healing your mental health is not linear (and that's okay)

Welcome back to Feel Your Feelings with Ethan Jewell. In this episode, we discuss why it is not only normal, but necessary to fail while healing our mental health. You are not meant to get it perfectly the first time. You are simply supposed to try. Healing your broken heart, your difficult feelings, will take time and effort - and you're not supposed to have it figured out first try. Thank you for feeling your feelings with me! 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Picture this. You're learning to ride a bike
for the first time. You're on a quiet St. your hands
gripping the handlebars, your knees wobbling.
Maybe you fall the first time, and the second time too.
It's frustrating, right? But with every stumble, every
time you get back on the bike, you're learning.
Now imagine if you expected yourself to hop on that bike and

(00:23):
ride perfectly the first time. Unrealistic, right?
You probably would have given upafter not meeting those
expectations. Healing your mental health works
the same way. It's not about doing it
perfectly. It's about showing up, trying
and learning from the wobbles. Today we're diving into why

(00:44):
mistakes and failures aren't theenemy of healing.
They're the teachers. My name is Ethan Jewell and
welcome back to Feel Your Feelings.
It's so good to be back. I haven't posted an episode of
this podcast in a couple of months.
I took a little hiatus because Ihonestly was just having a

(01:07):
really hard time doing this. I'll be completely honest,
although I talk about mental health a lot, I still struggle
with my own and I had a little bit of a rough time over the
past few months. I had a hard time motivating
myself to record, so I kind of fell out of schedule.
So thank you so much for coming back and joining me.

(01:27):
I'm going to be trying to get episodes out weekly again as
often as I can and I appreciate you bearing with me.
If this is your first time tuning into the podcast,
welcome, My name is Ethan Jewell.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a
professional in the mental health industry whatsoever.
I'm a normal person who, like you, felt some big feelings and
wants to talk about them from a realistic, relatable standpoint.

(01:50):
I'm not going to sit here tossing statistics at you.
I haven't studied this for years.
But I have felt all of these feelings and I have spent the
last six years trying very hard to heal and learn about my
mental health. So thank you so much for joining
me on this journey. And today we are going to talk
about why healing your mental health cannot be a perfect

(02:13):
process, why you have to mess up, and why you have to
acknowledge and be OK with the fact that it's not going to be a
perfect process. It is a journey.
I know that that's super cliche,but at the end of the day it
truly is all about the journey and sticking with it.
Now we live in a world obsessed with perfection.

(02:35):
Social media, success stories, and even most self help content
can make it seem like healing isa straight path, like you just
need to follow the right steps to become quote fixed.
But that's not how it works in real life.
There's some research that consistently shows that

(02:56):
perfectionism can hinder mental health improvement.
It sets us up for feelings of shame and inadequacy because
spoiler alert, nobody is perfect.
You're not going to get it rightfirst try.
If you are coming into something, feeling depressed and
anxious, striving for perfectionism, trying to solve

(03:18):
those difficulties that you are facing, they could actually make
these things worse. You could find yourself
thinking, oh, I'm not good enough, I am failing.
I'm having another hard week. I must be broken.
Here's the thing. Those mistakes, those slip backs
are proof that you're trying. When you slide back into an old

(03:40):
habit, when you snap at someone during a tough day, when you
don't do the work on certain days, it's not failure, it's
feedback. You know, think about the fact
that you are reverting. The fact that you're sliding
into an old habit means there isprogress being made and that
alone is amazing. The fact that you are
acknowledging, wow, I'm really not doing well today.

(04:01):
That is progress and it's something to be very proud of.
You're not going to wake up and randomly be healed.
You have to fight tooth and nailevery inch of the way.
You have to climb that ladder and rungs are going to break,
but you can fix them. It's like a toddler learning how
to walk. They don't just.
Fall once and say well I guess walking isn't for me and crawl

(04:23):
for the rest of their lives, no.They fall, they adjust, and then
they try again. It's a process of experimenting,
reflecting, and adjusting that creates real, lasting change
with your mental health. Because here's the good news,
you don't have to get it right every time.
You just have to try. The consistent effort, even if

(04:45):
it's small, makes a huge impact over time.
Maybe it's journaling twice a week instead of everyday.
Maybe it's practicing mindfulness for 5 minutes
instead of 30. Maybe it's simply stepping
outside instead of going for a long walk.
You just have to start. Studies on neuro plasticity, the
brain's ability to rewire itself, show that small repeated

(05:06):
actions create new mental pathways.
Healing doesn't come from perfection, it comes from
persistence. It comes from showing up for
yourself. For making a commitment to do a
small act every single day, to move instead of feeling
stagnant, To try for yourself. So the next time you find

(05:29):
yourself saying I failed or I'm not doing enough, I want you to
remember the wobbly bike analogy.
It's not about writing perfectlyon day one.
It's about getting back on afteryou fail.
Your healing journey will be messy, imperfect and full of
trial and error. And that's OK.

(05:50):
In fact, it's necessary. You are not a robot.
We cannot immediately take in new programming and be perfect
every single day. You are going to slide back into
old habits. You are going to snap at people
you love. When you're having a hard day,
you are going to struggle. It will take time, more time

(06:11):
than you will ever want it to take.
But that's the thing with healing.
We don't really get to choose. We just have to try.
There is no Eureka moment. There is no grand finish line at
the end of the journey. There is no trumpet fanfare at
the start of the day when you suddenly just wake up healed.
Instead, there's years that willpass.

(06:33):
Your chest will feel less heavy,your mind will feel less foggy
because of the habits that you formed from trying.
Because you didn't strive for perfection.
You just tried. And every time you try, you're
choosing yourself, you're showing up, and that's where the
magic of healing happens. That's going to wrap it up for

(06:57):
today's episode. Thank you so much for being
here. It's really good to be back.
If you need help feeling your feelings, you should check out
my music on all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewel.
I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
It's mental health spoken word and I think it's really unique
and you might enjoy it. Also, shoot me a message on my
Instagram at Jewel Boy with an Iunder score and let me know what

(07:20):
you thought about today's episode.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for understanding thatyou don't need to be perfect,
you just need to try. And as always, thank you for
feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.