Emotional: Happy, Sad, Frightened, Mad…
You can’t necessarily judge your mental health by your emotional ups and downs. Feelings are important and definitely have a lot to tell us, but they are always colored by "the stories we tell" about our experiences.
Sometimes emotions start in the body and are then interpreted by the mind. They can be generated by what we do with, put in, or are missing from our bodies - i.e. a "runner's high", "sugar rush", or Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.).
Mental health is about experiencing a full range of our emotions without denying, shaming, or becoming overwhelmed. Emotions are innocent, it’s what we do with them (i.e. "act-out") that can get us in trouble.
We must be careful not to define ourselves by our emotions, for example, we can feel angry, without being an “angry person”, or sad without being Depressed. Being in therapy is like having someone sit next to you on the roller coaster of Feeling, or at least helping you process it when you get off.
Journaling is a great way to help your feelings flow from the body, or that stuck place inside your mind. As you write about your experience, you better understand your emotions. For example,
by reflecting on when/where/with whom the feeling began
what you did, or felt like doing when you felt it
noticing emotional patterns, i.e. discovering triggers
how this feeling may resonate an issue from your past
Your bad feelings don’t make you a bad person and being sad doesn’t make you Depressed. However, you do not need to suffer alone. Reach out to me, or to the mental health provider of your choice and if you are experiencing extended periods of hopelessness and/or an acute desire for self-harm, please call the 24/7 National Suicide Hotline immediately: 1-800-273-8255, or connect with them online.
Further Reading (links open Wikipedia entries, or author's pages):
