By Megan Newton, LPCC
Was there ever a better time in history to designate a month to mental health awareness than in the middle of a global pandemic? We think not. As a global people, we have not experienced something on this scale before, not in the way that COVID-19 is challenging both our individual and collective mental health. For some of us, the COVID-19 outbreak has threatened our purpose and our sense of wellbeing. COVID-19 has brought anxiety, depression, and grief to our doorsteps unrelenting. Never before have we been so ‘plugged in’, and while that has its incredible benefits, the cycle of news and social media confronts us with a harsh reality over and over again, inducing us into the fear of uncertainty. In the overwhelm of that experience, many people are asking, what is mental health? What is my mental health and how do I take care of it? In this moment, the first step is to recognize you are not alone in your experience of grief and fear. We invite you to recognize that truth in yourself. And we also invite you to recognize what is also viable in uncertainty: hope and possibility. The invitation is to acknowledge the truth of your experience, and that in uncertainty both grief and hope, fear and possibly, can exist at the same time.
Deep breaths.
If you are experiencing joy, hope, and possibility during this time there is not something wrong with you. If you are experiencing fear, grief, anger or loss during this time, there is nothing wrong with you.
Deep breaths.
Are you feeling more grounded? I hope so. Perhaps now we can circle back to where we began, which is an inquiry around mental health. Maybe you are asking the question, “What is my mental health?”. Perhaps you have wondered about this question before and the answer has been unclear or too uncomfortable to consider. It is true that in our society, mental health has a long history of negative connotations, secrecy, and denial. Why? Because mental health issues have often been categorized in a binary sort of way; either you are crazy or you are sane; either there is something wrong with you or there is not. Let us say it again, there is nothing wrong with you. Mental health is an inquiry into one’s own self. It is the process of integrating of our emotions, thoughts, sensations, and behaviors that result in an experience of wellbeing, both in ourselves and with others. Mental health is about telling the truth.
Many of us hide from ourselves. Even the most intelligent, high-functioning, capable people. It is not either you have mental health or you don’t. The question is about to what degree is your mental health functioning and how willing am I to be honest with myself about that answer. For many people, it’s too uncomfortable a question to ask. “I’m fine,” I hear people say. Yet, I can’t help but wonder what does that really mean? For some of us it is true that we are “all good”, and that is wonderful! Mental health isn’t about being bad. It isn’t about being wrong. It runs a continuum from ‘I’m barely surviving” to ‘I’m thriving’. For example, I know mostly happy people who are successful and high functioning, and who are also overwhelmed with anxiety. Notice that I did not use the word ‘but’. Using the word ‘but’ perpetuates this idea of mental health that there is something to hide or to ignore. We have a gazillion ways of justifying or explaining this to ourselves. Instead of denying, the field of mental health, and therapy at Evolve In Nature, instead invites you to come to know yourself in the totality of your experience. It is only when we are willing to tell ourselves the truth that we can thrive in all aspects of our being. After all, you have only this one precious life to live, in this one precious moment.
Mental health is about the process of deep knowing, of calling into balance the parts of ourselves, and it is no doubt a vulnerable process. It is so easy, for example, to shove to the side the fact that I yell at my kids when I’m frustrated. And then I feel bad, but who wouldn’t? And then I tell myself I will do better next time. And then the next time comes around, and I yell, and before you know it that is the pattern of relationship with my children. That becomes the pattern of relationship with myself - to snap or rage when I am upset, bypassing my experience completely. And just like that, the past is gone. I have hid from myself over and over and over again. Do you see the denial in this example? The denial is not that the yelling isn’t happening. After all, in this example, I wanted to do better, I acknowledged I didn’t do something well. The denial exists in the act of ignoring that there is anything here to take seriously enough to come to know, to understand, to put in the effort to change, to pick up the phone and call a therapist to say, “What I am doing isn’t working. I want to grow and I’m scared.” Exploring your mental health is an invitation to disrupt the pattern. Not because you are bad or wrong, but because the possibility of thriving in your relationships and in your body is real.
Mental health at Evolve In Nature is a journey to seeing yourself as you are. Like the cactus in bloom, capable of both thorns and flowers. The invitation is not to rid yourself of who you are, it is to come to know what’s true, to learn how to navigate through the thorny places, to bloom often, and savor the nectar.
In this month of May Mental Health Awareness, what questions do you want to ask us? Fire away and we’ll do our best to offer one perspective in the sea of many. What is it about yourself you want to know better? What are the questions you are willing to ask?