Expanding the Wellness Toolbox: Affirmations

We began building our wellness toolbox in the last post. I want to continue building on it until you have a nice set of healthy and useful tools that you can use when mental illness starts to take its hold on you. One of the things that I do is build a list of affirmations that I find useful during the time when depression strikes. I am not talking about the kind that are all about abundance and finding perfect bliss. I am talking about the kind that say things like, "I am healing body, mind, and soul and that is okay." Or "I like the person looking back at me in the mirror."
Here are a few of the ones that I have written and turned into cards that I look at daily.

I find them very useful and inspiring and attainable. Affirmations only work if you believe in them. If it says "I am overflowing with abundance and peace" but you feel like the world is caving in, the affirmation can have the opposite effect. Instead of being useful, it can feel debilitating. I encourage you to either write a list or create some cards. You can use index cards and create mini collages out of them. Then keep them in your tool box with your self-care activities list.

Another tool that I think is important to have in your toolbox is a list of your positive qualities. If you are having a hard time with this, you can always ask friends to help you write it. Another idea would be to have friends fill out index cards for you with your positive qualities that you can keep in your toolbox. However, I still feel that it is important that when you are in a good space to write your own list positive qualities because it can be easier for us to believe when it comes from ourselves. Depression, especially, I noticed, can take someone else's words and wonder, "What did they mean by that?"
Keep both lists from yourself and your loved ones/ friends and review them when you are feeling low and that you have nothing to offer the world. These lists are your proof that you do have something to offer. You might be surprised that the very things you think you have are the very things that your friends notice about you. That is the supporting evidence that what your brain is telling is not true. Near crisis or in crisis, your brain may be telling you that you are not worthy and not a good friend. However, one look at your list and the cards can prove that voice wrong.