Music. Conversations with. My name is Shaila Kukendorn and I live with Bipolar 2 Disorder. Sharing with others is healing both individually and collectively. Sharing our stories will educate others, bring more understanding, shed more light and smash more stigma. Our voices need to be heard. Our stories aren't over yet.
This is bipolar hi everyone welcome back to this is bipolar i am hugendorn i am a mom i am a wife i am a substitute school teacher and i live with bipolar 2 disorder and do mental health advocacy and i wanted to tell you before we start and before i introduce my beautiful fun friend And I wanted to tell you about subscriptions.
I know one of the biggest things that folks talk to me about on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube is that they feel alone or they don't know anybody else with bipolar disorder. And even though they know the statistics and that there is a lot of other people, they really feel like it's just them or that nobody else in their life understands what it feels like or what it looks like. And I started subscriptions and within subscriptions, you get a part to be a part of a chat.
So there is a chat that we have and we are all in it and we are on it all the time. We're from all over the world, which is really super cool because within a short time period, you will get a response or a heart and that feels validating. I know for me, when I struggled over Christmas, just writing it out in that space and knowing someone else was witnessing those thoughts was powerful to me. And we meet up to actually get to see each other's faces.
And we meet up and we just connect and talk about our month. And it is really a highlight. So if you go on Instagram, you press subscribe. It is $6.99 a month. So it is a really beautiful time together. And it means the world to me. If you just want to subscribe to support the podcast, that is fine too. I wanted to get to introducing my guest. She is actually not so much a guest anymore, but a co-host, which I am very excited about.
We've already recorded one episode, but putting out this one first because it felt really important. Andrea, Dr. Andrea, Would you introduce yourself? Also, could you tell the people that are listening what we are wearing and why we felt it would be fun and appropriate? Yes. So yeah, if you're seeing this on YouTube, you might be like, what are they doing? But we'll explain. So yes, my name is Dr.
Andrea Vasilev. I am a doctor of psychology. I'm a therapist here in California, postdoc, a registered psychological associate. And I do a lot of mental health advocacy. You'll hear a little bit about some other things from this year when we get to it. But yeah, I do a lot of advocacy, writing, speaking, etc. And I love talking with my friend Shaylee on her amazing podcast. So I'm just delighted to be here. As for what we're wearing,
so now everybody's going to be like, click, gotta go to see what's going on. You too. So because this podcast is about New Year's, we decided to get a little glammed up. So we've gotten our sequin New Year's-y dresses and our big sparkly earrings and more makeup than is necessarily required.
But it's fun because it's glam. And we're going to talk about this theme that New Year's and the calendar imposes a structure on our lives, which can be great, but if our lives are not following that structure, it can be a little confusing or disappointing or disorienting. So we decided we're talking about New Year's. We're going to celebrate as if it's New Year's, even though it's actually January 4th when we record this.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I had one person comment when I was talking about New Year's being hard for me online. I had a huge response to that. And one person said, you can pick your own fiscal year. She was saying, like business. And she's like, I want mine to be July. And I was like, that is so cool. And I think one of the takeaways from this episode that I would love is to not only comfort you if this is a really hard time, but also that you don't have to follow calendar years.
And you don't, if you're feeling terrible or regardless of how you're feeling, you get to choose. You get to choose. And just because everybody else is doing something, or we think because of Instagram that everybody else is doing something. There isn't that expectation because I think that expectations are one of the hardest things. And before we even get into that, I wanted to just share a little bit because sometimes when you come glammed up or I know that I get dressed up from the waist up,
I'm wearing sweatpants and slippers just so you know. Same.
Let's peek behind the curtain, Shelley. Tell the viewers what's behind the curtain yeah exactly slippers and sweatpants and on the other side of this is blown up at christmas madness that hasn't been put away this is the neat corner yes but i wanted to talk about how we still also are affected by bipolar a lot and even when we show up like this it it doesn't necessarily mean that we are euthymic or that we are doing well it's just a space that we show up as we are and messy.
And I wanted to tell Andrea, we were talking about last night and I had this dream. I had this dream that, and I have really realistic dreams, like things that could happen. And it was that we were doing this podcast, but yet we were like in Germany. And I know someone in Germany that we went to her house. But she sits on the floor and does those kinds of things. And so it was set up on the floor and I didn't have my mic and you showed up and you're like, what are, I thought it was just us.
And I was like, oh no, what am I doing here? And then people started showing up expecting to be on the podcast. And then all of a sudden there was like a kumbaya circle of 10 of us and I didn't know their names and I don't like disappointing people or, and then, and so I was like, okay, everybody can be on. And then I was like, wait a minute, this is my podcast. This isn't working for me. I don't even know your name. None of them lived with bipolar disorder. And so I was so stressed out.
And then I woke up just as I was starting the podcast. And for the first time, I felt like overwhelmed and not wanting to do it. Whereas some of my favorite things to do is public speak. And. And do those things. And so it was the first time that I was like, this podcast is terrible. I'm not doing this episode. And I woke up like all sweaty and I, I couldn't wait to tell you because this is wild.
That is wild. And I think it's important because I think that kind of story really highlights one of my favorite quotes, which is life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain. And like living with bipolar is just a thousand percent that quote on New Year's and at the holidays and also just all year round. I also had a weird night's sleep. So I'm currently starting to work towards taking my licensing exams to become a psychologist.
I'm filling out the paperwork for the application and it was very traumatic to manage to graduate. There were a lot of bad things that happened to me. So it's bringing up a lot of that and it's just very stressful. So I was up at three in the morning shaking my husband And like, I think we're getting a license. What am I going to do? I'm going to fill the test. And he was like, please go back to sleep.
So here we are. That was a bad night's sleep, but we still want to be here because today is still worth giving it your best shot, even if your sleep wasn't so great and you feel a little funny in the morning. Yeah. If anyone's feeling that way, we see you. We see you. We are with you. I wanted to just dive back into the New Year's theme and how it just really can impact people that live with bipolar disorder in many ways.
I wanted to hear about your feelings about New Year's and if they have changed or fluctuated through the years or if they have ever brought on an episode. I'd just love to hear. New Year's is tricky, right? I want to acknowledge, I think for a lot of people, a seasonal pattern in bipolar is very common. So New Year's is not technically the darkest day of the year, right?
But it is a pretty dark one. So a lot of people, when there's less sunlight, they experience feelings or episodes of depression, and that can be very hard. And then you add to that the stress of holidays, coming off the holidays, maybe any disappointments that occurred there. And then you get to New Year's and the media and the gym people and the diet people and the school people, all the people like to sell you this narrative of new year, new you.
And if that's not you, that can also somehow feel like you're failing. I don't know about you, Shelly. I went from being 1159 on December 31st to being 12 o'clock on January 1st. And it turns out I was the same person. I didn't change. No way. It's out of this world. I will get to, in a little bit, the idea of having goals for New Year. This idea of transformation, I think, can be very damaging because bipolar does not follow. It doesn't really follow anything, let's be honest.
But it certainly doesn't follow the calendar year. Okay, I was feeling terrible, and now it's the New Year, so I'm going to be feeling great. I'm going to make all these changes. And then if you don't make those changes, you feel disappointed in yourself. There's a difference between goals and resolutions, and we'll get to that. But that's, I think, something that a lot of people can relate to and I can certainly relate to for New York.
If you're already feeling down and you've got all of these expectations being sold to you that you feel you don't live up to, but really they're not realistic, they're not fair, that can be a lot to deal with. For me, it's always been a really hard time. And it has changed since my diagnosis. Like you spoke of, it used to be very cyclical. So the fall, when things got darker, I would dip. And then usually for Christmas, I would have a slight hypomania.
Sometimes it got a little bit too high but I would get that which would make the crash even worse yeah so we don't have family that live here so generally we would go see with family and it would be like big and lots of people and I'm an extrovert and I feel used to feel like my anxiety or things were manageable and controllable if I was with other people because I never wanted to be alone with all the thoughts I just knew what was next because for 10, 12,
whatever math is hard years, I would fall into the deep depression. By the end of the week on January, I was just surviving, right? Just depleted from all of. Yeah. Your nervous system was just basically, I need to shut down now. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Even after that and medicated where it doesn't happen as much anymore. I've had little dips, but luckily the greatest thing about my meds is it really works on the depressive episodes even more than the hypomanic episodes.
So I have yet to experience since I've been diagnosed the deepest, right? I have them, but not the deepest. But what I do have is, a therapist gave me language for this several years ago, is that I have body memory. And so right after Boxing Day, I start to get tightness in my chest. And it's different than a regular anxiety, but this tightness in my chest and like achy. And I feel like there's this foreboding feeling just, I become hypervigilant.
And what I realized, even though I wasn't experiencing the depressive episodes, what I was experiencing is the remembrance of it and the fear that it happened because it happened again. You couldn't tell my brain you might be OK. In many ways, that's a trauma response. I'm always telling people living with bipolar can be its own form of trauma. By the way, just for those of us south of the border, I talked about some of the problems with this new year, new you.
Have you, Shaylee, ever felt that pressure to improve yourself as if you as if there's a presumption there that somehow you need to be improved? And there's a difference, I think, between having people talk about goals versus resolutions. There's a difference between being. Oriented towards self-improvement and feeling that you need to be improved. There's a fine line there.
Yeah. Especially when with bipolar, sometimes depending on what episode we're in or just naturally, we go to extremes, right? So it's, I already feel like I'm failing by January 2nd because I need to change everything. It's not just a habit or something small. I would be like, change everything or not at all. So I would make these huge resolutions. I don't even like the word. It makes me itchy and think that I had to change everything.
And usually it would have to do with weight because that is something when I am depressed or have depressive episodes, I get a lot more food noise. And because I can't control the depression for years before I was diagnosed, I would turn to disordered eating and I would restrict and then binge and over exercise. And so it just, it bombards you and it's triple worse because of social media. I'm so glad that it wasn't around in my twenties.
I'm sad because I would have liked the connections, but the part that comes with it is just being inundated. I go through all the things and remember all the things I did wrong or what I would consider not reaching my goals. And so I sit in that. And we'll talk about things that we do later to help us in that. Then I would be mad. Someone would be doing Whole30. I'm like, I'll do the opposite. I'm going to eat 30 cookies. 30 cookies a day for 30 days. My kind of challenge.
Whereas now, I love, and I'm going to post it soon, I've made the, The post, the image that someone put is New Year's challenge, January challenge, survive January. Who's in? We will reevaluate when we get to February, what February's challenge will be, but it'll probably be survive February. Yes. I think you make a really good point that this focus on self-improvement can be really damaging because bipolar is unpredictable and it is already hard.
Yeah. And on the flip side, because I want to talk about the other side, because I don't generally deal with this, but if you're someone that's typomanic or manic during this time, it can feed into the things that the projects that you're already wanting to do and the amount and the huge ideas about change and making those impulsive decisions are more normalized because others are making huge changes in their lives we might be making ones that aren't good for us
right right yeah bandwagon too much and that's why let's do the goals versus resolutions thing Yes. Not the same. I feel like resolutions are dictatorial, right? Yeah. Let's do this. You must lose 10 pounds. You must get a new degree. You must find a new job. You must cut your hair. You must all of the things you must. A goal to me is something that you want that genuinely comes from your heart. Not that's been influenced by the media or society, but something you want. And goals are great.
We're not discouraging goals. But I think in making a goal, we have to also realize that there will be setbacks, right? There will be struggles. There'll be amazing moments too. Yeah. But it's not always a straight line, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You get to the end of the next year and you look back at your year. And if something didn't go the way you wanted it to go, that's another problem with New Year's is we look back and we take stock.
And if we're bipolar, we might be more prone to see things a little more negatively. So we say, oh, look at all the stuff that went wrong this year, but also look at the stuff that went right. Tell me about your year, how you look at your retrospective. So, I think, too, we fall into what society thinks our goals should be, which I think is also what you're saying. But it's really a time to think about what you value.
And so, I try to think of not just things about my physical body or changing me. I think, what do I want more of this year? I want more connection. I want more compassion for myself and others. Those are things that I want to work towards that... Feel good and doable, whereas it was always focused on me, like a big highlight on what I've done wrong. Whereas if I focus on things like connection and honesty and other things, this is going to tie into something that I do.
And it's a practice that I started years ago. It's called One Word 365 or One Word. I choose almost like a guiding word for the year. And it comes to me. Some years I just have to look at a list and pick. Some of my words have been connection and belong. And the interesting thing is the year of belong is when the podcast started. Oh, okay. So belonging to a group, right? And this year I wasn't sure what my word was going to be.
And I wrestle with my word and that's why I usually know it's the one because I'm like, oh, that one's not good enough or that's going to teach me hard things. But this year it's stay. And it's the last few years I've actually had a little bit more suicidal ideation, which I haven't had in such a long time. And it was jarring to me. And so it means stay alive, but it also, I can put it in front of beautiful words as well. So it's all encompassing. Stay connected, stay soft, stay kind.
Then at the end of the year or mid-year, I can look like, oh, where could that word show up in my life or where? And it's just been such a beautiful focus for me. That's great. And not even just stay alive, but stay living, right?
Actually engaged and things that you love and taking part in the world not just the opposite of not a lie yes exactly exactly because at first I was like I don't want that word it's too it's too only has one meaning and then the more okay I'm totally I love that stayed living oh I love that and then when you get to the end of next year you can look back and see where that word took you it's not like a resolution where you have to do it. Even the word resolution is like a legal term, right?
Oh, you're right. There's a resolution that you have to do this or you can't do that. It feels very harsh and language to me is very important. It shapes our experience. The word resolution, I don't, I don't love goals. And sometimes we don't meet goals. And at the end of the year, we have to reckon with that. So like for me, there were three things I wanted this year and I got two of them and didn't get pretty heartbreaking.
So I have to reckon with that at the end of the year, but at the same time, I can choose to focus on the two I did achieve. So the first one being, I got a book contract to turn my self-stigma program into a workbook with New Harbinger coming out in 2026. So exciting. Presuming I finish writing it, which I will. Don't worry. You will. I know.
The other goal that i had that i managed to achieve was that i was appointed to the board of directors of the international society for bipolar disorders which is the academic group the world's academic group researching working on bipolar and they incorporate lived experience and it's just very cool it's like all the world's brightest minds about bipolar in one place and they asked me to be part of it to share my lived experience that's pretty cool i love
it so that's me trying to frame this yours look at the stuff that happened and let's hold in compassion but put aside for now the stuff that didn't happen yeah and i think too i like to throw in some that that are very simple and that i know without a doubt that it will happen or say continue to do because i think it we can trick our brains right we can get those feelings those good feelings even by doing the small ones.
And I do that regularly where some of them are as simple as simple as get out of the house or when I'm depressed, get out of bed or when I'm hypomanic, don't spend more than like $50 a month kind of thing. And yeah, I think that making those teeny tiny goals because I just think little things lead to big things and yeah yeah exactly yeah and did you have any disappointments this year that you want to show up and talk about yeah for sure so I make.
So being a teacher and then also being a podcaster and a content creator, it is very hard not to make like almost number goals, which isn't really, I don't see it as numbers. I don't see it as followers or listener numbers, but the only thing, the feedback that I get is either people sharing with me or numbers. And so I try not to look very often, but I think for me, it's about reaching people that are struggling, thinking about the one.
Reaching those that have no support or those that have never heard somebody on the internet say, hey, I struggle with this. And then being like, whoa, that's my biggest shame. And someone is talking about it. Maybe I don't have to carry that. And so also, I work really hard and a lot of hours at this. And every year I want to be able to do more. And to do that, I need to start making some money. And I hate talking about that.
And I really wrestled with that. But a lot of other folks were like, I cannot believe that you do all of that. And so I struggle with trying to do that. And so always disappointed at the end of the year because I don't pour my energy into that because that's not enjoyable. I just make more things to share and to create. And so I'm always a little bit, I really need to work on, let me reframe that. I would like to focus more on getting financial help to be able to do more.
And I always felt like I wasn't worthy, right? Oh, it's not good enough. You're not like with the good podcasters or yeah. But I do know now that my story and sharing my story and connecting people and the emotional cost to me, because it is hard to share these things, there are vulnerability hangovers. So it has a lot to do with that money and also my other job. Like I am a substitute teacher and I judge myself of how many days I actually
work. A lot of our worth is wrapped up in what we can contribute or make. And in my head, I believe, that is not true and that there are so many more things we can contribute. And I know a lot of folks with bipolar disorder cannot work and feel terrible about that. And I'm here to say you're showing up and all of the things that you are doing is hard work and is valuable. And you just being here is contributing.
And I don't want people to think I'm a hypocrite when I say that, but if you've ever heard me talk, you know that I spent about 10, I lost about 10 years not doing.
I'm should I say how old I am you can I talk about how old I am I'm 40 and I'm still not licensed and I just graduated right and that's a very big deal that I managed to graduate that was a big struggle but I lost 10 years not being able to work so if anybody's look at these women they're working no that was not always the case I was collecting disability I couldn't work I was like barely doing even part-time things or volunteer things and
yeah I just want everybody to feel seen and know that yeah but many of us have been in that place yeah because it would be easy to be like oh my goodness I almost didn't get my degree because I got depressed the last year and I it was the hardest thing I ever did and if I didn't have community carrying me through I probably wouldn't have done that and even if you never do I love that you shared that because That also ties into New Year's because
I feel like it's such a strict and tight timeline for things. Yes, and bipolar does not run on a timeline. Life itself is just a swirling vortex of entropy for all my science-y people out there. It's disorganized. It's messy. It's unpredictable. Bipolar, I think, only adds to that. Saying you must do these things on a timeline. The thing I didn't manage to accomplish this year. Okay, we're pushing it to next year and we'll try again.
Yeah. And I think too, it reiterates and reminds me in a negative way that I can't control it. And I think that sometimes, even though I know the stigma and what the world is telling me and what I tell myself is. That it's my fault, right? Meanwhile, bipolar is incurable and unpredictable. And so how can, sometimes I can't do these goals or do these things because I don't know when an episode is going to pop up. And I, it takes all my energy to manage and stay living, stay connected that.
That I cannot focus anything else on a job or those kinds of things, because number one thing is taking care of ourselves. And so it feeds into that. It's personality flaw or everyone else can do it. And it's, Andrea and I are here to say, it is not our fault. It's almost like others that are neurotypical or don't live with mental illness. It's like they have a leg up, right? So to compare ourselves is not helpful.
Exactly. And so I think it's important also to have goals, even if they're non-traditional goals, right? So some of the years I wasn't working, that's when we started fostering homeless kittens. And my goal was to make a difference in that way. And I started baking and bringing things to friends, anything to keep me living, actually with the world, but having goals just because they're non-traditional goals, they're still your goals and they're beautiful and they're meaningful
to you. And that's what really matters. It doesn't matter what the gym bro on the TV is trying to tell you. Yeah. I love that. I wanted to, one of the biggest things that people talk about. And when I get hundreds and hundreds of messages talking about like acceptance and acceptance of the diagnosis and self-acceptance. And I'm wondering about your journey with that throughout the years, because I think it pops up at New Year's because of all the things we've been talking about.
So what are some of the things that you do or have you done or reframed to have more self-acceptance? I know that Andrea and I talk on WhatsApp all the time, And it's really cool because she leaves voice messages. So it's very much, feel very much connected to her. And I know one of the things, I am really hard on myself. And she reminds me over and over to give myself compassion and acceptance. And I've learned so much from you about that.
And I'm just wondering, how did that come about for you? That's interesting. So this ties a little bit into self-stigma, which I could talk about. Yes. I won't. I won't. We're going to do an episode on that for sure. Over and over. But I think that, first of all, I haven't struggled as much with self-stigma or acceptance because I was diagnosed very young. I was diagnosed at 14.
And i was a young 14 i was still very much a child so i never had an adult concept of myself without bipolar and i think that's not the case for most people they have to integrate and reconcile this diagnosis into who they are and it's so important right because if you are constantly battling the fact that you have bipolar it's only going to make having bipolar harder i can't say that enough it's true it's so true so in terms of working
towards acceptance think of it this way This is a good metaphor. Imagine that you have a monster on the other side of a ditch. You're on one side of the ditch and the monster's on the other side of the ditch, right? And the monster's big and ugly and terrible and it's all of the things. In this case, it's bipolar, right? Now imagine both you and the monster are holding two ends of a rope. And you're pulling and the monster's pulling and the monster's trying to drag you into this big muddy ditch.
And you're trying to pull the monster and you're sweating and you're grunting and it's terrible. what happens if you let go of the rope? Not sweating and grumping and terrible. And you don't fall into the ditch. The monster's still there. You still have bipolar, but you're no longer fighting it. And that concept applies to a lot of things, but I think it applies here.
It can be such a relief once you accept reality. Because if you're fighting reality, you are just banging your head against a wall, right? So I think that's the first part is just accepting the facts of the matter. And then self-acceptance, I think, will turn into self-love. The next goal is self-love. And that is seeing everything that you are, all the amazing things about you, the ways in which you're a beautiful human, right?
About yourself, moving from, okay, I accept this to, I actually love myself because, or despite bipolar, wherever you are. Yeah. And I know sometimes that just seems impossible, right? Or something that we're talking about it and you're like you know yeah, and so it's not. I wanted to mention two things. One, there is an episode coming out that's been in the vault with Hannah Bloom, and she talks about, she's written a book, and she talks specifically how she learned to love herself.
So watch for that. And then second, the one thing that you talked about, the monster, and I just love having that visual. because sometimes self-love and self-acceptance can seem like such a term, right? Or out here. And so I love that you said that. And I wanted to share one of the visual representations that I was told that really stuck with me. And it talked about, my therapist talked about being in a small room in water. Okay. So you're standing in the water and there's a beach ball.
Your beach ball is your anxiety, say your diagnosis in this instance, it's like you're bipolar or you're bipolar symptoms. And it's a small room. If you bat and keep trying to hit that away, what's going to happen? It's going to bounce back and hit you harder. Flash you. Exactly. If you try and push it under and ignore it, eventually it's going to pop up again and hit you in the face. And she said, what if, because my goal was always to get rid of it, all of it.
Which is completely unrealistic because it's incurable for now. And I know that's a hard thought, but it really helped me to embrace that. But she said, what if the beach ball was there and it will bump up against you sometimes and it will sometimes if you move, you know, how you move and it will come bump a little bit harder sometimes, but it won't smack you in the face, right? Yeah, exactly. That's a great metaphor. Yeah, because you're working with it.
And not that you don't feel smacked in the face sometimes, but you're doing, it comes back into that gentle. Yeah, if that helps anybody that's visual. Yeah, and if people are more literary, read the book Self-Compassion by Kristen Neff. That's a wonderful book. There's also some that go with that. Really good stuff. Shirley, sometimes people say, have a happy new year, have a healthy new year, which of course we wish everybody. But some people wish you success in the new year.
What do you feel about, if you can't see Shirley's face right now, it's epic. I am gritting my teeth and being like, I feel that in my body. The word success is so loaded. What do we do with that? Yeah, I think that comes back to me for me is reframing again, reframing and thinking about success as my values. And so I value relationship, I value. So if I have not ghosted people during a depression, that to me feels like success.
If I have not taken some of my bipolar anger episodes on my husband, or even if I have, if I could show up and be honest and apologize and try again, those kinds of things to me are successful instead of what the world is saying is successful. I look at messages from people when, because sometimes I don't feel good enough as an advocate, or I'm not doing what so-and-so is doing, or not as many people are asking me to speak or to other things that I compare myself to.
And one of the things that I do that shows me my success is I have a folder that says remember. And yeah, and so I screenshot or cut and paste beautiful messages that I get about the podcast. Oh, I love that. Yeah, and I ask and I do it for them as well. I ask my family or friends things they notice about me, of why they want to be friends with me or things that they notice qualities that I have. And I keep these reminders because our brains can be loud.
You're not successful. You're not successful. And I reread those things and I just have reminders. I just, I have to have reminders. And I even at one point in a deep depression, I put, I put them in almost as like in your calendar and then I put reminders. So it would pop on my phone. Think of one nice thing about yourself or whatever. Yeah. So reminding yourself of little successes, little wins, like this nice message you got.
That's a beautiful thing. And it's, that's the bread and butter of sort of our daily happiness. Yeah. I think success is a really, a deeply personal concept, right? My grandpa used to say, if you're happy, you're successful, which is really lovely. Although then it begs the question, what does it mean to be happy? So in some ways you just passed off the problem with success to the problem with happy. At the same time, people might have more of a gut feeling of what makes them happy or joyful.
That might be easier to pinpoint than success. And I have always added to that. If you're contributing to the world and somehow making the world a better place and you're happy, man, you are rolling in success. But again, that's a deeply personal concept for everyone to consider. Yeah. In a different way, I've had to reframe happy, like you said, as well, because happy doesn't equal not depressed, right? I think of, for me, happy is, to me, acceptance is happy.
And I remember reading this thing where it's like, because we say you just want our children to to be happy but what you said it's deeply personal but it was saying more like talking about because it was talking about helicopter parenting and just like making it so nothing bad ever happened and I remember reading this book and it said, no those you don't want to shelter them from like the small things right and the small disappointments because then they can't build resiliency
and it's more important for your child to feel resilient and be able to manage because what about when they go off on their own and I thought that was really powerful to thinking about happiness is as important as resilience and or could be when it comes to bipolar managing right yeah I would say if you are living with this condition you are already succeeding. You are already winning in my book. Yeah, I think the same thing. I think the same thing.
Oh, I could talk about this forever. I wanted to share... One of these just quirky, I love to make things like quirky and funny and playful because I find that since I've been an adult, I'm like, I don't play anymore. I don't do things that don't have a reason or an outcome. What about silly? And remember, we just did things like we were curious about a leaf or something. Can it float? So we would just try these things, right?
And I saw this thing on Instagram, because it's my place that I like to go. And I like to set up my feed so that it has quirky, funny things and not just mental health things. And so it said, when did it become so serious? And it talked about their resolutions as one year they did the year it was called Fruitopia, where this person's goal was to every time they saw a different fruit that they have never tried.
They would buy it, try it, and then look up on Wikipedia something to learn something about that fruit. That was their thing. And I thought, how cool. And then this year, that person is doing a pasta challenge where they want to try every shape of pasta this year that they can find. Isn't that cool? So I was thinking about stuff like that and. I was trying to think of stuff like with my husband, I'm like, what if we picked a place that had the most unique kind of croissant or do you
know what I mean? And then make it fun and whimsical. I'd love to hear in the comments, people's like goal for this year, but also what's a fun, quirky, whimsical thing you can engage in just to give life some meaning and joy. Yeah. And my one friend that we do the words with her word for the year is magic. And she wants to look for the magic. And it made me think of gratitude.
And I know we hear gratitude and it's so important, but I love to think of gratitude as glimmers because we think that we need to be grateful like for huge things. And I like to look for glimmers, like maybe in the grocery store, a child gave me the biggest smile. Yeah. Oh, I love this conversation so much.
I would love to hear from you maybe something that you've reframed as a like as a goal for this year or maybe if not a goal or something that you know a feeling that you hope to feel this year I would love to hear that boy my goal for this year and if I say it out loud in public everybody's going to hold me accountable my goal is to pass the licensing exam that's my goal so So if you see me a little less active on Instagram. Oh, I didn't say my handle.
Oh, yes, for sure. And I'll put it everywhere. It's best.life.bipolar. It's an educational Instagram account. So if you see me a little less active there, it's because I am studying to pass this test. That is a goal. And maybe that's a professional goal. Maybe we've got to subdivide goals, right? Yeah. Personal goals. That's, I need a word then, don't I? Maybe. Take my word. I've got a word. My word is going to be joy. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. I love that.
I like that idea of splitting them up and such. And maybe this year, some people don't have any professional goals because they're working on the other goals you don't need. Right. I just love that you keep saying the words deeply personal. And I think that I always think about should. I should. And yeah, you know this. And yeah, I want to make it my own. And so, yes, go on Andrea's account.
Give her some love. If you want to encourage her throughout the year about her licensing and remind her of the things she's done and the things that she can do, I think that would be very beautiful. Sometimes it takes us a bit, but we get to our messages. Yeah, and I just think my hope for people listening or struggling is just that you can find little ways to love yourself and remember yourself. Your importance because as cheesy as it sounds, there's no other use.
And so just showing up that way as yourself is a beautiful thing. Yeah. I want to thank you so much for being my co-host.
I know people that have listened to my solo episodes. I always say it's lonely and I miss host so this is really fun for me and actually it was one of my hopes for the year for last year and we recorded our first episode last year good we did and thank you so much for having me i love it it's basically come chat with shaley yes who you love and record it maybe put on a sparkly dress and yeah I can sign me up do that yes yes and we don't we can put on a sparkly dress at 9am on.
A Saturday because maybe that should be our thing yeah yeah yeah totally totally I love that so much I hope you will come back and listen to more of our duo podcasts because we have some really cool things planned because I want to continue to do the storytelling but also have themed specific themed podcasts so that you can refer back to them so we love you thank you for being here yeah and languages can we say that in any oh here's the cat yeah or
different ways i like saying have a gentle new year or sometimes i say i hope this year is kind to you yes have a meaningful new year oh yes yeah meaningful new year awesome a safe healthy meaningful new year yeah for sure for sure so friends this is bipolar thanks again for tuning in you can find video versions of this is bipolar on our youtube channel we also have all our previous episodes of the podcast on Apple, Podbean, Spotify, and Google Play.
We spend most of our time on Instagram at this.is.bipolar. There is a vibrant community there where we have conversations and post different ideas and different strategies, and we'd just love for you to join us there. It is so helpful if you enjoy our work or think it would be helpful to someone if you could like and share and save and follow us in all or any of those spaces. If you're a listener for the podcast, if you could leave a review, we would be forever grateful.
Again, thank you for being here with us. Let's get the word out. Let's share lived experiences so that we can change the ideas that people have about bipolar and help those of us that live with it feel less alone. Music.