April 25, 2025 • 10 mins
let's be honest - mental illness can be comfortable. it's easy to find identity within our pain. pain is predictable - growth and healing is not. by numbing ourselves out and getting lost in the routine of struggling, we lose sight of who we are outside of that pain. and THAT is a problem. let's talk about it.
Welcome to Feel Your Feelings with Ethan Jewell! New episodes every Friday <3
Website: www.ethanjewell.com
IG: @jewellboi_
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I had been mentally ill for so long that I didn't know who I
was outside of that. I had gotten so comfortable
within it. Mental illness is messy and it
hurts, but it's predictable. I always knew how I was going to
feel the next day. I was going to feel bad, and I
found some kind of comfort in that.
(00:21):
And eventually, I convinced myself that I didn't even want
to heal, that I was better off this way.
And that's one of the dangers ofmental illness.
When we don't address those feelings, when we don't face
them, when we don't call ourselves out.
So today we're going to talk about how we have to get
uncomfortable in order to heal. We have to get out of that
(00:43):
comfort zone. We have to admit that those
feelings do not define us. And we are so much more.
My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
Feelings. Have you ever started to feel
better and then weirdly you started to miss the sadness?
(01:05):
Or maybe you felt anxious whenever you didn't have
anxiety? Yeah, those feelings are weird
and they're uncomfortable and frankly they don't make any
sense. So that's why we are going to
talk about that today. I want to remind you I'm not a
doctor, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a professional in the
mental health industry. Let's get that out of the way.
(01:26):
I'm just a normal guy who has felt some big feelings and wants
to start the conversation on mental health because I think
healing your mental health is the most important thing that
you can do for your life. So thank you so much for joining
me. So the problem with mental
health recovery is we often think about it as this very
(01:47):
romantic uphill journey. You know, it's, it's a journey
towards happiness. It's we're going to feel better
and then better day after day. There's never going to be any
fall backs. But in reality, it's, it's
deeply messy. Healing isn't about feeling
good. It's about facing the parts of
yourself that you've kept hiddeneven from yourself in that is
(02:10):
super uncomfortable. So many people, myself included,
turn away from that discomfort because we've been sold this
idea that our healing journey isgoing to be so beautiful and so
clean and so linear just to trend upwards.
And then the reality hits and wehave to get uncomfortable and we
go, wow, I really missed that sadness.
(02:31):
I miss waking up and feeling horrible.
I don't, I don't want to heal that.
I know what I'm going to feel When we're healing.
It becomes unpredictable. And the problem is when our
mental illness becomes predictable and we become
comfortable in it, it can becomea part of our identity.
Sometimes the sadness or anxietybecomes so familiar, it's like
(02:54):
an old friend. The sadness comes back, and
suddenly you feel less lonely. And when that starts to fade,
when you start to heal, you might feel a little lost.
And that's a scary feeling that many of us shy away from.
You know, there's really a paradox here.
(03:16):
Healing is uncomfortable, and often it can hurt more than just
wallowing in our sadness becausethe struggle.
Yes, it's painful, but it's alsopredictable.
Healing is not predictable. When you're used to chaos, calm
feels unfamiliar. When you're used to numbness,
(03:37):
feeling again can be terrifying.So when you're so used to
feeling a certain way, when you wake up every day feeling
sadness, feeling numb, the opposite of that can be so
scary. Suddenly having a baseline that
isn't what you're used to can bereally uncomfortable.
Suddenly opening yourself up to those deep feelings that you've
(04:00):
been hiding for so long that you've been pushing down to
protect yourself, that can be soscary.
I remember when I first started going to therapy, when I finally
opened up to the fact that yes, I needed to heal, that yes, it
was time that yes, I was being self-destructive and I didn't
want to feel this way anymore. I started going to therapy and I
(04:23):
had this idea that therapy was just going to fix me, that it
was linear. It was going to be all sunshine
and and roses and I was going tofeel better and I was going to
easily talk about my feelings and I was just going to be happy
immediately. And that wasn't the case.
I started to dread therapy. I started to dread facing those
(04:45):
feelings because it was so uncomfortable.
Healing is uncomfortable. That's something that we have to
accept, and we have to accept that.
We have to let go of what we're comfortable with.
We have to let go of who we are within our mental illness.
You're not weak for missing parts of your struggle.
(05:09):
You're human. When you're struggling with
mental illness, you are vulnerable.
Often times it it puts you in a very vulnerable state, so you
want to protect yourself. That change becomes more
difficult. And when you try to change,
you're going to miss part of that struggle because you found
so much comfort within it for solong.
(05:30):
But we have to face the fear of what's on the other side of the
healing, what's on the other side of, of moving past who we
are within our own struggles. We have to face the unknown.
We have to ask ourselves, who amI without my sadness?
Who am I without my anxiety, my trauma?
(05:52):
It's a scary question, but it's also the beginning of freedom.
In order to heal, in order to process our feelings, in order
to find who we are when we're healed, we have to embrace the
discomfort. And it sucks.
You're already struggling. You found a little bit of peace
(06:14):
within that struggle, and now I'm telling you that you have to
RIP the floor out from underneath you.
And that's scary. But discomfort can often be a
sign of growth. Pushing yourself out of your
comfort zone when it comes to your mental health.
Talking about those feelings, going outside, going on walks
(06:34):
when you feel bad, you know, taking deep breaths and moments
of panic. Reminding yourself of of who you
are, of of your coping mechanisms.
Journaling, facing those feelings.
They can be signs of growth. Like muscles sore after a
workout, discomfort during healing means you're doing the
work. So here are some practical steps
(06:58):
for sitting with the discomfort.These are things that I did, you
know. Talk to a therapist.
There's options available near you.
I would look into them. Really face those feelings in a
professional environment. Or maybe form a support group
with friends or family and find people you can trust to talk to.
Or just journal the feelings out.
(07:19):
Sit with those feelings. Give yourself permission to feel
a little bit weird as you change.
Allow yourself to be a little bit uncomfortable with that
change. Healing is not going to be
linear. It's not going to be clean, it's
going to be messy. It's going to be uncomfortable.
You're going to have to find yourself outside of the trauma
and outside of the sadness. But once you can find that, once
(07:45):
you can let go of that identity that you've latched onto within
your struggle, that is when change can happen.
I want to speak directly to you.You are not your pain.
You are not your diagnosis. You are you, and healing doesn't
(08:08):
erase that. It just helps you meet parts of
yourself that you haven't met yet.
Healing is uncomfortable, but sois staying stuck and the
discomfort, that is where the transformation happens.
So I urge you to let go of that comfort.
(08:29):
Let go of the idea that healing will be comfortable.
Let go of the idea that everything's going to go
smoothly. Embrace the mass.
Embrace the the fall backs. Embrace the fact that it might
get worse before it gets better.Embrace the breakdowns.
Embrace every step of the journey.
You're human and you have to figure out what works for you.
(08:54):
So to wrap this all up, I just want to remind you that you are
capable of healing. You are capable of of finding
comfort outside of your sadness,outside of your mental illness.
And you're capable of taking small steps every single day, as
uncomfortable as they may be. Steps towards finding happiness,
(09:19):
finding healing, and finding peace and coexistence with your
mental health struggles. If you're feeling uncomfortable
right now thinking about this, maybe that's a sign that this is
exactly what you need to do, that this healing needs to
happen. Sit with it and feel those
feelings. That's going to wrap it up for
(09:39):
today's episode. Thank you so much for being
here. If you need help feeling those
feelings, you should check out my music on all platforms under
the name of Ethan Jewell and I almost guarantee it'll make you
cry. Also, shoot me a message on my
Instagram at Jewel Boy with an Iunder score and let me know what
you thought about today's episode.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for understanding thathealing is not comfortable and
(10:02):
as always, thank you for feelingyour feelings.
I'll see you next time.
I had been mentally ill for so long that I didn't know who I
was outside of that. I had gotten so comfortable
within it. Mental illness is messy and it
hurts, but it's predictable. I always knew how I was going to
feel the next day. I was going to feel bad, and I
found some kind of comfort in that.
(00:21):
And eventually, I convinced myself that I didn't even want
to heal, that I was better off this way.
And that's one of the dangers ofmental illness.
When we don't address those feelings, when we don't face
them, when we don't call ourselves out.
So today we're going to talk about how we have to get
uncomfortable in order to heal. We have to get out of that
(00:43):
comfort zone. We have to admit that those
feelings do not define us. And we are so much more.
My name is Ethan Jewell and welcome back to Feel Your
Feelings. Have you ever started to feel
better and then weirdly you started to miss the sadness?
(01:05):
Or maybe you felt anxious whenever you didn't have
anxiety? Yeah, those feelings are weird
and they're uncomfortable and frankly they don't make any
sense. So that's why we are going to
talk about that today. I want to remind you I'm not a
doctor, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a professional in the
mental health industry. Let's get that out of the way.
(01:26):
I'm just a normal guy who has felt some big feelings and wants
to start the conversation on mental health because I think
healing your mental health is the most important thing that
you can do for your life. So thank you so much for joining
me. So the problem with mental
health recovery is we often think about it as this very
(01:47):
romantic uphill journey. You know, it's, it's a journey
towards happiness. It's we're going to feel better
and then better day after day. There's never going to be any
fall backs. But in reality, it's, it's
deeply messy. Healing isn't about feeling
good. It's about facing the parts of
yourself that you've kept hiddeneven from yourself in that is
(02:10):
super uncomfortable. So many people, myself included,
turn away from that discomfort because we've been sold this
idea that our healing journey isgoing to be so beautiful and so
clean and so linear just to trend upwards.
And then the reality hits and wehave to get uncomfortable and we
go, wow, I really missed that sadness.
(02:31):
I miss waking up and feeling horrible.
I don't, I don't want to heal that.
I know what I'm going to feel When we're healing.
It becomes unpredictable. And the problem is when our
mental illness becomes predictable and we become
comfortable in it, it can becomea part of our identity.
Sometimes the sadness or anxietybecomes so familiar, it's like
(02:54):
an old friend. The sadness comes back, and
suddenly you feel less lonely. And when that starts to fade,
when you start to heal, you might feel a little lost.
And that's a scary feeling that many of us shy away from.
You know, there's really a paradox here.
(03:16):
Healing is uncomfortable, and often it can hurt more than just
wallowing in our sadness becausethe struggle.
Yes, it's painful, but it's alsopredictable.
Healing is not predictable. When you're used to chaos, calm
feels unfamiliar. When you're used to numbness,
(03:37):
feeling again can be terrifying.So when you're so used to
feeling a certain way, when you wake up every day feeling
sadness, feeling numb, the opposite of that can be so
scary. Suddenly having a baseline that
isn't what you're used to can bereally uncomfortable.
Suddenly opening yourself up to those deep feelings that you've
(04:00):
been hiding for so long that you've been pushing down to
protect yourself, that can be soscary.
I remember when I first started going to therapy, when I finally
opened up to the fact that yes, I needed to heal, that yes, it
was time that yes, I was being self-destructive and I didn't
want to feel this way anymore. I started going to therapy and I
(04:23):
had this idea that therapy was just going to fix me, that it
was linear. It was going to be all sunshine
and and roses and I was going tofeel better and I was going to
easily talk about my feelings and I was just going to be happy
immediately. And that wasn't the case.
I started to dread therapy. I started to dread facing those
(04:45):
feelings because it was so uncomfortable.
Healing is uncomfortable. That's something that we have to
accept, and we have to accept that.
We have to let go of what we're comfortable with.
We have to let go of who we are within our mental illness.
You're not weak for missing parts of your struggle.
(05:09):
You're human. When you're struggling with
mental illness, you are vulnerable.
Often times it it puts you in a very vulnerable state, so you
want to protect yourself. That change becomes more
difficult. And when you try to change,
you're going to miss part of that struggle because you found
so much comfort within it for solong.
(05:30):
But we have to face the fear of what's on the other side of the
healing, what's on the other side of, of moving past who we
are within our own struggles. We have to face the unknown.
We have to ask ourselves, who amI without my sadness?
Who am I without my anxiety, my trauma?
(05:52):
It's a scary question, but it's also the beginning of freedom.
In order to heal, in order to process our feelings, in order
to find who we are when we're healed, we have to embrace the
discomfort. And it sucks.
You're already struggling. You found a little bit of peace
(06:14):
within that struggle, and now I'm telling you that you have to
RIP the floor out from underneath you.
And that's scary. But discomfort can often be a
sign of growth. Pushing yourself out of your
comfort zone when it comes to your mental health.
Talking about those feelings, going outside, going on walks
(06:34):
when you feel bad, you know, taking deep breaths and moments
of panic. Reminding yourself of of who you
are, of of your coping mechanisms.
Journaling, facing those feelings.
They can be signs of growth. Like muscles sore after a
workout, discomfort during healing means you're doing the
work. So here are some practical steps
(06:58):
for sitting with the discomfort.These are things that I did, you
know. Talk to a therapist.
There's options available near you.
I would look into them. Really face those feelings in a
professional environment. Or maybe form a support group
with friends or family and find people you can trust to talk to.
Or just journal the feelings out.
(07:19):
Sit with those feelings. Give yourself permission to feel
a little bit weird as you change.
Allow yourself to be a little bit uncomfortable with that
change. Healing is not going to be
linear. It's not going to be clean, it's
going to be messy. It's going to be uncomfortable.
You're going to have to find yourself outside of the trauma
and outside of the sadness. But once you can find that, once
(07:45):
you can let go of that identity that you've latched onto within
your struggle, that is when change can happen.
I want to speak directly to you.You are not your pain.
You are not your diagnosis. You are you, and healing doesn't
(08:08):
erase that. It just helps you meet parts of
yourself that you haven't met yet.
Healing is uncomfortable, but sois staying stuck and the
discomfort, that is where the transformation happens.
So I urge you to let go of that comfort.
(08:29):
Let go of the idea that healing will be comfortable.
Let go of the idea that everything's going to go
smoothly. Embrace the mass.
Embrace the the fall backs. Embrace the fact that it might
get worse before it gets better.Embrace the breakdowns.
Embrace every step of the journey.
You're human and you have to figure out what works for you.
(08:54):
So to wrap this all up, I just want to remind you that you are
capable of healing. You are capable of of finding
comfort outside of your sadness,outside of your mental illness.
And you're capable of taking small steps every single day, as
uncomfortable as they may be. Steps towards finding happiness,
(09:19):
finding healing, and finding peace and coexistence with your
mental health struggles. If you're feeling uncomfortable
right now thinking about this, maybe that's a sign that this is
exactly what you need to do, that this healing needs to
happen. Sit with it and feel those
feelings. That's going to wrap it up for
(09:39):
today's episode. Thank you so much for being
here. If you need help feeling those
feelings, you should check out my music on all platforms under
the name of Ethan Jewell and I almost guarantee it'll make you
cry. Also, shoot me a message on my
Instagram at Jewel Boy with an Iunder score and let me know what
you thought about today's episode.
So thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for understanding thathealing is not comfortable and
(10:02):
as always, thank you for feelingyour feelings.
I'll see you next time.
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