Hey hey everyone 😁 It's been a while again since my last post and as previously stated, longer absent periods will be expected for the time being while I re-establish my routine and priorities.

In fact, today's post is all about how I've been learning to take things at my own tempo and all about how I discovered the key belief that was influencing my behaviour and consequently, my afterthoughts and feelings when I don't respect my rhythm. In short, I'll share a bit about mental health and my personal experience.

As for today (note to self - cosy sunday night here! 😊) I'm getting that feeling of letting words flow, let's see where it will lead us, shall we dear reader?

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For those of you who don't know, Three Tune Tuesday was created by @ablaze and as he explains 👇

The jist is as follows

Every Tuesday I'm going to share 3 songs which I like to listen to and I invite your feedback in the comments below. Better still, why not have a blast of your own Three Tune Tuesday and mention me in the post and I'll come and find the post and upvote it. It'll be a sweet way for us all to discover new music. You'll also be in with a chance of winning a prize.

With that being said, today's choices have everything to do with time, tempo, rhythm or whatever you wanna call it. Having been dealing with depression, taking the step to take care of my mental health with psychotherapy has been essential for my growth this year, especially in the last 2 months.

Having to think about my behaviours and thoughts in a detailed, understanding and compassionate way is a lot harder than I thought initially. It takes time, effort, consistency, willingness to understand, forgive and heal. But most of all, strength to face whatever stuff you might be too scared to admit.

As for me, I've come to the conclusion, my automatic thought in a lot of different situations are quite simple and that is - I don't have time.

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You might be asking yourself, how does thinking "I don't have time" can influence anything? Or on how it influences my daily life? Well, let me give you some examples dear reader 😊.

• I don't have time to rest because I have ___________ (intro chore, task) to do.
• I don't have time to lunch because I might ____________ (intro some event I can't control, traffic, accident) and be late for my appointment.
• I should be doing _________ (intro some task, chore, responsability) instead of ___________ (something I enjoy) because then I won't have enough time.

Writing it now so clearly it even seems strange and weird to me, really 😆😆. It actually is a very helpful way for myself to see how deep and unaware I was about these automatic thoughts. More importantly, how these thoughts were contributing to the degradation of my mental health. After all, I've always been my most strict judge. (note to self - GUILTY! Yah, more about that later)

You see, dear reader, this constant way of thinking has led me straight to a sort of burnout. Not long ago, a friend of mine explained to me how depression can happen to anyone in a most brilliant way, that I will now share with you.

Picture your brain as being a computer. At some point of your life it can have a major bug or critical error that makes the system freeze and need a repair or reset. In a way, that is like saying a big sad/unfortunate event may have happened at some point of your life that leads you to a depressive path, like losing someone you love for example.

Another way would be, if you open your browser and open 40 different tabs at the same time, it can make the system shut down or freeze. It's the same as saying that you have so many things on your mind that the brain can't handle it anymore and therefore it just shuts down.

For me, thinking constantly that I didn't have enough time for my responsibilities or tasks of the day has led me to a constant feeling of guilt whenever I try to simply do something I want or enjoy. All the damn time, guilt is there dragging me to a spiral of anxiety and restlessness. Definitely, too many open tabs shot me down to the lowest I've ever been in my life.

Finally, that leads me to the most important conclusion of all, that I've been struggling to get since May: If I do something I want instead of a task, what does that make me? If I leave a task undone, what's the worst thing that can happen? Please bear in mind, that all of what I'm writing, hopefully in a logical and rational way, took me 3 months to figure out 😅😅(note to self - this will be important for my conclusion).

This week, I finally got my answer... My core belief is that if I don't do all my responsibilities I'll be worthless and therefore, people won't like me. So, very simply put, it's all about external validation 🙃 (note to self - oh, I have to discuss this conclusion with my psychotherapist!).

Now that I've been working on the root of the problem, I'll continue in the next section by sharing 3 songs of another band that helps me to get in a chilled, slow and relaxed state (note to self - Oh finally! That's enough feelings 🙄).

I hope it helps you too, dear reader 😍!

Gorillaz is a band that was introduced to me by my boyfriend (note to self - obviously! 😝) and I immediately loved their vibe! Another thing I just love about these guys are their funny video clips, as the band members always appear in the form of animated cartoons 😂.

As a genre surfer, for me Gorillaz surpasses everything I would ever ask for in a song! They have so many different rhythms and influences in a single song that it's really hard to place them in a category of music genre, which only makes me love them even more 😁!

Don't believe me? Listen for yourself.😉🎧

1 - Humility - Gorillaz