warrior tools you can use today to start taking charge of your mental health and start triumphing over your challenges. And then you'll see the rest of the nine books that are out there. You'll see also the way you can take the program with you with the Mental Health Warrior Challenge Coin. It's about the size of a silver dollar, but you can carry it in your pocket, put it on your desk.

Speaker 1: 15:38

It's a reminder you're a mental health warrior and I'm going to add this back in we have no limits, and that is over the top exciting. So, with all those resources, please come check out the website and start your journey today, and then you can join me in shouting that rallying cry. As a mental health warrior, I have no limits, nor will I surrender. We got two of them. Thanks for joining me. Bruce is signing off. Have a great week. We're going to talk to you next time. Bye.