These Are the Helpful Tools I Always Use to Service My Mental Motor in Case It Backfires

Mental Health

Emotional equilibrium requires on-going self-maintenance forever

My last therapy session was in April 2000, after sixteen years of intermittent bouts of major depressive disorder (MDD) coupled with anxiety attacks.

The grand finale was my admission to a psychiatric clinic with agoraphobia in January of the new millennium. The seven weeks I spent there were the best thing that ever happened.

I worked hard and learned so much — still use the same lessons today.

In poetic form, I present the five tools I use the most, in no order of popularity.

Written kernel of thoughts
Some days a sterile roster of
Yesterday’s events
Scribbled in dispassionate voice
Absent of emotion

When past lessons learnt
Detect the empty words
Of routine without meaning
Heart signals a warning
The next morning to
Engage with Self

I nod, accommodate
Thoughts and feelings
The good the bad
The happy sad
Embrace them if they’re helpful
Send them off if harmful

Journal put away
I’m ready for another day

Journal complete, I meditate
Two minutes breath work
Then disengage from senses
Close my eyes
Dive into silence

Conscious thoughts whirl
Curl up and disappear
As mantra whispers in my head
‘Choose me instead’

Twenty minutes pass
In which Time dissolves
As do my fears
And doubts
Ego sleeps and
Heart…

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