April mental health challenge

week 1

For the first week of April I decided to try doing a journal activity again. When I was in therapy, this is something my therapist suggested and I stuck to for a while, though it stopped a bit after I stopped going to therapy. But I remembered I sort of liked it then, so I decided to give it another try. Her version was a bit more complex, giving me a few different prompts each day, but what I got out of it was basically writing something external, internal and something that you caused I suppose. So I stole my favorite prompts to make a more general form, of course making it look cute. The first prompt focused externally, with something positive that happened that day. Then internally, with something I did that day that I’m proud of, and finally something I did for someone that day. I also added in a section to just write- mostly because why not, but I do actually love having that section.

These things don’t have to be huge accomplishments or events, they can be small and that’s okay. It really helps me be able to find the good things that happened and focus on those more. At first, when I began this in therapy, it was actually really hard to fill out. I couldn’t find the positives in my day unless I really thought about it. Now, I feel like I’ve leveled up and it’s no where near as hard. Obviously, some days will be because some days are worse than others. But just writing down one good thing that came out of my day, helps me feel a little better. The last section has also been nice, my brain dump portion. I fill out my journal before bed, so I kinda just write anything on my mind down and it helps get things off of my mind that way.

Overall, I think I’ve seen a big difference this week! It definitely could be due to other factors, but I really do think this was a big part of it. It can be really hard at first to find the good or positive things about your day, but doing these journals helps me go through my day looking and trying to remember those positive experiences so that I can be sure to write them down! For example, if I had a random little conversation with someone (to many people, this may not seem super positive, but for someone who used to struggle so much more with anxiety and would rarely talk to people, this is a huge one to me representing my progress), I’m thinking about that conversation in a more positive light. I’m not thinking about the sucky weather I have to walk through, I’m thinking that the conversation was a positive experience that I can write down in my journal. It seems so silly to do, but it really has helped and it’s definitely something I will continue to do.

In case anyone is curious and wants to try, obviously I say go for it. You can make it super simple and just keep note of it in an app on your phone (this is what I used to do), or if you want to be extra like I was you can make a cute journal template. If you don’t want to make a template, but still want something cute, here’s the little design I made 🙂 .

Week 2

This week was an interesting one. I decided to not go on my phone before bed, and read instead. The combination wasn’t super helpful, and surprisingly I felt like I struggled to fall asleep even more. So I don’t think that not being on my phone before bed really did it for me. I did however, enjoy reading more. I used to read a ton as a kid, but as I got older, not so much. The only reading I do is listening to audiobooks whenever I’m doing a long drive. So it was a bit nice to set aside a bit of time to just read a book, though I haven’t touched the book since the week I did this challenge. It’s not the books fault either, it does seem like a good book. I think it’s just a matter of setting aside some time everyday to do something, and have some sort of rotation between the things that I find out do help me.

Week 3

This was a fun week, where I decided to do some painting. I am fascinated with watercolor and painting videos and find them to be incredibly satisfying, so I decided to just try myself. I got the watercolor set from TikTok shop….after weeks of it being advertised to me I bit the bullet…but I actually do like it quite a bit. I then got a watercolor sketchbook and got to work.

I followed some tutorials some days, and other days just painted whatever I felt like painting. Are the paintings any good? No. Not at all honestly. But I enjoyed myself and had a lot of fun, so it’s something I think I’ll continue to dabble in. I don’t have any hobbies currently, well like at all, but especially ones that I don’t feel any pressure towards. So I think it’ll be nice to have something that is pressure-less and fun. I don’t care about making beautiful and aesthetic watercolor paintings. I just enjoy it and it’s okay to have a hobby you’re no good at, as long as it makes you happy. So yeah, this is something I’ll be adding to my list of things I enjoy doing.

week 4

So yeah, this week I didn’t end up doing anything special. I felt bad about it for some reason too. Like, I had such a busy and stressful week, it would have been a perfect time to try something to make sure I stayed mentally well, but I didn’t. I felt disappointed in myself honestly. Which is so silly, because this is just a fun thing I decided to do one random day. But I think my mindset has changed now, by sort of thinking about the week like I did every day in week one’s challenge. What was the good that came out of this rough week?

And then I realized, even though it was really hard and tough (read more about it in the next blog post that’ll be out soon lol), I let myself feel my feelings, which is really scary for me. I’m the kind of person to completely bottle up my feelings until I can’t anymore, which I know isn’t super healthy. So I guess the challenge of this last week was that, letting myself feel. Because that was hard to do! But now that the week is over, and more specifically my comps are over, I feel really proud of myself. Instead of being in silence alone, I reached out to people who I trusted and knew could help. I talked things through and I let myself feel the feelings I don’t like. I feel like if I hadn’t done that, the end of my week would have been much more stressful with pent up feelings.

So, the real challenge this week was not bottling up my feelings. It was hard and scary to be honest. I can’t say I loved being vulnerable and feeling my feelings, but it did help. I got through the week and I’m proud of myself for handling that week the way I did.