Road Map to Mental Wellness by Chessa Peak
Part 3 of a 3 part series. Read parts 1 (What Do I Do?) and 2 (Decompression).
Life doesn’t come with a road map. We’re not taught in school how to be emotionally accountable to ourselves. When we are locked in the mental loop back of toxic bullshit it’s seems impossible to know where to start but I assure you, it’s possible. You have to be willing to break yourself of your emotional bad habits. There is no time limit to your recovery. It is yours 
but in order to become serious about your recovery you have to find a sufficient motivator. This is up to you to define. For me it was my sincere love for life. I didn’t want to feel the way I felt anymore and decided I didn’t want to die.
You can start making the right decisions for you minute by minute. In every decision you make ask yourself, “Is this right for me? and listen to your instinct. It WILL tell you what is right for YOU. It may not be what you want, but your instincts will always tell you what is right or wrong for you. In every decision you make, dedicate yourself to making good decisions for YOU. If you need something to remind you, use reminders.
Maybe a string on your finger, a necklace, a stone in your pocket, or a picture of where you see yourself, use something to help bring you back to your commitment to yourself. Over time this will get easier but you must be willing to hold yourself accountable to yourself and reteach yourself to be responsible for your well-being.
Again, take your time. In the mechanic world there’s a term called the “rush job”. If you want the guy turning the wrench to rush through your repair, expect that things could be overlooked. Personally, I have found that if I don’t slow down in my decision making I end up eyeballs deep in bullshit before I know I’ve stepped in it. This is your life and every one of us experiences the same range of emotions and thoughts to greater or lesser degrees.
If you make bad decisions and don’t know what to do then don’t decide until you’re ready or you have to. Step back and look at all the angles from an emotional self, then a logical self. Weigh all the consequences of your decision and then act. Don’t rush your decisions and don’t allow 
anyone to rush them for you. If someone loves you they will be patient with you. You will get better at this with time. You may find after making a decision that you were wrong, well guess what, big deal. How can you learn from your mistakes if you don’t make them? NO ONE is without fault on this planet. Forgive yourself of your faults, you’re human.
There is almost ALWAYS an external contributing factor to a personal downfall. It’s easy to be the victim and blame everyone and everything for the bad things in our past but speak from it as though it were already gone. Let it be in your past and allow your suffering to die graciously. That pain serves you no good purpose. I’ll end this on another quote a friend sent me. “FEAR has two meanings. Fear Everything And Run or Face Everything And Rise”(Se7en). The choice is yours.
I hope this helps you become a better you. Brightest Blessings from the other side. – Peak
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Chessa Peak has been in New Mexico since the age of 4 and is an honorary New Mexican. A bartender of over 10 years in the Duke City, musician, entrepreneur, and current student at CNM, Chessa is now currently working towards her own non-profit group that will support literacy, art and music programs for Albuquerque residents and her immediate community. Having come through a negative past, her writings deeply reflect the nature of her personal struggles in an attempt to help others overcome their personal battles.
Community Publishing brings local artists of all mediums together in creative collaborations for distribution as multimedia books while promoting literacy in our communities. #JoinOurCommunity at http://communitypublishing.org We are proud to be Marketers for the Rail Yards Market.
