My Very Important Lists (therapy, healing, and anxiety)

I keep a collection of very important lists in my notebook. Last summer after leaving my last session of University funded therapy and after a postgraduate mental breakdown I decided to make a survival guide on my own anxiety and depression. I have been given advice that actually helped, but I forgot it so easily. I knew I had moments where I was accepting of my anxiety, but I couldn’t always remember why. I knew I had some tools that helped me and others that didn’t. So, I sat down one day when I was feeling motivated and started my guide. It mostly consisted of a few lists titled:⁣

“I Become Emotionally Charged and Triggered When… Automatic/Autopilot Reactions When I Become Emotionally Charged and Triggered… Solutions and Reminders for Negative Self Talk, Triggers, and Anxiety… Ways I Don’t Put Myself First … Ways to Put Myself First… Things That Get Me Out of Bed… Things I’m Grateful For… Things I Like About Myself… Things That I Love To Do…”

It’s so easy to forget all of these things. Most of this I addressed in therapy, so when I made my lists I felt like I was at a stage in my healing where I could address it on my own. That being said, it took me about five years of meditation and three years of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). I’m not recommending everybody to do this, but I will say that these reminders saved me when I didn’t have access to therapy anymore. I keep these lists with me wherever I go (on my phone or in a notebook). It’s a reminder and it’s a tool that clearly lays out everything that bothers me, how it makes me feel, how it makes me react, how I can replace that automatic reaction, how to self soothe, how to replace my negative self talk with believable positive self talk. It reminds me of what I love and who I am.