Help yourself

I think one of the most simultaneously hilarious and stupid things we have done as a society is create a taboo around mental health. We do this bizarre thing where we all struggle in private and pretend to everyone else, who is also struggling in private to further or lesser degrees, that we are managing perfectly fine. We have the audacity to think that our problems are unique and that it is utterly pointless to talk to anyone about them, and that is assuming we even realise we are having problems at all. The prevalence of social media platforms like Instagram that only show the highlight reel have definitely ramped this up too. ‘I am the only person who is stressed, who feels sad, who feels lonely, who feels less than.’


Before I became turned on to the idea of self-help at the end of last year, it seems crazy to think that I just ambled through life completely unaware of the fact that I have thoughts and feelings and values and anxieties that can all be actively reflected upon and questioned and moulded and dealt with. All of these contribute to how I see the world, others, myself. They make up my consciousness. Every one of us has an inner monologue, a narrative, a perception of reality, and sometimes this narrative is negative, it can be harmful, and it can prevent us from seeing the truth. We may fail to notice how our behaviour hurts other people, blaming their actions instead. We may not realise the many ways in which we subconsciously sabotage ourselves and our relationships - isolating ourselves from our loved ones, building emotional walls around ourselves out of fear of being vulnerable. When we hold a mirror to our person, to our words, to our acts, that is, I believe, when we truly start to experience life at its purest. We express joy at the growth of plants and trees, the growth of economies, of communities - imagine how amazing it would be to perpetuate and witness our own growth, to water our own roots, to reach heights never before reached.


Realising we have a consciousness is a spiritual awakening - many will never become aware of this and they will stumble blindly through life to the grave. Morbid, but true. I have come across people in my life, varying in age, background and profession, who are either ignorant to the way they behave or choose to turn a blind eye. Though it is painful, self-examination is profoundly rewarding. Understanding how our thoughts are connected to our feelings is freeing, and learning and implementing strategies for dealing with those mental ebbs and flows is life-changing - literally.


So once we have become aware of the fact we have a consciousness, we can begin to examine it and nurture it and cultivate a deeper appreciation for ourselves. This process - self-help, personal development, growth, whatever you want to call it - is slow, difficult, and sometimes painful, but the power it has to benefit our lives exceeds all the costs. Though I am no expert or life coach, my aim with this blog is to help people, and I hope that what few lessons I have learned along the way so far might impact even one person reading this.


None of the following is new information or in any way my intellectual property. When I think ‘self-help’, this is what came to mind:

  • Journal. Keep a diary. Just write and let it all out on the page. Seeing your thoughts on paper is fundamental to beginning to understand their origins, their motives, their hidden meanings. No Sherlock-Holmes-style analysis is needed, mind, at least not from the get-go. After a while, the inner trappings of your mind will come together like the blueprints of a house. Navigating it, then, becomes that bit easier. I will do a post some week about journal prompts. In the meantime, Google them and go with one, for the laugh (or cry).

  • Read self-help literature. Consume it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Take notes. Understand that these books exist for a reason. We can shy away from them - out of embarrassment that we are ‘desperate’ if we are reading them, out of denial that there is anything the matter, or out of pure fear of what they might show us about ourselves. My advice is feel the fear and do it anyway. And hey, if you aren’t a book person, there are plenty of podcasts and TED talks out there that deal with similar topics. (Head to the Resources section of this blog for some inspo)

  • Treat your thoughts like border control. ‘What is this feeling? Where is it coming from? What is its intention? Why do I feel this way? Why did he react like that? Was it something I said or did? Is there some other factor at play here? If I am stressed, what can I do now to reduce it? Could I have handled that situation more effectively? What can I do better next time?’ With this comes a phase where you overthink, certainly, but fine-tuning your focus will help you identify those thought patterns that do not serve you or your goals, that stop you from seeing reality, that harm your relationships. To quote Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” When I am conscious of the facts, I can make a plan for what happens next.

  • Meditate. I’m blue in the face from saying it. The quietness we create through meditating provides a perfect backdrop against which to acknowledge our thoughts. Check out my Meditation tab for a deeper dive into all that mindfulness has to offer us.

  • Talk to people. If we cannot talk with our partners, our families or our closest friends about our troubles or our burning questions, we will never have a genuine relationship with them. As I alluded to in the intro, everyone around us has encountered adversity and hardship, to some extent or another, and although no two experiences are the exact same, wise words and even just the listening ears of our loved ones may be all that we need to see our truth, to begin working through our feelings, to achieve some sense of clarity. Being vulnerable is terrifying, but god does it make one feel alive, and allow for deep connections with others.


Even if you feel you have it all under control (disclaimer: no-one does, but okay), there is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained from picking up a self-help book, doing a weekly journal prompt, meditating, asking yourself from time to time why you feel the way you do, and simply spending time doing things which you intrinsically enjoy. Finish off your day naming 3 things for which you are grateful, and go to sleep knowing that every moment you spend working on yourself and furthering your emotional, mental and physical potential, the closer we all come to inhabiting a more caring and welcoming world.


 



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