Did you ever imagine the day a digital screen would be sitting down with you to have “the talk?” Well, here we are, and thank goodness we are having it because let us face it—the world around us is crazy, hectic, and trying to heal. We should be too, right?? How does one even go about trying to heal during this time? Do we heal physically, then mentally? What about emotionally? What if our fracture is spiritual and impacts everything? 

 

Truth be told, there is no right way to talk about well-being. We get so amped up about self-care, and complete body understanding that we lose track of what we are actually trying to accomplish. This blog series will focus on MEPS and how we can go about taking the time to understand each one individually and the contributions that it brings to the holistic table. See what we are trying to do? The part needs to come before the whole—the cart before the horse so to speak. In order to understand how one aspect of MEPS interacts with the rest, we have to take the time to understand each letter first. 

 

Navigating our own mental complexities is a challenge in and of itself. Why then do we feel the need as people to continuously bring that negative energy into our minds? Remember that lesson in chemistry class when you learned about entropy? Entropy is the natural state and flux of disorder. Like everything else, it diffuses from high to low concentrations. Negative energy works the same way. Unfortunately, our bodies are natural havens for negative energy but we have the skills, tools, and resources to mitigate its adverse effects. 

 

I wish that there was an easy way to talk about mental health but to put it simply and tacitly: Quality over quantity. 

 

Mental health is one of the many components of the self that is best managed by quality control. Having too much going on mentally can result in negative impacts despite our best efforts to control it. Hence the phrase “spreading yourself too thin”. You are not physically spreading yourself too thin but you are losing too much of your mental armor. 

 

So how do we be wealthy when it comes to our mental health? As someone who has been to therapy several times for several reasons over multiple periods of my life I can truly say that having someone be objective and have no investment in my life other than seeing my personal growth is wild…in a good way. The validation. The challenges. The respect. The unconditional understanding of what am I going through. Nothing beats having that. 

 

What if therapy is not for you? Whatever reason you have, that is okay! I want you to know that you are still a valued person and deserve the same things. The process to get there just relies less on others and more about you. 

 

Attempting to understand our own mental health without diving too deep in the chasm is a challenge but it can be done. What it requires is a strong base and acceptance that the negativity is something we are trying to manage and mitigate, not destroy. We spend so much time trying to destroy what goes on mentally that we forget that it affects all the other components of our lives. Our bodies have balance. There is a balance of positive and negative energy. Scientifically we know this too. 

 

As people, we may be experts on our own body but we are also constantly learning about what it can and cannot do. We are strong fierce people but we have limits. Those limits are there by design and should be respected. Mental health, quality, threshold, or however you want to frame it refers to our ability to balance and maintain the threshold. Mental health means cutting toxic people out. Mental health means making changes to our daily routines. Mental health means leaving that job that you love so much but also causes you so much stress. 

 

Mental health means making your body, mind, and existence a priority. Mental health requires a deep understanding of you. Mental health is the first step to understanding the holistic you and making those big steps towards positive growth and wellbeing.