The Releasing of the Clams
Our environments and what we surround ourselves with impacts our mental well-being whether we realize it or not. We can learn how to replenish the good and diminish the bad, just like the way our clams react in the true story below…
“Would you care to join me for the releasing of the clams?” my husband quips to me not more than 15 minutes ago. What on earth is he talking about you wonder? Well, if you’ve ever had an aquarium before and you’ve had to put new fish inside of it, you’ll know you need to “acclimate” them to their new surroundings by floating them in the bag they came in, with the water they came in, in the new tank. You can’t just dump them in with all their old water, they will many times be shocked to death or you might overflow the tank.
So, you “get them used to being in that new water.” You let the water inside their bag warm up to the same temperature as the water in the tank they are going to be in. My husband and I have owned aquariums for most of our marriage and my husband owned fish for many years before we married. At one point in our married life, we had 14 aquariums. So I have seen many fish released into new environments.
Today these new clams were even more important than just normal fish. We have been losing snails right and left and we were trying to figure out what was happening in our tank.
We had just gotten an abundance of new snails and we wanted to make sure they didn’t die. After doing some internet research, we discovered that snails can get cracks in their shells so we had to add calcium into their environment. We did that with cuttlefish and with baking soda. And we also discovered that snails were very sensitive to copper, metal ions, salt, and ammonia.
Well, our current tank had plenty of ammonia and nitrates because we had too many fish. We adore all our GloFish so we couldn’t bear to kill any of them. So we got clams because they filter many of those very things out of the water! Nature’s own natural purifier!
So too it is with many mental health struggles. The question is – are you filtering out the good or the bad? Remember to:
Give yourself time to “acclimate” to new environments and let the water in your bag warm up to that of the water around you. Don’t be so hard on yourself! In the case of Daylight Savings Time, give yourself a little bit of extra time to adjust. Do not be afraid in new situations – God will be with you!
Isaiah 41:10 – ” So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (NIV) Let God be your “good” filter. Let Him filter out the bad stuff and leave you with the good stuff. Let Him hold you up.
For example, I have learned that my diagnosis means that I have to keep a very stable environment. Go to sleep at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning, especially on weekends. But I don’t really like to do that. My preference is to go to bed late on the weekends and sleep in late on weekend mornings. Plus I like to take naps on Sunday afternoons. Well, that goofs up my entire sleep schedule. Makes it much harder to go to sleep at night at the right time when it’s not the weekend and my body has to start relearning all over again. And of course, Daylight Savings Time adjustments don’t make it any easier. But it is something I have to learn in order to become more mentally healthy.
What kinds of things need to be added to your environment just like the snails needed calcium? Talk therapy? A healthier diet? Exercise? Maybe a therapy dog? Maybe just a vitamin every day? Don’t be discouraged if your “shell” starts to crack but look for a little something extra that could help you. Turns out adding calcium was very easy – just a teaspoon of Baking Soda and a cuttlefish bone soaking in the back of the tank. Yours could be just as simple! It might be as simple as asking God to hold you up because He will! So:
and have a beautiful day!
-Never Alone
