How To Spring Clean Your Mental Health Routines
It is April and the sun is officially out in Portland. After a few months of struggling with my mental health it’s also starting to feel like I have a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to how I’ve been feeling. I’ll dive in more on a separate post about what this past winter has taught me, but first I want to share how intentional I’m being with spring cleaning.
Last weekend I started dividing up my books into two piles, those I was going to donate and those I was going to keep. I’ve been committing to a more minimalist lifestyle, which includes paring down my closet and most of the things that I keep just for the sake of keeping them. I’m embracing the same spring cleaning tactics when it comes to my mental health.
Given how popular conversations around mental health and self-care are right now, it can be easy to play the comparison game between how you’re coping and how someone else is. This April, I hope the only comparison game you play is the one where you compare yourself.
Ask yourself what your mental health wellness routine have looked like
I’ve been sharing my monthly mental wellness routines in an effort to demystify what actually helps me on the day-to-day. It’s been an amazing exercise in realizing that what helped me in January isn’t what was going to serve me in March. This is both okay and completely normal. Our mental health ebbs and flows depending on the circumstances of our life, which change constantly.
Task — take some time to jot down how you supported your mental health in January, February, and March.
Ask yourself what your mental health needs are today
Even though we have an opportunity constantly to revisit our needs and address them as we best can, we rarely sit with ourselves long enough to do this. As a part of your spring cleaning, write down what your mental health needs actually are and how you’re able to meet them.
Task — don’t let fear stand in the way of you writing down what you’re actually going through, once you have those items written down, it will help you find better ways to help yourself.
Allow yourself to be out with the old and in with the new
I am a huge bath person. Whenever I need to reset baths have always been something I turn to. Recently though I’ve realized my baths went from “helpful mental health tactic” to “pure escapism.” I started embracing the time in the bath as a way to run away from myself. I’m working to replace that action with something that helps me feel safe and empowered instead. Taking the time to notice those subtle changes in meaning or actions is the best way to strip out the old self-care habits that are no longer working for you and embrace the ones that can.
Task — write down this mantra, “I will make space for what serves me and lovingly let go of what no longer does”
Sitting down with our most personal habits isn’t always easy, but it can be worth it and lead to long-term benefits.