Loving someone with bipolar – Carla shares her story & gives guidance to help you support loved ones
Episode 37: Loving someone with bipolar – Carla shares her story & gives guidance to help you support loved ones
Hi, Welcome to How did you learn to do that? Podcast where you will hear tips, guidance, and stories to help you to have a fulfilling life and career. The inspirational stories that you will hear from people will inspire you to know that you can create anything you want in your life. And it just takes commitment and action. This week’s episode is titled Loving someone with bipolar – Carla shares her story & gives guidance to help you support loved ones with our special guest Carla Arges.
So I’m excited to have you here. I’m excited for you to hear these stories, the guidance, and the tips that I’ll be sharing. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me at info@howdidyoulearntodothat.com and you can connect with us on social media or on Instagram, on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter @howdidyoulearntodothat. And we would love if you could help us grow and expand this podcast by reviewing us on Apple podcasts, as well as on YouTube and sharing the episodes with your family and your friends and helping us continue to spread the message that we all are deserving of a fulfilling life and we can be the catalyst in our lives to create that.
Podcast show notes for this episode
To find the show notes for all our podcast episodes, please visit our podcast page. You can check out the show notes for this episode and Carla’s bio, here!
How to get to know yourself with Career and Personal Development Coaching
So as many of you know, I am also a career coach, a personal development coach, a mindfulness coach. I do coach new graduates, early career professionals, but I also coach people that are far in their career, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years that are just not feeling happy. They’re not feeling fulfilled. They’re not feeling like they’re living their true purpose to really keep asking themselves.
What else is there? Is there more to life? Is there more that I could be doing? I’ve got the career. I completed school, I got the career. I have the family. I have, you know, everything that I thought I wanted and I have it open. Now they’re at that place. That’s asking themselves that question where they want to ask themselves that question of how do I connect deeper with myself?
What can I do to connect with myself, to figure out who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing in this world? So what I’m going to do is I’m going to actually break it down into a couple of different sections. So over the next three months, I’m going to be talking to you about your mindset, about personal development, about things that you can do to connect with yourself deeper, to really get to know who you are and what you’re here to do and how you can build a fulfilling life and career for yourself.
And then I’m going to move through more tangible things of what you can do for your career, how you can know your why, how you can align with your why and how you can actually have the confidence to network to achieve and get close to your why and your purpose and how you can maintain that throughout life and everything that you’re doing.
The Successful Candidate Course
I launched The Successful Candidate course in November. I am going to be launching it again in February. And so I’m excited for you to be a part of that. And I am going to create a Facebook group for everyone that registers into the course so that you can have support and guidance as you’re going through this process for yourself.
And I will be there every single week. We’ll be doing a mastermind and we’ll be sharing thoughts and ideas and challenges and things that you’re going through and things that you could do more of or things you could do less of, or how I can help you troubleshoot a little bit and give you some. Tips and some prompts and some ideas of things that you could try out to see if they’re going to work for you.
So I just want to say, although my course is marketed and geared towards new graduates or early career professionals, it’s really for anybody that wants to be in a place where they’re having a fulfilling career and a fulfilling life. There’s so much to be learnt in that course. So if you want to sign on, I’d be happy to jump on a call with you to chat about it.
You can read more about my story and why I developed this course here!
Otherwise I will see you in the course and hopefully we’ll see you at the masterminds as well.
How to get to know yourself with 1:1 Coaching Sessions Coming Soon!
I will be also offering some one-on-one coaching for, for folks that don’t necessarily want to take a course, but want a little bit of guidance around mindset and really figuring out how to feel fulfilled and what the next steps are. And someone that wants to develop a bit of a morning practice or an evening practice and routine that keeps them accountable and that they’re able to connect with themselves.
So stay tuned for that because I will be offering some one-on-one sessions with you where we can hop on a call weekly and just to keep you accountable for about the span of four weeks.
And then hopefully you can then flourish and go out on your own and spread your wings and create this life for yourself. So stay tuned for that. I’m excited to announce that soon, too.
So let’s get started.
Loving someone with bipolar – Carla shares her story & gives guidance to help you support loved ones
I’d like to welcome Carla Arges to the How did you learn to do that? podcast. Carla Arges is an entrepreneur, an author, a mom, a wife and a mental health advocate. She shares her struggle of battling a mood disorder and a painful past while trying to juggle finding her purpose.
Through her social media presence and company Affirming Truths. She shares her journey with authenticity and encouragement, inviting women to rewrite their stories from victim to victor and walk boldly in purpose. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast, Carla, to share your story and your encouragement and your inspiring and empowering story that I’ve been following over the last few months. So I’m excited to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
Angeza: I’d love to just start the conversation to ask you what set you on your journey and how did you get started in, in doing all that you do?
Carla: Well, it goes back a ways. You know, my journey, I never had this laid out plan of where I’m at now. I never thought I would be where I’m at now. When I was little, I always had this idea that I would grow up. I would be a marketing executive and I would have a successful career and little did I know the impact that mental illness would have on my life and the young age that it started. So I started to battle with my mental health in my preteen years and I was, we all have mental health that we struggle with, but we don’t all have mental illness. And there’s a bit of a difference between the two and mine was mental illness. I was 13, the first time I tried to take my own life and really struggled throughout my adolescence with homelessness and substance abuse.
All the stereotypical things that one struggles with when they’re not getting treatment for their mental illness. And it was really challenging. I was a bright student, but I wouldn’t go to school or like skip all the time I got expelled and I remember the first part of my journey came while I was expelled from high school and I couldn’t find a job, no one wanted me to flip their burgers.
I remember laying on the floor in the basement thinking this can’t be my life. There has to be something more. There has to be purpose in all this pain. This can’t be how I’m going to live out the rest of my days. And I decided at that point that I had to take some responsibility for my own decisions and start to turn things around.
Because at that point I was still very much a victim to circumstance. It’s difficult in the developing teen brain to be able to see outside your house. But I had some childhood traumas. I had the trauma of living with this mental illness of suicide attempts, and I placed a lot of blame on other people and made other people responsible for my decisions
And I realized that had to stop. So that was it. That’s one of the first things that really, really struck through the messiness that I have to start taking responsibility for myself. So I got cleaned up. I finished high school by the grace of God. I went on to university but I still really struggled. Mental health, at that point wasn’t as widely talked about as it is now, there’s still so much stigma you have to break through, but I was raised where you don’t talk about your problems. It’s personal. I was raised where it’s not mental illness. It’s just a lack of faith in a Christian and the type of Christian household we were brought up in.
And this can be the struggle in the faith community, that they take mental illness and assume it’s a faith issue. Like you’re not praying enough. You’re not reading your Bible enough. You’re not being good enough. And somehow this is like your punishment, which is complete garbage. So I did have those support systems. And so I still struggled and I remember trying my best to fit into the idea of what I wanted and what I was supposed to be like, both my parents are university graduates, so I was supposed to go to university and graduate.
I was supposed to, you know, clock the corporate nine to five and spend my days doing that. And I just struggled finding success because I struggled in my illness. I struggled having the capacity to manage different stresses. And for those of you wondering my diagnosis finally, correct diagnosis is bipolar two disorder and borderline personality disorder. And the severe mood swings that would happen, the suicide ideation that would happen, it was really hard for me to fit the traditional workspace. Very hard for me. I remember so many days driving to work and daydreaming of what it would be like if I would just veered off into oncoming traffic and it was soul crushing.
One of the breaking points was when I was pregnant and I suffered from prenatal depression, which I had never even heard of. We hear a lot about postpartum depression and I struggled a lot in, in prenatal depression, had to take time off work. And I started to feel a little bit more at ease and I was wondering, okay, what does this mean? What is this telling me? One of the things I struggled in battle with the gaps was this label of mental illness and label of mental health so much wanting you to be that other person.
I think sometimes we get so caught up in comparison and we see these women. That seemingly can do it all right. That our moms are corporate wives and on the PTA, and they’re juggling a million glass balls and they do it seemingly so beautifully. And I had such this desire to be that I was so caught up in comparing my weaknesses to someone else’s strengths, that it was crushing it for me. And one of the things that I’m learning to do in order to be successful is acceptance of my limitations. There is so much in hustle culture that says you can do anything. You put your mind to you’re limitless. If you believe that you can achieve it. And while I love the sentiment of that, I think it’s very dangerous for a lot of people to believe that they are limitless because that simply is not true.
We all have limits. Some person’s limit may be farther out than yours. Someone’s capacity may be bigger than yours, but we all have capacity limits. We all have limits. And I think coming to terms with that and accepting our limitations. Not in defeatism, not in victim hood, but in an opportunity to really channel our energy towards where we can thrive.
Because if I keep trying to push through this limit that I have because the world is telling me I’m limitless because I’m supposed to girl boss it up and do this. If I continue to push against that limit, that I have, I’m going to continue to break my head. Essentially, I’m going to continue to break and I’m not going to achieve success.
And I’m going to believe either I’m a failure and I’m going to keep comparing myself to other people that have different limits. And I never going to grow or achieve things. And I realized I had to come to acceptance of my limits. Some of my limits means I am not going to flourish in a corporate nine to five setting.
Some of my limits meant accepting that the vision I had for myself wasn’t going to be, but that didn’t mean that I could have success and happiness and joy and fulfillment and purpose. Our purpose. I like to say is when our hearts say, find your heart song, and then you find your purpose. When I was busting my head against trying to break the limits that I didn’t hit and trying to be someone that I wasn’t, I was never living in my heart.
I was never walking in purpose. And that, that became slowly to accept who I am. Accept my limitations in grace and love and compassion. I was better able to see where I’m strong because while we have limits what we have weaknesses, we certainly all have strengths. We certainly all have opportunities to grow and explore and impact and do all that.I just wasn’t seeing them because I was looking at the wrong thing. And when I started to have acceptance, I was able to see where are my strengths? And I realized that my strength is in connection in sharing my past hurts in my struggle in advocating for mental health and encouraging women to walk in their purpose in encouraging women to connect with who they are.
Because there’s are so many lies that we believe about ourselves, that we believe that we’re not enough. We believe that we’re not worthy. We believe that we’re not capable because we have taken lies from society. We’ve taken comparison and we have taken our limits to mean failures, where I see our limits and it’s just, somebody rooting us to our true purpose.
It’s been a journey and it’s been difficult and it’s, it’s not easy. And I don’t know if you find, if any of that resonates with you and in trying to find your purpose or trying to walk in your heart song, but there’s so many messages out there for women that while the spirit of them is great, the application of them can be really detrimental.
Finding your purpose because we feel like we have to fall in line. And I tried different things. I tried the corporate world. I tried more like relaxing. I tried MLM. I tried lots of things, but I had to silence the noise, find acceptance, and then focus on my strengths and that doesn’t mean you’re not pushed it out of your comfort zone.
I’m pushed out of my comfort zone every day, doing what I’m doing and pushed out of my comfort zone. Any time I have to one-on-one interact because that scares me. And it’s so interesting how I feel like my purpose is in to encourage other women, but I’m still so scared of other women. That’s something that I’m working on. And a lot of that has to do with the fingerprints of that old belief system, where I had to be like her, or I had to be like her or had to be like her. It’s not quiet.
I’m deep feeling. I’m all about authenticity. And I have to accept that emotional part of myself and find a way to make it work for me. So I think a lot of the time, what we need to do. It’s except where, where we are weak, so that we can focus on where we’re strong and build a beautiful legacy and impact in our lives that way.
Angeza: Wow. Yeah, I I’m I’m so I’m just taking everything in and I just am so in awe of you and I’m just so encouraged by what you’re saying, because I completely, you’re asking if this resonates with me and it actually resonates me a lot closer than you might think, because I can’t say who, because I have to obviously seek their permission, but someone very close to me I believe also suffers from a mental illness, similar to what you shared. And would have had that exact same path if, if I wasn’t there. And if we weren’t there to support, support them and encourage them. But the challenge is, like you said, it’s when you’re growing up in a faith-based culture from a specific type of faith based like you shared where, you know your mental illness is seen as a weakness and something that is your fault, and you need to go do something of it.
When that messaging is drilled into you from childhood and becomes very hard and very challenging to accept a different mindset and a different view on, on what you’re suffering from. And then I just applaud you for, for making that shift and making that mindset shift and really understanding that there is a different way that you can take control of your life and create the life that you have created.
And, you know, and I just pray and wish that everyone that is listening and perhaps has someone that’s suffering from a mental illness or they themselves are that they listen to this and they realize that because I know for myself, for the person that is very close to me, I hope even to this day, I hope it, you know, she realizes it and makes that mindset shift and that change because it is, you know, and like you said, it is, it’s so hard when you have been traumatized and you’ve lived through trauma. It’s hard to get out of your own head and see the bigger picture, see a different path where you can to control and you can live with that mental illness on your own terms and in your own way and then advocate for yourself.
So I’m going to have to share this episode with them because I really want them to see the encouraging story that you’ve shared here.
Carla: And just to be really clear too, that I did not mindset my way out of this. So if you were battling mental illness, It’s not just about needing to think positively. I take medication. I go to therapy. I had to accept my diagnosis and be determined to be the best that I can be in light of that diagnosis. There are very few people that struggle with anxiety or depression or bipolar or schizophrenia or trauma related. Disorders like borderline personality that can do it on their own.
I would almost argue no one can do it, but I’ll leave a little bit of margin for super super hero. So we have to be okay with saying I need help. Yeah. And if you got to take the pill, take the pill. If you got to go to therapy, go to therapy. If you got to reduce your schedule, then you reduce your schedule. If you got to put up boundaries, you put up boundaries. If you have to say no, you’d have to say no. And I have had to advocate for myself and get help. And in ways that.
You know they say it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to support someone in mental illness. And, um, one of the things that I’ve struggled with for example is, and I don’t know why for the life of me, I can not stay on my medication. I cannot. So I have had to get my husband to give me my pills. He brings me my pills every night. Because that is a support that I think because it’s very common for people with bipolar and maybe other illnesses too, when they’re not feeling their lowest to forget about taking their medication. So I put in a support support by going to therapy and tackling my trauma and doing the hard work.
And it is hard work, but I put that in there. And so we have to be able to ask for and accept help. It’s true. Even if you don’t have a mental illness, if you’re a mom and you’re trying to work and you’re trying to do this, we need help with the image of the super woman doing it all. Is only going to lead to burnout. She does not exist. We have moments of greatness for sure, but that’s not sustainable. We need breaks. We need rest and we need boundaries and we need help. And I think that in some cases, our society has insulated itself so much from that community vibe. And we would be so much better served to open our lives up of it, more in the community and get the support that we need.
And also say, and I don’t think this is just the Christian faith. I think there’s a lot of people in faith communities at times might face. Where mental illness is not recognized as illness on the same degree. And I would just like to say that it’s not your fault. It’s nothing that you’ve done. I’ve had well-meaning Christians asked me if I have had unrepentant sin in my life, or if I’m reading the Bible more. And I think as a faith community, we need to do better.
It’s not pray or take your medicine, it’s pray and take your medicine. It’s not the read your Bible or go to therapy. It’s both. There’s definitely been a huge, positive impact and in practicing my faith with my mental health, but doing so, knowing that my mental illness is not a reflection of my faith. If anything, my faith strengthens me to be the warrior.
Carla Arges
I need to be every day in fighting what’s going on in here. So I just want people to be encouraged and, you know, we don’t. We don’t look down on someone when they have diabetes, when they have cancer, but also for people with mental health, you can’t let it be your identity.
Just like we don’t treat people that have cancer as if it’s their fault. You also don’t hear people that have cancer say I’m cancer. No, they say I have cancer. I’m not bipolar. I have, I’m so much more than that. Yeah, some more offer this world. And part of what I have to offer is actually a gifting for my illness.
Yeah. There’s downsides, but there’s gifting. I have a gifting of empathy. My son is struggling with his mental health and I think that there’s some hereditary and genetic stuff that goes into that, but he’s suffering from his mental health. He has OCD and it’s quite a journey. To mother, someone with mental illness when you’re struggling yourself, but the way that I’ve been able to come alongside him has been beautiful for him and for me to support him because I have a understanding and I don’t want him to go through what I went through. Like I am a the suicide survivor. And so no, we have to see that we are not just our illnesses and not just look at the negative, look at the positive that our illness can bring compassion, empathy, creativity, a whole bunch of things
Angeza: Yeah. I love that. And I love that you say that you it’s not just about shifting your mindset and thinking positively, which I completely agree with. And I think it’s just that step like you said, that step or that, you know, that moment where you’re honoring yourself and you’re saying, you know, I need help and I need to go to therapy or I do need the medication.
And there’s so much stigma around medication for mental illnesses. And I don’t understand why. And I spent, because of my experience, I’ve spent my entire young adulthood studying mental health and studying children’s mental health, trying to figure out what happens in your childhood that creates this path for you in your life and, and coming from a place of empathy and just understanding that we all are traumatized and we all have different experiences.
Just that note that you said about just accepting, you need to, you need the support and you need that. That’s that to me is the biggest step that any anyone can take is just accepting help. And just recognizing that you can’t always do it on your own, and I completely agree with you. You can’t always do it on your own. And I just wanted to go back to something you said earlier about knowing yourself and really knowing your limitations and knowing who you are and what works best for you. And I completely agree with that, that you need to figure out who you are and your purpose in life is a journey.
Carla: In my opinion, it’s just a journey. It’s not really a destination. It’s not somewhere you’re going to reach. And you know, the flowers are going to bloom and the sun’s going to come out shining and the butterflies are flying by. It’s just, it’s a journey to, to live, to find that purpose and to live that purpose. And we’re constantly changing right now. What I’m doing may not be how I can be most impactful a year, five years, 10 years, it can change every season and we have to be flexible change as we grow.
Angeza: And yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. And it’s just, it’s just that, that piece of figuring out who you are truly, and understanding that. And then figuring out what aligns with who you are. What do you want to do that aligns with who you are? I think is key and it’s the most important thing you can do because I know you were talking about prenatal depression and I’ve definitely heard that more and more now, recently. I don’t know if you follow the birds papaya, but she shares that she’s going through that right now.
And she shares about the moments where, you know, she feels like I should be happy about this pregnancy, but all she can think about is all the, all the struggles that she’s experiencing with her prenatal depression. And I remember right before when I was pregnant, I didn’t suffer from prenatal depression, but after I had my baby, the first thought that came to my mind was postpartum depression. And just, just the fear. And I just had this fear. I remember and there’s this, you know, mental illness, there’s always a diagnostic checklist that you have to meet these certain things in order to be. diagnosed.
So I went and I found it and that DST and I downloaded it and I downloaded five or six copies. And I said, I’m going to keep this here. And at the end of every week for the next five weeks after I have my baby, because you get public health following you for six weeks in Canada. So I said, you know, for the next five weeks I want at the end of every week, I want to do this checklist for myself so I can let public health know in case I am suffering.
And I remember one day doing it and just reading through the questions and just feeling so, like you said, boxed in and I love that you said you finally got the right correct diagnosis because I just was looking at these questions and I was like, yes, I feel on a spectrum. I do feel this. But am I, you know, at a 10 for that feeling or my a two and there’s just so much variety. And I just felt like is checklists are not conducive to every single person and the way that we diagnose and the way that we structure currently, I just feel like there’s such a spectrum.
And so I love that you shared that because like you said, you know, I can suffer from a mental illness and you may suffer from, you know, the same title of it, but we can have completely different ways in what works to treat us can be completely different.
Carla: You know, getting a proper diagnosis is a journey in and of itself because there’s so much overlap. There’s so much in that word right there. So. You really have to want to get better. You really have to want help. And then you really have to advocate yourself and you for yourself and you have to be in it for the long term because there is finding the right diagnosis, then there’s finding the right treatments. Like I had to try different pills until we found ones that were good for us. In finding the right therapist. Because just because someone’s qualified to treat you doesn’t mean you’re going to connect and you have to not give up.
Everything just doesn’t line up nicely right away, because chances are it. Won’t and it can be disheartening and it can be discouraging, but you just got to keep going. You’ve got to keep going. And you know, the biggest switch was taking responsibility for my medical and then taking responsibility for it, accept it.
Accepting that I have a mental illness. That was very hard. I denied it for a very long time and suffered. And my family suffered for a very long time because I wouldn’t accept it. And a big eye-opener for me was after I had my son, I had really severe postpartum depression. And even then I was like, didn’t want medication because I didn’t want. The stigma around it. And finally, my mom who has generalized anxiety ended up being institutionalized for her mental health. And I saw how it tore apart the family. And that’s one of my worst fears is ending up in the hospital. And I realized I don’t want to get to that because I’ve ignored it for 20 years.
And so it really encouraged me to take more ownership and not care what people think no one else has to like my life. No one else has to raise my son. I have to be the best mother. I can be possible. I have to provide the best life possible for him. No one can do that for me. So I don’t care about anyone’s opinion I am going to do with best for us and in the present and in the process.
So I know how I can thrive. Mental illness is not a death sentence. It doesn’t have to be, it can just be another part of you. It’s just another part of you. It’s not all of you, it doesn’t take away the purpose that you have in life. It doesn’t take away your ability to be impactful. It doesn’t take away your ability to leave a legacy.
Carla Arges
It’s just part of your struggle that you’ll go through. But in that struggle, you gained strike in that obstacle. You can find opportunity cause that’s almost my mistake getting out of that victim mindset and seeing how you can have a victorious life. Even with this struggle and go, I know in the middle of a pandemic, while I’m struggling with my mental health, I launched a business.
I would never have imagined it’s possible. Your mental illness doesn’t have to limit you. You may have to change your idea of what success looks like. You may have to change how you envision your future, but you still have a future and it can be a me thing. That’s the thing I have to be flexible in changing what our goal is, but we can still have some pretty amazing goals, make some pretty beautiful successes.
Angeza: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I, I just, you know, I, I definitely feel that what you said about when you’re suffering from a physical illness, such as cancer, diabetes, you know, there’s obviously diagnostic confirmations things, like biopsies and things like that, that you can do that confirms, yes, this is it. But with mental health, that’s not it. So you do need to share it. It’s all about what you share in your experiences and using what, how you’re feeling and what it is that can help, but, you know, accepting that and accepting your limitations like you said. And acknowledging that I think is amazing.
And I completely agree with you that, in my opinion, society’s view or perspective of mental illness, I think is changing slowly. But you do need to treat someone who is suffering from mental illness, you do need to treat them with compassion and empathy. Knowing how to love someone with bipolar, for example, is so important. Just as much as you would treat someone that says they have cancer. You know, and I know in my family, when somebody has cancer, has a heart attack or stroke, because we’ve had those in our family, it’s always a place of like, Oh, poor him, or, Oh no. Did you hear? And you know, and it comes from a place of such sadness and empathy and sympathy.
And I’ve tried to explain this to like my grandparents and things like that, about mental illness and my aunts and uncles developments, illness, and saying, you know, when you treat this as if, you know, it’s not the person saying these things, it’s their illness saying these things. And so let’s go from compassionate and empathic place and it’s never met with the same response.
Carla: You know? And so everything that you’re saying. When I’m sick, I’ll have friends drop off meals or pop in with a coffee. You know, when you go through a break up your girlfriends, things like that, but what I’m in the midst of a depression? No, one’s seeing if my family is being fed because I can’t cook. When I’m in the midst of a depression and battling through suicide ideation, there’s no one just showing up with a coffee.
If we have to get a little bit better in providing the practical support in a moment of crisis, just like we would provide practical support in the physical elements. I don’t even remember when I had Caleb people brought meals, like my freezer was full because they knew the first few weeks, you know, it’d be hard and you’d be tired and let’s care and love on people in their mental health crisis in the same way.
Angeza: Yeah. I’m all for everything that you’re saying, because it’s so true. It’s just, we need to, we need to. You know, we need to, if I don’t suffer from the mental illness, I need to take it upon myself to say, how am I supporting those around me that do what could I do and what would I, and not making any different than you would for a physical illness.
Yeah. Like you said, if someone’s had a new baby and needs the supports, like we know what we need to do for that new mom, we know we need to provide food or just comfort or coffee, or just checking in, Hey, how’s it going? Or, you know, just anything. And I really, really appreciate this conversation because I feel like it’s, these are things that I’ve been thinking about lately, deeply. And having, like you said about your mom and me having my own daughter, these are things I think of, because I think of what am I doing right now to ensure that she has the opportunities to be mindful and aware, even though she’s almost two, but just being mindful and aware of her emotions.
And we’re obviously going through the tantrum phase right now. So that regulation of emotions is not there for her. And so for me, I’m just thinking, what can I do to support her. From this perspective so that I can encourage her to work through her emotions and know that she’s safe and comfortable and we’re here if she needs anything.
Carla: Loving our children to know that they’re safe, helping them name their feelings, letting them know that it’s okay to feel how you feel. Some of the things we might do when we have the feelings might not be okay. But having the feelings in and of themselves is okay. Encouraging dialogue and being the listener and not being reactive to what they’re saying and if you’re wondering, like, as a friend, how can I support someone who’s struggling with their mental illness? Listening is a big thing. Just being there, not expecting the person to necessarily talk either just being there. You can sit in a room and have physical presence. And that can be such a comfort, even if no words are exchanged, check in, know that when they cancel plans, it’s not them being flaky.
Like being social sometimes can be really difficult, is exhausting having to battle your mind every day, someone that has depression, anxiety. So when that has mood disorders, you are constantly battling your mind. I always say to people, I am in a battle against myself for myself, and that is exhausting.
It’s tiring. So my capacity is smaller. It’s not the same. I don’t have the same energy as someone else. And just understanding those things goes such a long way. Not being afraid of the topic too. And now that can be hard. It can be uncomfortable just like when someone, you know, loses a loved one, it’s uncomfortable in that space with them in their grief. It can be uncomfortable. But if you love someone, you have to be willing to sit in that uncomfortableness with them as a solidarity and support.
Angeza: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And I really hope that anyone listening can really just take these notes because it’s true. You just need to overcome that uncomfortable feeling and just be there to listen and to encourage and, you know, and I really hope that we’re shifting towards that path in that way where mental health is common, and it’s not that it’s common, but it’s something that we just talk about and it’s not this taboo subject and it’s not this, I don’t really know what to do moment it’s I know what to do. I know how to support. I know that I need to just be there to listen, or to encourage, or to support like your husband does for you, which is incredible.
And just having those supports and those networks and just knowing, you know, that it’s okay. And you know, it’s okay to have those feelings and let’s support you through it. And through that journey.
And so I really appreciate everything you shared, but I am curious, like you said, you in the middle of a pandemic, how you decided you wanted to start your business because that may have been the last thing somebody would have ever expected to do during the pandemic.
I mean, I started this podcast during the pandemic as well. And so you started your business too. I think that there’s a lot of moments that I just think about what if, what if this pandemic didn’t happen? Would I still have started this podcast or have this downtime? So I’m so excited to hear about, about Affirming Truths and how that came to be.
Carla: Well, it came to be in my experience of walking through mental illness as a woman of faith, being in the personal development world and loved reading the personal development books, but a lot of the things didn’t resonate with me as a person to see because personal development sometimes can be about how you have everything inside of you on your own.
I don’t have everything inside of me on my own. That’s why I need God. And so there was a little bit of a disconnect and I thought, you know, there’s so many other Christian women who struggle with their identity, who struggle with learning, to love themselves and seeing themselves as enough who have this disconnect in that personal development world. So for me, truth came about to support women and rooting their identity in Christ so that they can walk boldly in the purpose he has with their lives. And so our main product right now is affirmation cards and they’re biblically based.
And it just, it’s a beautiful way to say, yeah, I’m straight and here’s my fate evidence, because this is what the Bible says or I’m capable because this is what the Bible says or I’m surrendered or I’m disciplined or I’m patient or a month. All the things that we need to root in our brains. We got to uproot the junk, but unless we replaced the job with the truth, the junk keeps coming back, right?
It’s like weeds in the garden. If you’re not on those weeds. And if you’re not drowning out the weeds with other plants and malts the weed, they’re going to keep coming. Our negative self-talk is just like the weeds. So we got to not only root them out. We got other stuff in it. And so these affirmation cards are meant to help women plant the truth of who they are in their head with the faith based aspect of having it physically based.
We also just launched the Bible study, a downloadable, looking at different women in the Bible and what we can learnabout our identity and God’s character from them. So for me, Affirming Truths is a faith based company. And like I said, it just came out of my own need to do affirmations.
Affirmations are so important. There’s so much science behind how they can actually rewire your brain. Affirmations are very close to CBT therapy. So cognitive behavioral therapy, which is part of the therapy I do in my trauma recovery. There’s so many scientific based evidence for the power of affirmations for the power of thought replacement.
And I wanted to bring that to women at while encouraging their faith, that bringing the faith and the personal development and the therapy worlds together and supporting women. Because I know when we start believing in who God says, we are, then the confidence to move forward. In what he gives us to do.
And that heart song I talked about earlier, I believe God plants the heart song in us that we’re able to walk more boldly in it and we’re confidently in it. And so I really want to see women, right. I really want to see women love and own who they are and accept who they are because they still have purpose.
And whether that purpose is to be an amazing mom and raised in good humans or whether that purpose is to be a CEO or an entrepreneur or whatever it is. I want them to have the confidence and the boldness to pursue it because they can’t because they’re worthy because they’re able, because God has said they can marry evil.
Angeza: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I love it. I’m going to have to get the Affirming Truths from you. I’m going to have to purchase that off your website because I definitely see the journey and the person that I was talking about earlier. I mean, I’m, we’re Muslim. I don’t know if I identify with being Muslim or I was just born into it. I’m still going through that piece, but I definitely believe in the level of spirituality where yeah, you do need that higher power to support you and to guide you. And I agree that, you know, you can have what you have inside of you, but you sometimes do need a bit of faith and higher power and beliefs to see what path you can take or what path is set forth for you.
But the person I was speaking about was also Muslim, but she also speaks the same way as I do and says that she was just born into it. She’s not really it, but she, but whenever she’s really struggling or she really just needs a moment to reconnect. She goes to a Christian Church, which I find so interesting and I’ve always found this interesting that whenever she’s really needing connection, really needing just faith. If she does go back to a Christian, um, church. And I just, and so as you’re speaking, I’m just thinking, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
I need to get this for her so that she can, she can read this because it’s empowering. And I am all for affirming truths. And having that affirming talks every morning in my practice. And it’s so true. It’s so true that you just have that moment where you just believe in yourself, or you just say you affirm what you’re saying, and you think in your thoughts and how you perceive yourself and how you perceive the moment that you have in front of you. And what you say to you and the power of your thoughts is definitely not something to be overseen. And it’s definitely something that is so encouraging and empowering for you and for everything that you want to do.
I love it and I can’t wait to share. And so for those listening in, we are going to do a giveaway. So hop on over to the How did you learn to do that? Instagram page or click the photo below to enter into the giveaway of the What You Say I Am Affirmation Card Deck.
Two lucky winners will be having a chance to win and to be inspired and encouraged and empowered by it. So thank you to Carla for her generous gift. Thank you so much for sharing this story, I just am in such awe of you and so inspired by everything that you do and everything that you’ve shared.
This has to be probably my most favourite podcast episode I’ve recorded ever. When I started this, these are the kinds of stories that I wanted to talk about, that people in our communities are dealing with different things and finding ways to commit to themselves, to take the action that they need to create that life or that path for themselves that they’ve always wanted.
You’re just a testament to that you’ve committed to yourself. It always takes me back to that oxygen mask analogy, where you have to put your own on before you put anyone else’s on. And that’s exactly what you’re speaking about today and sharing, and I think that’s incredible.
I did want to just say one thing about what you said about how you’re there for your son. I think that’s the most beautiful thing that you’re doing, Because like you said you understand and you’ve gone through that experience. And so you’re there from a place of being informed and understanding and knowing.
I think a lot of parents that do have children suffering from mental illnesses or mental health challenges. They almost don’t know where to go and they don’t know what to do. And I think that what you’re doing is incredible. And I really hope that you encourage and empower parents and support other parents with children that are dealing with mental illnesses, because I know there’s such a need for that out there. I’m just so encouraged by everything that you’ve shared.
Carla: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I love talking on this subject and there’s so many different ways we can talk about it. Like parenting a child with mental illness is its own journey is its own journey as you’re on right now. Like there’s just, you know, I think we need to be open. To the experience of the journey and the unknown and being flexible, maneuvering it.
And when it comes to the parenting, I just wanted to encourage parents to put reputation aside. I think sometimes we will wonder what people will think of me if my child has it. If my child has asked, there’s still that stigma. You have to put the reputation aside and think, what is that? My child, my child is hurting. My child has a knee and sometimes that hurting child looks noxious and it’s difficult to deal with. It’s easy to have compassion when the mental illness is presenting it as sadness and tears gets a lot harder to have compassion.
When mental illness is presenting itself, it’s irritability and rage, which it can often do still having the compassionate understanding where it’s coming from, it’s coming from a child that’s hurting that needs help. Don’t be afraid to go to the doctor. In fact, I’m going to the doctor with my son today because he just shared with me. He’s having. Suicide. So I did not sleep very well night. It’s still difficult for me to go through this, but you have to be like, okay, so we’re in this together.
We’re in this together. Mama’s here with you. We’re going to walk this road together. You’re not going to be alone. And we’re going to figure out how to make you thrive because thriving is 100% achievable with mental illness.
Will you thrive a hundred percent of the time? No, no one does. But having thriving in your life, having success in your life is the work for you and kind of do that. So, yeah.
Carla Arges
Angeza: Yeah. I think that’s wow. That’s, you know, that’s, you know, you should, I think you should just, um, I don’t even know what, how to go from that. But I just want to say that you should just be so proud of everything that you’re doing, because the fact that your son came to you to tell you that, and the fact that you knew this is the world we need to take to get you that support and that help and let’s work, walk it together, um, is incredible. I think it’s incredible.
And, um, And I, you know, and I, and I hope that he can see how amazing his mom is and, and this journey that you’re on as well. And, you know, and it’s just this moment where, where you can support him and he supports you. And I think it’s so, um, meaningful and it’s just so, um, encouraging and, um, beautiful to see.
Carla: Well, thank you again for having me. I’ve really loved talking with you and your audience, and hopefully they. Yeah.
Angeza: Well, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. Um, and like I said, I will link all of Carla’s, um, social media, as well as her website to affirming today on the show notes for you to check out.
And if you have any questions for her, you can feel free to message me, or you can message Carla directly. And she’ll, she’ll answer those questions. All right. So thank you.
If you liked this episode:
I do have an affiliate link for the morning ritual mastery by Stefan James. You can also visit my website. There’s a blog about how to connect deeper with yourself and get to know yourself and self-reflection, and I’ll actually put the link in my Instagram bio as well. So you can just quickly link and check it out and see what it can help you do, and I’ll go walk you through kind of like what you would want to do in the morning practice anyway.
So if you are looking to have some connection with your higher self, that mastery, I would highly recommend that course for you.
Let’s Connect!
I would love to hear how it’s going for you and if you’ve implemented. And if you have any ideas for future episodes or any. Things that you want to learn more about and you need more help with feel free to send me an email info. How did you learn to do that.com or connect with me on Instagram? And if you have any questions they meet and feel free also to send me a note, um, and I really want to know how you’re feeling after practicing these five steps to connect deeper with yourself.
I will be doing the connect deeper with yourself Challenge that is a bit more in depth than a bit more deeper with you. The challenge starts next week! I will be posting that on my website as well as on Instagram. So stay tuned for that.
And if you could. If you love this episode, I would love if you could review it on Apple podcasts. Like I said, I would love to learn more about what you liked about this episode, what you would like to learn more about. Like I said, um, and you know what, I just want to say that you take the time that you need to do what you need to nourish your soul and your mind and your body and everything that you do in life.
Okay. So I hope that this lesson in this episode has taught you so much and that it’s getting you started to working towards that fulfilling career and that fulfilling life in the successful candidate course, I will teach you a little bit more about how to connect with yourself deeper, how should really figure out your why and its importance.
And so I’m excited for you and I’m excited to see you inside our course, um, or to connect with me on one-on-one sessions, which I will be offering soon as well. All right. So we’ll talk soon. Thank you so much for listening to the end of that episode. I hope that you have learned something from that episode that can have you getting closer to a fulfilling life.
And career there’s so much out there in the world that you can learn, you can experience and you can apply to your current life. That will help you start making those little steps towards a career that you love. And that you’re inspired by. So I’m excited for you. I can’t wait to hear what you’re doing.
I would love for you to share with me over on our social media, or you can send me an email and let me know you can visit our website. How did you learn to do that.com for the show notes and for blog posts and to hear more about what we’re up to. And of course we would love if you could help us grow by reviewing us on Apple podcasts, as well as on YouTube and sharing with your family and your friends.
If you enjoyed this episode, check out these ones too!
All right, we’ll see you next time and hopefully in the Course!.
Angeza
Angeza’s purpose in life is to share and inspire you with the stories of people from all walks of life who have made small daily commitments to themselves, their purpose and their happiness. These stories will be tangible, easy to digest and implement. Allowing you to begin to understand what makes you, your soul and your mind truly in tune and peaceful. What is it that you are here to do in this world?
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