 Welcome to the Anxious Morning, where each weekday morning we take a look at ideas, concepts, and lessons designed to help you understand and overcome your anxiety. For more information, visit us at theanxiousmorning.com Mental health is hard, really hard. When it feels like your body and mind are betraying you, it's easy to find yourself questioning who you are, what you're doing, and what this is even all for. We work overtime to navigate through these issues. In some days, just getting out of bed can feel like a major undertaking. Now imagine not only having to work on anxiety recovery or depression recovery, but having to do that work while also knowing that the world often doesn't even recognize you as valid or worthy of being here. You start every day not thinking about exposures or podcast episodes or a recovery plan, but by thinking about the fact that you were being actively rejected, marginalized, ignored, excluded, ridiculed, or even attacked for just being who you are. Exposures will have to come later. You have to figure out how to navigate all that first. We speak often about how the stress of life can make recovery more difficult. When the world throws crap at us, we can feel like we're back to square one. When we are trapped in unhealthy situations, we struggle to find the room needed for recovery. For our friends in the LGBTQ community, just existing can be one giant unhealthy situation. Someone that does not conform to accepted gender identities or sexual orientation standards probably feels like life itself is an abusive relationship. There's no room to work in. No space left for recovery and mental health. No space to breathe. I love this community. You all contribute to making this a space full of empowerment, encouragement, inspiration, and compassion. I hope for that. You make it. So if we are to make this space, we must make this space for everyone, especially people that might otherwise have no space. This has to be a virtual place where anybody can come and feel like they can work on recovery without fear of being banished or judged simply for being who they are. Everyone must be welcome here. Mental health is hard. Mental health is even harder when you're fighting wars on multiple fronts. Let's be a kind shelter from that other war. Let's give our friends the space they need to breathe and maneuver. Now, I know I'm preaching to the choir here. I've seen nothing but love and acceptance and kindness from you guys and I am hopeful that what I've seen extends to everyone that needs a mental health tribe to belong to. But as I was writing tomorrow's edition of the Anxious Morning, I caught myself being accidentally exclusionary in my thinking. So I write as much as a reminder to myself that I have work to do as anything else. Part of that work is not remaining silent when those issues come up. So here I am. Thank you for being excellent humans, all of you. If you're enjoying the Anxious Morning and you'd like to get a copy of the podcast delivered into your email inbox every morning, visit theanxiousmorning.email and subscribe to the newsletter. If you're listening on Apple or iTunes, take a second and leave a five-star rating. You write a small review. It really helps me out. And finally, if you find my work useful and you'd like to help keep it free of advertising and sponsorships, you can see all the ways to support the work at theanxioustruth.com slash support. Thanks so much.