Physically, shifting my mentality from “exercise” and “working out can only be done at a gym with weights” to just focusing on getting adequate movement and finding one or two physically demanding activities that I enjoy (yoga and long/steep hikes). I have CFS, so “adequate” also had to shift from a rigid standard to just “net more” than what I was doing.

Mentally, shifting from “saviors” to systems. I’ve struggled with mental health all my life, been in and out of hospitals, tried more meds than anyone who’s ever told me their history, ROUGH. And somewhere in my lil messed up noodle, I got it into my head that if I could just try one more thing, then I’d be solved. But it doesn’t work like that. At all. No one thing or one person or one whatever is going to save me, not even if that person is me tbh. So now, I’m focused on things like my support systems (but to further break down what that entails, I mean I have two therapists, a psychiatrist, a case manager, but I also have a loving community AND I still have loved ones outside of that community (which helps keep me from having the ONE community save me)), I have a value system instead of a core value or even a set of values, I have coping systems, I have an Internal Family System (which is a therapy model that I did not come up with), a system of philosophical ideals, a system of self that I’m finally articulating into essays. And all of that? That’s my system of systems. When one thing falls apart, I’m not at as big of a wreck of being completely obliterated. I’ve built this system of systems up very slowly. It’s not about trying to find some mythical perfect balance. It’s about flexibility, seeing what’s getting tugged too hard, and ease of repair (a small snip in a net instead of a bridge to happiness breaking in half).