Self-help. Interesting topic, isn’t it? I have read, watched and listened to a lot of content about it. I don’t recommend more than half of it. There are many charlatans who give you harmful advice.
I just watched an episode about self-help. The podcast is Mark Manson’s Solved, with Drew on his side. They made a really good episode about the topic; it is two hours long. To be honest, I cannot concentrate for that long; I had to take a break after 80 minutes. Anyway, I think it was a great show. Let me share some parts of it with you.
They made four categories of self-help actions; I may not recall the exact wording. Harmful bullshit; probably nothing; it can work sometimes; and stuff that legitimately works.
Stupidity is not to be promoted, but I need to mention one piece of the bullshit category. I have never ever thought that venting my anger is a bad thing. I mean, I wrote it in my journals; I shared it sometimes with friends, partners, relatives… I thought I did a good job there. It turned out I didn’t. I think it can be useful to watch the episode from the start. Not to pass over the harmful bullshit and the probably nothing category. Knowing that something can be bad for you helps.
However, I would like to jump to the “work sometimes” category. First, visualising seemed strange to me in this category; I thought it was a bit more useless. Then I remembered some research about it. If I am not mistaken, there were three groups of basketball players. One group practised throwing the ball into the basket, the other visualised it, and the third did nothing for, I don’t know, how long. And research showed that the results of the first two groups were similar. (The third one didn’t develop at all.)
And the last group. I want you to listen to the podcast, so I won’t write everything; I’m just giving you a taste. Here is the link.
So I chose 2 of the legitimately working self-help strategies. Mark and Drew said that the thing they have in common in this category is that these are action-based strategies. One I want to share with you is meditation. I felt like they didn’t talk about it enough in this episode. For me, meditation is like one of the most useful strategies ever. I can feel that my patience is developing. Clarity is given to me; I mean that I can see reality more as it is. It is just fucking amazing. I don’t think it’s good for everyone, but it’s worth a try. The other thing I wanted to share is this piece of advice: just do the thing, even if you don’t know how or what you should do. I have mental health issues, and sometimes it is really fucking hard just to get out of bed. So this piece is really resonating with me.
For me, walking can be an absolute relief. When I am overwhelmed, it can help a lot. I mean, really a lot. And of course, if something really shitty happens that you can’t deal with – reach out.
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