Seven ways to good mental health (part 1of3)
They need to be taken in sequence. Total mastery is not required, but the time to move on is when you feel, or get a sense, that some movement has taken place within your mind. Psychological shifts are felt with a lightness, better sleep, smiling, singing, noticing beauty around you, wanting to do something different, spring cleaning…
Acceptance:
Acceptance is the single most important step to take. Acceptance is giving up being a victim. Acceptance is giving up giving up. Acceptance is a declaration of intent to move forward with life rather than continue to stagnate and blame circumstances or individuals for how things are.
Acceptance is the shift towards accepting that whatever is going on in your life is your responsibility. It is recognizing that you are where you are because of the choices you have made in life. And if this means that you have to accept the crazy idea that you made a choice to suffer from a physical illness, then you do just that – accept it. Acceptance is no longer fighting. Once you no longer fight, you no longer resist. Once you no longer resist you can move with the flow.
Every single thing, big or small, good or bad, you simply say to yourself “I accept that this is going on for me right now”. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to keep it forever. You just have to accept it in the present moment if it’s there.
The truth is that it’s there if you accept it. So by accepting you are not making things worse, because you’ve already got it. You are just changing your position relative to it.
Accept also that the thinking that got you where you are is unlikely to get you out – otherwise it would have already done so. You need to think differently. Acceptance thinks differently. Acceptance is approaching the problem with wisdom. If you are so frightened you cannot go outside without a companion, and even then you are terrified, and then just accept that was the way you are right now. You don’t have to understand why you are like that; you just need to acknowledge it. “I am too frightened to go out right now, so I shall stay in”; “I’m really worried about my new boss right now, but that is okay, worry is a natural event in the face of difficult circumstances”; “I feel really depressed, but that is okay, it’s just my mind’s way of preparing me for change”. You can always find something to say to yourself that is accepting.
Releasing Guilt:
Guilt is something we are taught to experience. It is unnatural. Guilt can be experienced in the form: I did something I should not have done and now I feel bad; or I did not do something I should have done and now I feel bad; either way this is a self-created guilt. Or it can be induced “you should feel badly because…” when you behaved in a way that someone disapproved of; or in the form “well I was expecting going out tonight and I almost never go out with my mates and you go out all the time, but if you really want to go out, then I will stay in… don’t think there is much on tally…”.
Whatever you did or did not do is done or not done. Feeling badly about it cannot undo it. This style of guilt is a belief in a Time Machine. It is engaging in fantasy. What is in the past is in the past. Either own up or take the consequences, or don’t. Choose which it is to be and then consign the experience to the past where it belongs and shift your attention to the present moment.
Emotional blackmail is the other way guilt is commonly experienced. Just stop playing that game. If you accept responsibility for your own feelings, then you must allow others to do the same. Do what you want to do and since you are not physically or psychologically harming others then that is OK. Someone sulking because you are having more fun than they will not do them any harm. When you give in to emotional blackmail you are effectively walking round with a big sign on your back saying – Abuse me, I don’t mind.
…. to be continued.
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