Leave it like it is...

A tiny Humming Bird with its even smaller babies. 

“I was worried how my older male cat would react to the new female kitten. This is their first night together:” 

In the old days we didn’t call this managing mental health, we called this managing being an adult.

See, I’m five years into adulthood. I have a college degree (a few in fact), a car, insurance payments, a job, yada yada. I ostensibly joined the Grown Up Club a few years back.

But, having grown up with a number of undiagnosed disorders and mental illnesses, I never learned a healthy style of self-talk.

If I’m honest, between depression and anxiety, the way I grew up talking to myself was abusive. I’m not kidding; if the things I thought to and about myself were said aloud to someone else, it would be considered verbal and emotional abuse.

So this idea of treating myself like a small child? With the same loving firmness and compassion?

This is a radical idea for me.

This is me learning to stop those abusive thought patterns, and talk to myself in a kinder, healthier way.

And it doesn’t have much to do with adulthood. I know adults who have treated themselves unkindly this way for many years. A healthy relationship with yourself doesn’t just sprout once you’re an adult; you have to develop it.

House cow only drinks the freshest of water 

Ishwarya Jayakumar and Shruthi Nair from Singapore

and you can see a full HD version that includes the opening here: