What is Mental Health?
A dissection into the mental awareness and navigations of emotions of the human experience, from the wandering perspective.
Greetings, dear reader! This topic is one I’ve been wanting to unfold with you for quite some time. So please find the nearest sunny grass patch to lay on and settle in while I take you through a journey of thought progression and reflection on personal growth by understanding the impacts of mental wellness.
Mental health is usually depicted as a negative figure associated with mental illness, and other complex disorders. In this short article, I hope to destigmatize and explore the perspective of my depictions of mental health, along with the ways it manifests into the habitual patterns of human behaviour and makes us act upon certain emotions we may not always agree with retrospectively.
What does it mean to maintain a ‘good’ mental health?
I came across a theory when writing an essay about the challenges journalism faces from the growth of generative AI. Proposed by acclaimed author and researcher Brian Christian, who discusses the alignment problem, it highlights ways of encoding AI systems to align with human values. I mention it in this post because I find it fascinating that society has advanced so far ahead that we live in a complete paradox of creating artificial technology to sound and behave more like our species. Yet we mask our own human emotions and use AI grammar tools to eliminate stylistic errors. It leads me to question: what would life be without correction tools? Would we be more accepting of mistakes and flaws, and do other people have standards of perfection we are inching towards achieving with AI, and do I want to be ‘perfect’?
Reaching alignment with your thoughts and values:
Learn to navigate ways to become emotionally regulated is what I used to tell myself when I’d be crying at the most unsuitable times. Receiving compliments used to be something I abhorred; any recognition would be deemed uncomfortable for me, as if I were being called out for something. From there, I developed a sort of emotional numbness. I would be hesitant to voice stressful situations, as I despised the act of burdening someone with my problems.
It was when I experienced a paradigm shift, and instead I viewed expressing emotions as an exchange of energy, a sort of positive relief. By expressing the stressful situations I’ve experienced, the act of voicing these negative emotions allows me to alleviate myself of any pent-up anxiety by simply letting go.
From experience of wanting to be in a constant state of detachment and achieving it to a (somewhat) harmful extent, the act of avoiding your emotions is similar to the cognitive dissonance of wanting to be happy but not knowing how. Yearning for all the cliché, happy moments you see in movies but then simultaneously experiencing the mental discomfort of not wanting to put yourself in a vulnerable position of socialising, in fear of what?
The Self-Saboteur, AKA Self-Sabotage
The self-saboteur does things like preempt situations, leading to internal overthinking, congesting our thoughts, instilling fear for the future, and sometimes dictating our behaviour based on what we think is acceptable human conduct.
A recent example of the last time I encountered my self-saboteur was when I met someone that I didn’t expect much from. He refuted my expectations of him by continually demonstrating that he was ‘different’, respecting me as an equal, listening, teaching me about his rich culture, showing acceptance, and being patient. I could see myself quickly admiring him; most importantly, he understood my sarcasm and was witty about it in his own remarks. As I felt myself developing these unprecedented yet starkly familiar emotions, I got in my head, and within the span of about three seconds, the thought spiral went rogue and opened the barriers to allowing myself to negatively anticipate the foreboding questions about the future of this relationship. “Where will I find someone as caring and thoughtful as this person ever again?” and “How do I not screw this up?”
Little did I know that the only thing stopping me from fumbling it up was myself, and perhaps if the self-destructive tinge hadn’t overrode my code, I probably would have had a chance to fix it. Oh well, I’m positive my birth chart of my black moon Lilith in Leo has something to do with it, which I blame.
Escaping the abyss
I don’t particularly enjoy the phrase “have a positive mindset,” as the word mindset sounds quite permanent and has a sort of set structure of always being happy with the absence of other emotions, and quite frankly, people who are clinically happy scare me. Having a positive outlook on life recognises the fluctuations of regular human emotions but deals with them more effectively by acknowledging that life may not always be a smooth ride, which is absolutely ok!
Keeping a journal always helps, and you may find it improves your communication with others, which may be the result of these daily reflections and taking the time to appreciate the value of what everyday has to offer. 🪼⋆.ೃ࿔*:・
Physical methods:
1. Yoga
Yes, the idea of being flexible sounds great, but the self-discipline yoga requires pushes me to those uncomfortable positions where I endure the pain of balancing in postures I didn’t know my body could do! It silences the noise in my head and elevates me spiritually. I’ve concluded that yoga is definitely a form of soul food. Perhaps this video will encourage you to try it sometime: Click here for an epic video about the joys of yoga!
The euphoric rise in my body after doing yoga makes me feel so light in essence. It makes me glow. I use glow in terms of internal happiness, as happiness does not have a particular emotion, but when we feel it, it is instantly recognisable and addictive. Having a yoga addiction wouldn’t be the worst thing, though people addicted to Bikram yoga may have a degree of insanity that I would love to learn more about. I’ve only tried it once, and for those that don’t know what Bikram yoga is, it’s like doing yoga in a sauna surrounded by mirrors and other sweaty people that are way better at holding the strenuous balancing postures. Yet, there you are, trying to keep up, suppressing being overheated and the feeling of fainting edging you, while simultaneously there’s that soaring energy within, motivating you to allow the heat to stretch your form deeper and deeper until you realise you have full control over your mind and body. It’s an interesting approach to wellness, one that I wouldn’t want to deter people from, but remember, practice makes improvement, not perfection.
2. Crochet
The art of crochet has a way of sending me into a meditative state that slows down my thoughts in the most consensual way. Research has countlessly proven that activities such as crochet that require repetitive hand movements have an immensely positive effect on mental wellbeing by reducing anxiety. What are you waiting for?! If the answer is that you are waiting for a personalised crochet workshop organised by me (Zalayka), then please feel free to highlight your interest by voting in the poll box below:
Avoidance (avoid this)
Coping strategies that weasel their way into everyday habits: It could be as simple as taking the bin out when it's full, but instead leaving it, and just avoiding eye contact with that corner of the room where the bin resides. Yet you still insist on using the bin, but this time it's overflowing with garbage, and you kind of regret leaving it for so long. Replacing a bin bag and taking it out approximately consumes about 2 minutes of our lives, which is not very long. Addressing and confronting our emotions headfirst may be the best strategy in understanding why we feel what we feel and where the triggers lie.
Avoidance may not always be perceived as a bad thing. For example, you could have arachnophobia, and the best way for you to cope with a fear of spiders may just be to avoid certain situations or settings to reduce the risk of encountering your fear. But let’s be realistic: spiders are everywhere, and the anxiety of constantly being on the lookout to avoid the one thing you're scared of creates an impending doom that further intensifies the fear, thus being counterproductive.
Avoidance may even manifest into addiction and using addictions to detach from reality, which often leads to the devaluation of important people in our lives. Further isolating us from achieving self actualisation. Here’s a journal I read on the study of joy from the humanist approach: The Joyful Life: An Existential-Humanistic Approach to Positive Psychology in the Time of a Pandemic
An egalitarian such as myself would favour the realisation that the problems we face are relative to our relationships and how we treat others. So the step forward would be to encourage open dialogue and conversations about our emotions that remind us that we are all simply wandering the Earth’s surface, with hope grounding us.
I hope this post motivates you to question the pesky little voice inside your head, the internal monologue consisting of your narrative of the world and the power it has if harnessed, to influence your behaviour in achieving personal victories!
Whether you’re reading this on your commute to work or school or you remembered to open Substack to skim through posts, trying to find a voice similar to the one that sheds light on your innermost thoughts, the question I pose to you, reader, is: How often do you openly discuss your mental health with others or with yourself? If the answer is not very often, why is that? Why have we as a society deterred from discussing our true emotions, whether they be good or bad?