Feature Friday: Manifesting and Mental Health
Hello all you beautiful souls. My name is Anna, I currently live in Virginia Beach but am originally from small-town Houghton in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan!
I am a marketing student, a spiritual learner, body positivity promoter, fur-mom, macrame artist, and most importantly: A Mental Health Advocate
I started Mental Health and Macrame in the beginning of this crazy year we call 2020, which also happened to be the jumpstart into my own mental health journey and healing process. Macrame became a creative outlet for me when I started my mental health journey, as almost a form of meditation, it allowed me to not only relax my mind but also express my creative side. Macrame became such a large part of my own healing that my calling to combine the two was almost instantaneous.
I created Mental Health and Macrame as a platform to not only share my artwork, but also cultivate a safe community where myself and others can be vulnerable and open about their battles with mental health.
Mental health hasn’t always been a word I was comfortable with or something I chose to speak freely about.
When I was 12 years old my dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Melanoma, and for the next 4 years that was what evidently consumed me. Those developmental years of my life were basically put on the fastrack. I grew up faster, I understood more, and I felt deeper than most others my age. Looking back at those times I do feel eternally grateful for my experiences, however in the moment it felt very alienating. The fear of what was happening to my life at such a young age, manifested itself into this aggressive, internal, rage and sense of shame. I was consumed with so much anger. I was so mad at the world for making me have to go through what I was going through. The anger and regret eventually just created this “safety” bubble, and the idea of showing my emotions or any type of vulnerability was crippling for many years after.
Losing a parent is an unexplainable pain that is only truly ever understood by those who have also gone through it. Regardless of if you’ve lost a parent, friend, or relative, the process of grieving and healing is completely unique. For me, I fully secluded myself, I spent my time consciously and subconsciously building as big of barriers as I could between myself, my emotions, and other people. For over a decade I chose to consistently be in a state of “flight”, with the fear of letting myself be vulnerable overwhelm me. Any inclination of emotional confrontation, intimacy, or commitment would send me into an internal panic and I would be sent running for the hills. I was fully incapable of being vulnerable or expressing how I felt in any capacity, even with those closest to me.
Flash forward to the end of 2019/beginning of 2020, I started to experience a variety of physical symptoms- chest pain, heart palpitations, brain fog, dizziness and excessive fatigue. All of which, I later learned, was solely due to my anxiety, seasonal depression and unhealed trauma that was going untreated and unattended to. It got to the point that I actually fainted at my job at the time and ended up going through dozens of tests trying to find out what was happening to my body.. It took months of testing, bloodwork, cursing at doctor’s under my breath, and being angry because something was “wrong with me” for me to realize that I was what was wrong with me. Years of suppressing my own emotions, thoughts and trauma, had cultivated itself into real, physical symptoms and my body was basically screaming at me “YOU NEED TO SLOW DOWN AND HEAL”.
The way I looked at my life, the aggressive expectations I had, the lack of compassion and love for myself and for others was sending my body into this insane downward spiral. So much so that I simply had no choice but to stop being scared of myself and take ownership of the battles I was facing.
After realizing that I needed to begin healing I had a wonderful friend who encouraged me to begin therapy and that is the moment when my journey with manifestation and mental health began.
Let's talk about manifesting and the connection of our words to our mental health.
Manifestation has become a hot buzzword over these past few months, but what does it really mean? In my realm, manifestation is essentially putting physical opportunities into your reality through intentional thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Although that sounds super great, it’s not as simple as wishing for a Tesla and suddenly receiving one, unfortunately there is a bit more depth to it. Making manifestation a part of your daily practice takes time, patience, lots of love, and understanding the deeper connection of our words to our psyche.
Our brains, contrary to previous belief, are constantly evolving, constantly changing and creating different pathways solely based on how we experience life. Just like riding a bicycle or driving a car, our thoughts and emotions become “muscle memory”, meaning self-talk, thoughts, reactions, and emotions become automatic.
Our everyday scenarios and experiences are the prime examples of how we have designed our brains to interpret our varying situations. Say someone cuts you off while you’re driving, how do you react? Or on your way to work you spill the coffee you just made, how does that affect you for the rest of the day? Obviously, bad things happen and we are allowed to feel the emotions of frustration, anger, disappointment, etc but being aware of the narrative surrounding the inconvenient things that happen is what can transform your days.
Even just changing the way you speak throughout your everyday life can have a massive, positive impact on your mental health. Something I’ve recently started doing is trying to remove any possession to the “negative” emotions that I feel. For example instead of saying “I’m an anxious person” I am trying to say “I am having anxiety” or “In this moment I am having anxiety”. This helps me separate the emotions I’m having from my body and soul, which in turn allows me to better understand the thoughts and look at them more logically. Practicing this idea can help immensely in rewiring your brain to think and interpret your situations in a more positive light, which in turn puts us in a more stable position to handle negativity.
We are constantly manifesting our days, regardless of what level of awareness we're at or what pole of negativity/positivity we tend to energetically gravitate towards. Every scenario, situation, or event, whether negative or positive, YOU have a choice of how you get to experience that. If you wake up tired on Monday and choose to go throughout the day with the mindset of “monday’s suck, I’m tired” then it’s very likely that your energy is solely going to focus on the negative. If you choose to look at it from a sense of gratitude, and appreciation such as “It’s Monday and I’m a little tired, but today is going to be a beautiful day”. It’s not to say we just shouldn’t experience our negative emotions, it’s more to focus on expressing what you’re feeling in the moment, and choosing to approach your narrative with more gratitude and grace.
The words we speak to ourselves and to others are naturally programmed to confirm the subconscious biases that we have about ourselves and our situations. Say that one of your core beliefs is “only bad things happen to me”, if this is what you solely believe, then your brain will only allow you to produce thoughts and interpret experiences that confirm that negative core belief. In other words, you inherently will only see the bad out of every situation. For example, a couple of my negative core beliefs were “my life is unfortunate” and “If I am vulnerable then that means I am weak”. Before I took time to dive deeper into my own thinking and realize I had these negative core beliefs I was living a narrative completely created by my own subconscious, and was only able to interpret the world through those lenses. All the anger I harvested over the year overwhelmingly fed into these beliefs and they grew, and grew until I started to learn the tools to take control of my own mental space and begin breaking down these negative core beliefs.
Oftentimes we feel as if we aren’t in control, and our negative core beliefs are designed to reassure us that we’re not. However, the moment you step out of that mindset, begin to shift your narrative and change the way you speak about yourself and your experiences, you will see that YOU are actually the only thing that is constantly in control.
We are always in control of our destiny and our experiences. From the second you get up in the morning to the moment you go to bed it’s important for us to practice self-awareness and be conscious of what we are speaking into existence. This journey into being conscious of our words, thoughts, and core beliefs can be very daunting, but you are not alone. We are all healing, growing and working towards a better version of ourselves. Appreciate the journey, and I promise you that the life you design for yourself will come to fruition, the gratitude you feel will embody you, and the positive energy you radiate will bring forth endless possibilities.
I hope you read this blog post and are able to take just a few of my words into your everyday. As always thank you for all of the love and support! Follow me on Instagram and Facebook @mentalhealthandmacrame, or check out my Etsy shop; Mental Health and Macrame and stay up to date with all of my shenanigans!
Listed below are some resources for any of you looking to learn more about manifestation and mental health!
Shrink Chicks: This is an amazing podcast, Emmalee and Jennifer upload amazing content and speak so eloquently that it can help you not only learn more about yourself but also feel connected to others.
BetterHelp: A great resource for those who are seeking a therapist but may not know where to start or need someplace that can work with you financially.
Ella Ringrose: Ella has loads of amazing content when it comes to manifestation and how to incorporate it into your everyday routine. She also has a facebook page and podcast where she provides more resources and information.
Switch On Your Brain: This is an amazing book if you’re looking more into understanding the neural pathways of your brain and how you can adapt your life to live both happier and healthier.
**Emergency Help Resources**
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 — https://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help
What an amazing blog post! Thank you so much, Anna for sharing your story and what you’ve learned about manifesting and how you use it in your life.