Learning Challenge: Mental Health Testimony

The mental health video I liked best was Jeremiah Stinnett talking about social anxiety. As a psychology major, this impacts me two ways. How can I help others, and how can I help myself? I also suffer from this. I felt like the video was really powerful because as someone who has problems with this, I could see how much effort it was taking him to just be behind a video camera, knowing that not only the person filming was seeing and hearing everything, but also that many people would see the video. That's an incredibly hard thing for someone with social anxiety to do. He looked uncomfortable, which is how I look any time I have to present in a class, or talk in a group I'm not very comfortable with. It was really brave of him to even do this. It also really hit home with me when he talked about how people without social anxiety don't even think it's a thing, because that's so true. People without it think you should just suck it up and do it and it will be no big deal. Unfortunately, that's not the case for us at all.

Learning Challenge Week 12: Happiness Jar Part 2

(Photo from my personal collection)

Last week I started a happiness jar. I am making jars full of origami lucky stars, and my own jar was completely empty while I try to fill jars I plan to give as gifts, so I decided to use it for my little notes about things that made me happy each day. It's been a week now. I really enjoyed having to think about something that made me happy each day. It was a really nice feeling. I think if I were to do it long term, it might help shift my worldview a little. In a week, I don't really feel too different. But it feels like something that would build up over a longer period of time. It would be hard to not see changes in yourself if you did this daily for a whole year.

Learning Challenge Week 11: Happiness Jar Part 1

(Photo from Pinterest)

This week I am going to do the Happiness Jar Challenge and report back on how it went next week. I have been making origami lucky stars and filling jars with them as gifts. My own jar is completely empty since I want to fill the others in time for the holidays, and mine is just for me. So for this week, I am going to fill it with things that make me happy each day. I think this will be a fun challenge. Hopefully I won't get too busy and forget, because that would skew the results. So long as everything goes according to plan, I think it will work out well.

Learning Challenge: Empathy

(Photo from Pexels)

The article on empathy I read was 3 Little Tricks to Deal With People Who Offend You. Something they brought up that I hadn't really considered before is that getting angry when someone offends you is like having a 2-year-old fit because you are only thinking about your own feelings and not the other person's. This is funny (I think everything just seems funny to me today), but makes a lot of sense.

The section on giving them a mental hug is similar to something I already do (except for me there's no hugging involved). I try to calm down and think about what other people are thinking and what they are going through that leads to their behavior. I try to just let as much of it go as I can. When someone is being ridiculous in line at a store in front of me and taking way more time than it should to make a purchase, I try to think about the fact that I'm not in a hurry and they likely have a need for whatever it is they are doing.

Something I plan to try is to pretend I'm floating down a stream when driving. I thought it was really interesting that pretending the other cars were twigs and leaves in a stream made them not get angry. I could use more peace when I drive. Sometimes I do a breathing meditation if I get too stressed out while driving.