Can we make a conscious choice to immediately improve our mental health and, consequently, live our ideal lives? The short answer is no, we can’t.
Picking fruit from low-hanging branches and happily meandering through life is not a realistic option. There are multiple forces constantly at work which we simply cannot control. Perhaps, the most fundamental of those are the cards we have been dealt.
We all have unique genetic, neurobiological and physical construction, with a constant barrage of external influences we can, at times, barely survive. At times in my experience, just keeping my head above water could feel like success. Life never claimed to be fair.
On the positive side of things, the answer is yes.
It is my experience that we can make a conscious choice and improve life enough to gain some control and change the trajectory of events. There are several choices to empower ourselves and our mental health.
These are three that I have found to be influential and, eventually, had real-time results in taking my mental health to a better place.
The first and maybe most difficult part in my journey was connection. When we are hurting with addiction to substances or behaviour which is negative and self-destructive, it is normal to react with enough shame or guilt to feel alone and not worthy of help.
Asking for help and connecting with professionals or peers will form a community. Connectedness is the difference between falling in a grassy field and being helped up or falling hard on pavement, bewildered and bleeding.
The second place we can take control, and it is universal in all human endeavours, no matter the context: practice. Repeating positive, constructive behaviour again and again will reprogram your brain to make healthier choices.
A few of your 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses start to build paths to the places in your brain where the good decisions happen. Eventually there is a super highway to happiness.
Meditation was my first try at building a better brain. It was very hard and I sucked at it first. Something in me would not quit and after years of practice the effort eventually started to pay off. The old triggers to my addictions went silent and my agitation was replaced with a much-welcomed calm stillness.
The third choice, probably the most difficult and most important, is patience. Trying to get to a mentally healthy place from a lifetime of being in unhealthy places is the most difficult thing a person will do in life. That is my opinion, of course.
There is no magic pill or instant success for sale on late night TV. Patience means stayinging on the good path when temptations to swerve backward are everywhere. Patience is getting to a place where you can trust yourself and the community of good people around you.
Mental health is acknowledging the place you have found in life is unhealthy and can, with connection, practice and patience, be brought out of the dark to brighter, happier and healthier days. Finding control creates the confidence to be your own greatest influencer, and that is an empowering place to find yourself.
Robert Skender is a qathet region freelance writer and health commentator. Mental Health Week in Canada is May 5 to 11.
