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August Black Bear Prompt: How Are You Taking Care of Yourself?
August is National Wellness Month
If you are a writer or considering writing for Black Bear, most likely you are writing about your mental health or addiction issues that you struggle with or have struggled with. You provide solutions by speaking from experience.
This month is all about the solution. How are you taking care of yourself and your mental health?
I know I can get caught up in my past struggles by rehashing everything, which is also helpful, but I always feel so much better after I write and publish something with solutions that have worked for me. Paying it forward feels good and on the flip side, I have read so many things that helped me.
It’s all about self-care.
But, I don’t want you to write a list of things that work for you. We all know that healthy eating, sleeping, and exercise are good for us. If you write about one of these, make it into a story.
Of course, you need to start the story with a mention of why you need the solution. For example, yoga and meditation are so helpful for people who are struggling internally. Without this, my mental health would be in shambles. I need this in my recovery from addiction. In this case, I might write about my journey with alcohol, how yoga came into my life, what it means to me, or how it helps me, today. Write about something that has eased your journey.
You could have an eating disorder or exercise addiction. These might even be harder to deal with than substances, which you can quit and not use again. How do you heal from an eating disorder and how do you change your relationship with food that you need to eat to survive? How did you go from working out multiple times a day to less frequently?
Tell me your story of how you quit drinking or using drugs. Tell me your story of how you quit gambling or smoking. What worked for you?
Do you have panic attacks, get stuck in depression, or have mood swings that seem to have no end? Did you find something that worked for you in these instances of need that helped to ease the symptoms? Share your wealth of personal experience.
