 Hello there my beautiful internet friends, welcome back to my channel, thanks for joining me here today. I have a shocking announcement for all of you, okay so maybe my channel name gave it away, but for those of you who don't know I lost my leg back in October of 2018 and then I lost it again in August of 2019 when they had to do another surgery to remove another two inches of my leg, you know, a light trim. The last year and a half have not been particularly easy. There have been really really amazing moments that I am eternally grateful for and there have been a lot of really hard ones that sort of took all of the energy and mental strength I had in me to get through. But there were a few habits that I relied on that helped me actually get through this with at least a little bit of sanity and I wanted to share those with you guys today. Now please keep in mind that if you're not an amputee or you're not going to be losing any limbs, fingers crossed in the near future, I think these can apply to you as well. They are things that I've noticed are just generally pretty good mental health habits to have. I'm going to dive into this video if you felt like giving this video a thumbs up to help the YouTube algorithm, that would be fantastic. In all of my experience and conversations and research, I've come to the conclusion I don't think there's any way to actually be prepared for losing a part of your body. I did have the option to choose one that was going to happen for me, but even then I was really naive in how difficult it would be and the challenges that I would face. One of the hardest things for me was feeling completely utterly out of control. To some extent it felt like my life was happening to me. I had complications that were not expected that were outside of my control that kept happening and you can start feeling like you're going insane. The first and maybe one of the most important things that I learned and I picked up as a habit was to start investing my time in things that mattered to me that were not dependent on how my leg was doing that day because there were so many ups and downs and so many setbacks and a lot of physical pain. I'm a really active person and I like set my sights on doing active things like I wanted to get back into jiu-jitsu and hike five miles and eventually start running and just all of these things that I was shooting for that I was working for that were continually being placed further outside of my reach outside of my control and that can be really really hurtful and it contributed to these feelings of I'm not in control so what I started doing was intentionally investing my time my energy and some money into things that did not depend on my body. For instance I learned more about video editing. I really made a commitment to stay consistent with these videos on my YouTube channel and regardless of what was or wasn't happening with my leg regardless of how I physically felt up to a point my leg wasn't going to stop me from doing that so I was able to progress in my life in that and art. Art is something that I really really enjoy and regardless of if I can walk or if I can't walk I can draw pictures so if you feel at all like I felt where things are just spiraling out of control around you and you have no power no control I would encourage you to take a hard look at one thing that you have power over that you can use to better yourself or bring yourself joy or fill in the blank journaling was another thing for me it wasn't dependent on my invitation and I had control over that hey there it's Joe from the future here stopping by to let you know that if you want to hear a little bit more about how I actually implemented that habit how I invested in things that were outside of what was going on with my leg stay tuned until the end of this video to hear a little bit about our sponsor skill share so the second habit that I adopted and really had this in place already but it really helped me was going to see a counselor every week or every other week as finances allowed it's not the cheapest thing to do so we had to make some sacrifices to make that the case but to get me through all of this in a healthy way it was really necessary for me to keep checking in with someone now if therapy or counseling isn't for you or isn't an option I think investing in your mental health in this way can be done in a variety of different ways whether that's committing to journaling every day like I suggested before or meeting with someone who is a great source of support for you or finding a support group online or in person oftentimes those are free and a great way to have some consistency to make sure that you aren't letting your mental health fall to pieces as I have done previously in my life the third habit that was really helpful for me to adopt was to look for the humor and things now this isn't to say everything's a joke or everything should be you know made a joke about but it was really really helpful for me to laugh about the horrible crap that I was experiencing one example of this is I hated being stared at for a long time occasionally it still bothers me but for the most part I really don't care but if you're missing a leg people are gonna stare at you in public so this really bothered me it was hurtful it made me feel a little bit unsafe and so I decided to make a joke out of it and I bought and then I made t-shirts that made a joke out of it like I have one that says I can see you staring at me in big black letters and I have another one that I just made for myself that says people couldn't keep their eyes off of me when I had two likes either that was actually suggested by one of you in this community and it just it makes me laugh about it instead of only feeling insecure or bad number for exercising in whatever way I could losing my leg made me feel even more disconnected from my body than I often already feel and so exercising in tiny little ways whether that was laying down the couch with my leg elevated because I was recovering from surgery and doing tiny little sit-ups or getting down the floor and stretching for a little while or whatever it was helped me to feel like I was actually in my body like I was the owner of my own being and helped me make peace with the fact that my body looked really different now movement in general of any form whether that be dancing or mixed martial arts fighting or jiu-jitsu or hiking or whatever has always been really important to me and even though I couldn't do those things necessarily finding what things I could do was really helpful for me to make peace with the situation that I was in the fifth and final and I would say probably the most important habit that I learned that's taken me a long time to actually adopt is to stop with the comparisons now for me this meant exiting some support groups online that I was a part of because I saw people talking about their situations with amputation and all I could think is I'm not I'm not as bad off as they are I still have you know one leg I'm not missing both legs I shouldn't be having a hard time I should be fine and so I would mentally berate myself and minimize what I was experiencing and not deal with it just because other people had it worse it was really like an escapism tactic that just made me feel worse about myself and so I have mentally made it a habit when I feel those things come up when I hear those thoughts of oh you shouldn't you shouldn't be having a hard time people have it so much worse than you do to shut that down and remind myself that other people's experiences do not detract from what I'm experiencing from what I'm going through that comparison game can be really harmful to all of us no matter what you're dealing with so one way that I combat that is every time I thought like that comes up when I'm comparing myself to someone else be it better or worse or anything in between I tell myself over and over again that other people's experiences do not detract or minimize or invalidate what I'm experiencing and try to move on from there without the comparison I'm not going to exaggerate this and say that I'm all better I do still deal a lot with struggling with comparison and feeling like I'm invalid or like what I'm experiencing isn't that bad so I should just get over it instead of actually processing in a healthy way but slowly over time it's gotten better number six still doing things that were normal when you go through a major life change like losing your leg it can feel like everything is different and to some extent everything is different but choosing to still do things that I did before losing my leg like going to the movie theater or hanging out with friends or grabbing coffee with someone was really important for me to remind myself that I'm still here I'm still human I'm still myself it's gonna be okay somehow I would do these normal things sometimes even if I didn't really feel like it and slowly but surely they started feeling more normal I felt less weird I think when we go through trauma or grief or something substantial it's really easy to stop doing things that quote-unquote normal people do or that we did before because it feels so foreign we feel so different at least that's what I've experienced and so choosing to still do those things even if I didn't feel like I fit even if I didn't feel like I belonged even if I didn't feel like doing it in general was really helpful for me number seven for me is a little bit complicated but looking forward to the future I have made a point every month of going through my bullet journal and saying what I want to accomplish in the month even if I was laying on a couch in a lot of pain and couldn't do much making tiny little goals for myself for the short term and the long term was really important for me to remember that this moment is not forever that things are gonna change somehow it's not always gonna feel like this I'm not always gonna be like this I do have a future even if I feel like I don't that was something that's really helped me get through a lot of really dark moments so if you feel this way or you're going through something huge writing down ideas of what you want for your future even if you're not sure if you can get there even if you're not sure how to do it or if it's even possible can be really helpful it reminds us that there is a future that there's more than today and that can be really necessary sometimes thank you so much for sticking around this long in the video to hear a little bit about our sponsor Skillshare I'm guessing if you watch a lot of YouTube you've probably heard of them before they sponsor a lot of creators which I really appreciate and they are a company that I have used a lot over the last 18 months that first piece of advice that habit that I had to invest in myself in ways that had absolutely nothing to do with my leg that weren't dependent on what happened with it on if I could walk or not skill shares really helped me with I have taken courses in photography beginner photography I'm a baby baby photographer and writing and film editing and right now I'm taking another one on writing because I've made a commitment to write 250 words a day I'm working on writing you know a book long-term but I don't really know how to do that and so I'm learning a little bit more about it through Skillshare and the courses that they have I really like how they structure things videos aren't super long it's bite-sized I can log on and learn 10 minutes and then try and implement it right away or go about my day and they have classes on basically every topic under the sun name something they probably have some information about it so if you're interested you can get two months totally free two months of learning completely free which I took advantage of when I first signed up for it if you follow the link down below not only does that help support this channel but Skillshare is actually really cool and I really appreciate them working with me okay now back to the video so those are seven habits that I have adopted and tried my very hardest to take insistent with and to continue practicing what helps you when you're going through really really hard things I would love to hear in the comment section down below do you do any of these habits already or are you thinking about adopting any of them I would love to hear thanks for listening guys a huge shout out goes to my patrons over on patreon thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you so much for supporting me both today and for the past year for those of you who have been here for a while I really appreciate you if you're curious what patreon is I'll put a link up on screen you can check it out if you feel like it thanks for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today you could be anywhere in the world doing anything and you chose to spend it with me and I'm really grateful for that I love you guys I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video bye guys