Author: Keith Anderson

Worth Living Ambassador & Official DJ Scratchley Q

New week, new music. Enjoy! – Scratchley Q

Worth Living Top 10 Countdown – New Releases Part 2. (Jan 2018)
10. Supplies – Justin Timberlake

9. Wait – Maroon 5

8. Sativa – Jhene Aiko ft. Rae Sremmurd

7. Dura – Daddy Yankee

6. Stranger Things – Kygo ft. One Republic

5. I Know You – Craig David ft. Bastille

4. Place To Start – Mike Shinoda

3. Miss You – Cashmere Cat ft. Major Lazer & Tory Lanez

2. Sick Boy – The Chainsmokers

1. Cadmium Melody – Alan Walker ft. Charlie Puth

Worth Living Ambassador & Official DJ Scratchely Q

From time to time we have all had our struggles. This week the countdown is all about the different kinds of struggles one may face in their lifetime. The hopeful part about struggles is that we always can overcome those struggles and they are only temporary. Enjoy – Scratchley Q

Worth Living Top 10 Countdown – (The) Struggles (Are Real)

10. Stay – Yello

9. You Don’t Know – Katelyn Tarver

8. Hard Times – Paramore

7. Broken Ones – Jacquie Lee

6. Tell Me I’m A Wreck – Every Avenue

5. Broken – Lifehouse

4. Hopeless Wanderer – Mumford & sons

3. Move Along – All American Rejects

2. These Times – Safety Suit

1. The Struggle – Tenth Avenue North

Worth Living Ambassador Beth Allen

Beth Allen is a Mental Health Advocate, and an active video blogger who aims to be informative, fun and truthful whilst showing life with Mental Illness. Having suffered in silence for 10 years with GAD, Emetophobia, Anorexia and Depression, Beth is 100% committed to showing the world that it’s okay to not be okay.

In this video, Beth notes some important dates in 2018 for mental health awareness. Please subscribe to Beth’s Youtube channel. Proud to have her on the WL Team of Advocates!

Worth Living Ambassador & Official DJ Scratchley Q

WL Ambassador & Official DJ Scratchley Q steps away from her regular music gig and shares deeply personal thoughts and feelings from a Night of a Disc Jockey. Her resilience and commitment to life are inspiring. Her dedication to sharing her journey through Worth Living is greatly needed and truly appreciated. Her contributions to WL continue to help all of us! Thanks!

Scrathley Q is a 23 year old from Manitoulin Island who loves sharing her passion for DJing with the public. She is a natural performer who has no problem filling a dance floor and keeping it moving. Scratchley Q is a high energy performer who has established a reputation as a versatile and professional, hardworking DJ. She presents a weekly Top Countdown of music videos for the WL blog. She also has mixed 5 Volumes of Worth Living BPM Therapy www.mixcloud.com/djscratchleyq

A Connection, the Night of a Disc Jockey

Days, hours, minutes of endless preparation.
An Anxiety filled body before approaching the venue.
Ongoing sleepless nights.
Stress felt deep in the chest.
Constant worry of performing to the highest ability.
Expectations that the exquisite sounds will stimulate the crowd.
A slight moment of ambitious positive though.
Bringing connection between two worlds.

Weekends the dance floor is moving.
Dancers can feel the bass vibrating through their feet.
Treble thrusting through their hearts.
On the dance floor all troubles and worries are left behind.
Muffled voices heard over heavenly sounds.
The dance floor brings joy and safety.
The dance floor, up lifting the soul.
Bringing connection between two worlds.

Disc Jockey, a veteran in the industry.
Watching the movements on the dance floor.
With a look of glazed concentration.
Searching music libraries for sounds of perfection.
The music selections, experimental.
Providing energy matched by the active bodies.
Hyped interactions with dancers.
Bringing connection between two worlds.

The lights dim, the music fades to a silence.
The dance floors muffled voices turn noiseless.
DJ’s heart racing, thoughts of self-doubt.
Isolated night in the booth, lonely travel home.
Pushing through an unfathomable depression.
The hours of exhausting adrenaline winding down.
Aftermath nightmares of a performance on repeat.
Bringing connection between two worlds.

Worth Living Ambassador Haddi Browne

Hello, my name is Haddi. I am a Research professional and a Psychology graduate. During my course, I volunteered within various mental health services, which included working on a helpline for people affected by mental illness, organising activities for inpatients on a psychiatric ward, and working in a therapeutic community for people with severe mental illnesses. For me, the most interesting parts of my degree were learning about different mental illnesses and their causes and treatments.

I find that writing about my day and my feelings in the form of a letter or journal is a good way to look after my mental health. Scientific evidence has shown that writing down your thoughts reduces stress by helping you release, process, and come to terms with negative feelings.

When you are writing, you are accessing the left part of your brain which is the part that is responsible for rational and analytical thoughts. The right part of your brain is responsible for creativity, feelings, and intuition. Whilst the left part of your brain is busy with the task of writing, the right part is free to explore solutions without being blocked by whatever situation is causing your negative emotions.

Sometimes it can be hard to get into the habit of writing, journaling or blogging so here are 23 questions/ideas that can help you get started:
1. Write about your day or week so far. Did something bad happen? Or something good? Are you feeling happy or sad? Or did you learn or do something new?
2. Write about a difficult time in your life that you overcame
3. Write down something you are stressed about
4. Share a vivid dream
5. Write down one regret
6. Describe how you want your life to look in 5, 10 and 20 years
7. What are the three things that scare you the most and why?
8. What are three things you can do to help your mental health?
9. Write down your greatest qualities
10. Write down 10 things you feel thankful for
11. Write about your greatest challenge at the moment
12. What are you looking forward to the most about this week?
13. What were your victories today?
14. Describe your biggest accomplishment and why it means so much to you
15. What do you wish most people knew about you and why?
16. What fear would you like to overcome? What can you do to start overcoming it?
17. Describe your happiest and saddest childhood memories
18. What was the last thing that made you feel deeply frustrated?
19. What is a trait that you admire most in others? In what ways do you see that trait in yourself
20. Name ten things you can start doing to take care of yourself?
21. What was the best compliment you ever received?
22. If you could achieve anything in your lifetime what would it be?
23. Choose 3 photos of yourself across your lifetime and write a post about how you feel looking at them, where you were, what you were doing, what you were like, etc.

Worth Living Ambassador & Official DJ Scratchley Q

Here are some of the new releases for this week. Who else get’s excited when they stumble upon new music? This week I encourage everyone to go to a record store, a thrift shop or online and explore new sounds. You’ll be surprise of what you find. Whether that be new or old in the music industry, it’s new to you. In the meantime checkout some new releases featured in this weeks Worth Living Top 10 Countdown. Enjoy! – Scratchley Q

Worth Living Top 10 Countdown – New Releases Jan. 2018
10. Buzzin – Alina Baraz

9. Filthy – Justin Timberlake

8. LoVe U – Marshmello

7. Family Feud – Jay- ft. Beyonce

6. If You Leave Me Now – Charlie Puth ft. Boyz II Men

5. All The Stars – Kendrick Lamar ft. SZA

4. Fireworks – First Aid Kit

3. I Just Need U – TobyMac

2. You Are The Reason – Calum Scott

1. Hand It Over – MGMT

Worth Living Ambassador Lucy Smith

Lucy Marie Smith graduated from Moore College of Art & Design in 2016 with a B.F.A. in Illustration, adding to her A.F.A. in Illustration from Delaware College of Art & Design and her B.A. in Theatre from West Chester University (cum laude). She has exhibited at many venues including the Comcast Center, Moore College of Art & Design, and Delaware College of Art & Design. Among her interests are painting, dogs, and organizing messy rooms. In her free time, Lucy moonlights as a face painter and a mommy to a beautiful, feisty Pomeranian. “The Dirt” is her first book.

Blooming from Challenges in the Darkness

My name is Lucy Smith and I have clinical major depression and anxiety with bipolar traits. Back when LiveJournal was a thing, I used to blog about the ups and downs of high school which I attended from 2003-2007. I had so many blog entries that I dreamed about writing a book about my struggles. “The Dirt: An Illustrated, 100% Uncensored Memoir of a Girl with Mental Illness” is that book, and I am excited to share it with you. I am happy to finally have the opportunity to be heard through “The Dirt,” which hopefully will go into the hands of those with similar issues.

At a very young age, I remember my entire mood dropping so low it went underground and died. For years I would fantasize about living in a different world. When no one else was around, my inner world came alive, and I could dance, dream, act, sing, draw, and write my way into relief from reality. To write this book, my challenge was to somehow channel my internal dialogue into an outer dialogue that could simultaneously inform and help others. Writing seemed the easiest method, but I also wanted to draw my feelings. “The Dirt” will be accompanied by illustrations scattered throughout the narrative for punctuation and emphasis.

Now, I create a new public dialogue with my book, and hopefully, I inspire other girls and feminine-presenting individuals to come forward with their stories. Community is built through dialogue and it takes courageous people to start a dialogue about challenging and controversial issues. I want to nurture a community with no stigma about mental illness, where no related subject is taboo, and where everyone can get the help they need— and not be afraid to ask for it.

Please, let me light the way for you. Grow from your dirt and bloom beautifully

Worth Living Ambassador Thomas Morgan

My name is Thomas Morgan. I am a 22 year-old Sociology student at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. I am a suicide survivor. I also have Bipolar Disorder, but I am so much more than either of those things.

I am Happy

Hey Worth Living community. It’s been a while. The last time I wrote for this blog was back in the early summer of last year. A lot has happened, but I will give you a streamlined version before getting into the actual post itself.

Since my last post I went off my medication (with the assistance of my psychiatrist), removed myself from unhealthy relationships with both my mother and father, began experiencing frequent panic attacks, gotten a new tattoo and grown a beard (neither are big events, I am just incredibly pleased with both), focused on losing weight, and began actively writing and sharing my poetry.

During my first semester this year, I was focused on not allowing the negative issues in my life effect any of my grades. Speaking candidly, I found this easy at first. I was forced to establish new patterns and a new schedule, which was very different to how I spent my summer. My brain does not work well without stability and a proper schedule (throwback to the last post) and I found myself focusing on adapting and maintaining these new patterns for the first two weeks.

Afterwards, however, I found myself feeling like I was under attack in terms of my mental health. Without my mood stabilizers, which I have come off due to feeling like I was often a zombie (even when I was perfectly stable), I found myself more prone to negative emotions and episodes. Partnered with large life changes that happened recently and these constantly became an issue. If I wasn’t having negative thoughts then I was getting into fist fights due to my problems controlling my anger.

I noticed this was a problem when there seemed to be a pattern to the madness and I considered ways to deal with these issues. I began going to the gym again, having stopped over the summer, and decided shortly after that I wanted to actively attempt to lose about twenty pounds. My physical health has a huge impact on how I feel mentally and I found that my perception of that health is just as important. This gave me a place to constructively use that anger, who would have thought?

While I used the gym to deal with my anger, I wanted to express myself in a way like how I did back when I was writing about my mental health for Worth Living in the first half of 2017. This was to give myself a creative outlet to address other things going on with me mentally that the gym just wasn’t doing for me. However, after writing an incredibly emotional post previously on Facebook, I found myself unable to write anything that expressed myself so directly. Instead, I turned to writing my poetry much more often. At first, these were anonymous contributions, but in November I made the decision to publish a particularly personal piece under my name. Haven’t regretted it since.

Despite now feeling better in terms of my general mental health, I found myself experiencing panic attacks in October. These often revolved around the next school year. Most of my friends will be gone, what if I don’t get high enough grades to apply to an Education program, what if I don’t get accepted anywhere if I can apply, etc. I found myself plagued by these at least once a week, often happening during class forcing me to step out and go into a bathroom to hyperventilate. Stupidly, I didn’t mention them to my therapist until late last month. Thankfully, after talking over these thoughts quite a bit and acknowledging them, the panic attacks have appeared to not happen nearly as often.
Throughout all of this, I attempted to put my grades above everything else. Looking at my final GPA for those courses as I write this reassures me that I succeeded in that regard.

When the New Year’s countdown hit zero and it was officially 2018, I was in a bar with my friends. All I could think while everyone was screaming “Happy New Year” was that I am loved, healthy, I have an amazing support network (most of which was right beside me).

And I am happy.

You don’t know how long it’s been since I started off a year like that.

I decided to write this post because 2017 was a big year for me. I came to terms with my Bipolar Disorder diagnosis, made that information public, and received nothing but love and support. I began writing for Worth Living. I was open about writing poetry, and while there were some shitty poems created the first few months, I eventually found my voice in that aspect. I published and even performed some pieces. I went to Cuba with my friends. I lost the twenty pounds I had set out to drop within half of the time I had expected. I developed a much closer relationship with both my brother and my little sister, even if I am not the best at communicating often (Sorry guys!). I even found out I have a big sister we didn’t know about!

There were a lot of hard times, no doubt. There will be more in the future.

I made it my goal this past year to do what’s best for my mental health, something I neglected for a long time. All my choices revolved around that. Not all of them were easy to make. However, I believe my first memory of 2018 speaks volumes for how I have done in that regard.

I am happy.

Worth Living Ambassador & Official DJ Scratchley Q

So here we are… 2018. I can’t wait to see what 2018 bring when it comes to music. The possibilities are endless! I’m so ecstatic to continue the Top 10 Countdown with each and every one of you. This week’s top 10 is a variety of genres, each one of these videos dropped in late December 2017, just in time for 2018. Celebrate the new year with some great music. Enjoy -Scratchley Q

Worth Living Top 10 Countdown – Welcome to 2018!

10. Hey Hey Hey – Katy Perry

9. Marry Me – Thomas Rhett

8. Palace – Sam Smith

7. Corner Store – Macklemore ft. Dave B & Travis Thompson

6. Last To Leave – Louis The Child ft. Caroline Ailin

5. Legacy – Jay-Z

4. Ozuna – La Modelo ft. Cardi B

3. Saved – Khalid

2.Nothing Else Matters – Little Mix

1. Friend of Mine – Avicii ft. Vargas & Lagola

Worth Living Top 10 Weekly Countdown – Happy New Year!

It’s now time we say goodbye to 2017 and say hello 2018. What were some of your favourite tunes of 2017? If you could define 2017 with music, what songs would be on your list? There are so many too! I’m looking forward to bringing you another year of countdowns. I really do hope you enjoyed the weekly countdown this year. Thank you to everyone that followed along week to week with the countdowns. Thank you to Worth Living for the opportunity. Big shout out to all my special guests I have collaborated with this year. Stay tuned to see what the new year brings. Till then, here are some of the biggest songs of 2017! Enjoy- Scratchley Q
10. Future – Mask Off