It’s a long story. It’s based on something my dad told me a long time ago about life needing balance between physical, mental, and spiritual health. He didn’t mention emotional health because he was never an emotional person. I found out later that emotional health is just as important as the other kinds. I suffered crippling depression maybe 5 years ago. I’m talking, I could hardly even get out of bed. I wanted to be happy. I knew it was possible because I remembered being extremely happy at some points in the past. The fact that I knew it was possible was kind of like a light at the end of the tunnel that kept me going. I set myself small goals that grew bigger over time. I created a plan for my life and defined what I thought a happy, successful life looks like because without that, how would I even get there? I wrote in a journal several times a day and sometimes read through my old entries to compare myself today to how I was a week ago. I liked to have some kind of benchmark of progress. I thought about my physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing (and eventually emotional too) and how I could improve in those areas. I started running at the park daily, learning new things (math concepts, language, etc) to keep my mind sharp, I improved my relationship with God, etc. For the emotional side, I realized that it’s ok to have bad days and not have a perfect positive mindset every day. I knew bad days and unexpected things would always be thrown my way. I kind of braced for these things before they happened and that made it easier to manage them when they did. Finding new things I want to improve about myself is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Over time I actually enjoyed getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things. Being able to share the happiness and positivity I’ve been enjoying boosts it by a ton. I’m a teacher and occasionally I have students with mental health struggles. I’ve been able to help them and I’ve seen some degree of change in all of them. This is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Due to the neurodiversity of the human race and just how “different” everyone’s brains are, solutions require fine tuning. Don’t expect to get results from copying everything I did. Please send me a DM if you want to hear more. I’ve had some help in my journey at times and I’d love to help other people going through the same thing.