On mental health I

Nowadays the challenges of recognizing, accepting and dealing with mental health issues have become a great source of concern for individuals as well as many institutions and the society at large. Mental health has also become a big buzzword in media (including social media) and has incidentally generated a large amount of business for people and outlets that help care for it. But why is this seemingly peaking at this precise time ? Was there always a lot of trouble and we couldn’t see it ? Or is it indeed a tsunami of modern realities flowing all over our societies that is sweeping away our inner equilibrium ?

It is hard to imagine that we have been totally blind to it. Artists are most sensitive people and clearly the mentions and depictions of mental health trouble in literature, performing and visual arts have vastly and progressively increased since last century. The diagnostic textbooks have also vastly expanded over the last 50 years or so and the whole framework of “stress” is a very recent arrival as well. All of those seem to point towards a true increase and “diversification” of the spectrum of mental health issues that parallels the urbanization, social movements and transformation, demographic displacements, conflicts, advancements in technologies, etc, etc that arose over the last century.

Obviously, even if those very large scale changes would be indeed the main culprits for challenging our basic coping and balance mechanisms, undoing them is not really on the table…We have to find a way forward for ourselves at a human scale - even if we also have to improve some of the most glaring issues that were brought by this extraordinary transformation. The deeper question is: what do we set ourselves as a goal? To restore the “good” inner pattern we had in the past? Acquire coping skills for the present issues? Prepare for ongoing and further accelerating change? Each of those goals could point to one set of possible solutions versus another and with a limited amount of time and energy we will likely have to take our pick.

Unless, of course, we find a way to the very root of all solutions ! If somehow we can strengthen all aspects of our inner persona simultaneously, that will definitely bring our functioning baseline much higher and from that level we could steer ourselves much easier between the growing demands on our mental energy. With the awakening of our Mother energy and the growing identification with our true Self, this becomes possible and in time it is exactly what happens. Challenges may persist, but our (non)reaction to them and our capabilities to spontaneously deal with the day to day can make our inner complexion a much more tonic, positive and yet compassionate one. To be followed….