MHM: Late Post, Anxiety and Putting Yourself First

By: Kristen Lansburg

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So, this Mental Health “Monday” is coming to you weeks late, on a Thursday, with a few Monday’s missed in between… to be honest I have missed some weeks due to my own mental health. Anxiety is a real thing and sometimes its the strongest, most stubborn, and hard headed people have it – if you couldn’t tell, I’m speaking from experience. Anxiety is not only what it is, and can be debilitating by itself, but when you pair it with the personality traits described above it can also be the most angering and frustrating feeling in the world, because “welp, I’m stubborn, with a strong personality, and strong willed, so why the f*ck can I not control this.” Anxiety is a very vulnerable feeling and us highly opinionated and outspoken people get really frustrated by this, well at least I do. Anxiety can be triggered by major life changes… and well, I have moved 3 different times this year, been homeless for a week, started a job to only be let go before I even really started, got hired at two new jobs with technically about 5 different roles: boys 16s volleyball coach, boy’s club strength coach for all ages, girls 13s volleyball coach, about to be the one of the girls 16s coaches, and going to start as the strength coach at the girls club as well. While also moving in to a house of 3 strangers. Making friends out here is hard, people leave, they find new friends, have jobs, or just forget about you because you don’t party so they play volleyball with the friends they party with, which leaves me out, ya know? It’s neither right nor wrong, it just is how it is, and its hard when I know I refuse to conform to certain ways of life because I want to stay true to myself and my personal goals. OH and having made the decision to try and be a pro athlete and pursue that for the next few years while all the rest of this is happening… DID I MEANTION that I’m a strong willed, stubborn, hard head, who likes a challenge? HA. But, all the best things in life never came easy, and mark my words it will pay off. – Learning to have grace with myself and realizing anxiety doesn’t make me weak, only making me stronger. It’s all perspective and I’m working on it. So, this brief break from blogging was me having some grace with myself, working on planning my first sessions as a head strength coach, coaching the first few weeks with my boys team, and focusing on my training, while starting to journal again (I’ve realized this helps me stay grounded and helps with my anxiety.) So, as I promised on September 14th here is the blog:

TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF BEFORE OTHERS: SELFISH OR SELFLESS?

This one goes out to all of my leaders out there who think that they can’t put themselves first. Chances are, if you are in/ have been put in a position of leadership, it is because you have a habit of putting your teammates, clients, coworkers, others in general before yourself. You care way more for the collective than you do for yourself. Good. That’s amazing. We need more people like you in this world. Chances are though you have been made to feel bad, or guilty about the few times that you have tried to put yourself first; SHAME on whoever made you feel like a bad leader because of this. They took advantage of your greatest and most vulnerable characteristic – the fact that you care. Yeah, its cliché; I could not careless. I’m here to remind you of that saying that we have all heard – you can’t pour from an empty cup. Well, no shit. So, you cannot help or lead anyone to your full potential without taking care of yourself first. Making sure that you are okay, taking time to yourself, putting the time in to make yourself better at whatever it is that you do is SELFLESS not selfish. The effort, love, hard work, compassion, and patience you give yourself is important. Whatever you put into yourself to better yourself is what you are then putting back out into the world. If you are run down, drained, talking to yourself negatively, or not consistently trying to better yourself, HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU EXPECT TO DO IT FOR ANYONE ELSE!? Whatever you put into yourself, you put back out into the universe; remember that. Be selfless, and put yourself first, so that you can give your best self to the world.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk aka Konversations with Kristen.