Mental Health is about Acceptance
Last week was World Mental Health Week. A week to raise awareness about the stigma attached to mental health. In that spirit, I wanted to share my stigma with you and my journey to overcome it. Not surprisingly, as with all types of stigma, our stigma about mental health is wrapped up in our own stories and beliefs.
For many years, I believed the goal of having good mental health was to feel good. To feel positive. It is a well-intentioned belief summed up in the statement that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. In my practice and my life, I helped people feel better and live happier. I was all about the positive psychology movement, changing your thoughts, thinking positively, and feeling better. However, looking back, I can honestly say it never quite worked. Yes, I felt better. Yes, my clients were living happier. But inevitably, we would hit a wall where the techniques and philosophy were lacking. I always felt like something was missing.
And then my Dad died, and I was brought to my knees. ALL of the strategies I had learned stopped working. I couldn't think positively. I couldn't change my thoughts and feel better. I realized that I had to FEEL. I had to deal with what was going on. The philosophy guiding me both professionally and personally had one critical flaw it never allowed me to accept myself for who I was. I spent all my time running from the bad stuff, couching it in 'thinking positive' and 'being grateful,' and I never realized I was running from myself.
The irony is that one of the tenets of the positive psychology movement that I had loved for so many years is the belief that you are not broken and that the traditional psychology movement tells us we are. Because traditional psychology is based on the medical model, it gives a diagnosis, and that diagnosis (e.g., anxiety, depression, bipolar, etc.) marks us a broken. But what if it isn't the diagnosis that characterizes us as broken? What if it is our stigma around that diagnosis?
I realized this belief that 'you are not broken' is a lie and keeps us pushing, hustling, and running from what is really going on. Here's the hard liberating truth: we are broken. We have experiences that leave cracks, trauma, loss, grief, disappointment, fear, etc. AND sometimes, those experiences combined with our genetic and chemical make-up cause conditions such as depression, anxiety, and bipolar. Once I stopped running from my cracks and started looking at them square in the face, everything shifted. I didn't need to hustle or think differently. I needed to be honest to accept who I was, where I had come from, and the patterns I had built to move through this crazy experience of life. Good mental health is about acceptance.
So here's the confession. I have spent most of my professional life going about this wrong. Believing that I can help people by helping them set boundaries, speak needs and become better versions of themselves. But great mental health isn't about changing yourself; it is about accepting yourself and knowing yourself 100% and being kind to all of those traits, the depression, anxiety, despair, doubt, and fear, just like the Japanese art of Kintsugi where they fill broken pottery with bits of gold. Our cracks are a part of us.
Knowing I can drop the hustle, stop pushing, and pretending that those cracks don't exist feels like a great big exhale. Finally, I can be me. Those cracks are what make me a great wife, teacher, therapist, daughter, and a human being. Instead of helping clients change themselves, I help clients SEE themselves, and once they have that knowledge and acceptance, THEN personalized strategies and techniques work. But without the acceptance and kindness piece, real change just can't happen.
I see now that mental health doesn't come when we can create a full positive gratitude-filled life. Mental health comes when we can fully see our life as it cracks and then intentionally, kindly, and with discernment live it.