Mental Health : Finding And Loving Yourself

Hey everyone, mental health is something that needs more awareness and engagements. The movie Joker brought some attention to the issue of mental health (though I will never agree any crime can be justified, especially done with no remorse), timely since it is very important in these days and age to at least know what mental health is all about. I was thinking that talking, or rather writing about this might even solve my own mental issues. I know I have anxiety and at times, depression. But for quite some time, I haven't been depressed at all and this is quite refreshing. 

Well, 2019 is the year I found myself. I know this because there is a big difference in me that I noticed. I did not care what people said about me. Prior to this, it didn't matter as much as too but when people say anything about me (mostly bad), it affects me that I can go round thinking about anything else for hours or even days. I have not had a depressing night sleep for at the same time too. I go through life without any worries and I am quite practical when it comes to my moods. 

Finding myself made me have the confidence that I need to believe in my own thoughts, ideas and instincts. Not having confidence means I will have to rely on other people's opinions and this, though it may be a relatively easy way to get by, is actually very damaging to you in the long run. Validational existence is not true existence.

The whole of our life relies on us discovering ourselves. We mistakenly think of self-understanding as self-indulgence, which is a totally different thing to exactly knowing our soul, inside out.

Once you know who you exactly are, you will not be insecure about yourself and do not need validations from others. This then will make you behave exactly the way you want to behave, naturally and normally. There is no element of force that you have to push yourself into but you through the day rather willingly or even excitedly.This is the flow. You are in the zone. Even in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-actualisation is at the pinnacle of the pyramid, the holy grail.

“The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken…The moment you realize you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence" 

- Eckhard Tolle

Secondly, after you have found yourself, you can now love yourself. Like truly love. And that's life and that's what you are all about and everything falls into place. It can be good, it can get bad but it is what it is and so fucking what. You will never be lonely when you truly love yourself.

 Don Miguel Ruiz writes:

Of course, any time we try to be what we are not, we fail. It’s so difficult to be what we are not, to pretend to be what we are not. I used to pretend that I was very happy and very strong and very important. Wow! Living that way is truly a deep hell. It’s a setup, it’s a no-win situation. You can never be what you are not, and that is the main point. You can only be you, and that’s it. And you are you right now, and it’s effortless. There is no need to justify what we are. There is no need to work hard to become what we are not.

Well, what else can you but yourself, right? Wrong. 

Soul loss is the result of us identifying with our False Self (ego) and forgetting about our True Self (soul). As a result of our soul loss, we don’t know who we truly are. We’re also plagued with feelings of depression, anxiety, emptiness, hopelessness, and a sensation of being like little tiny isolated islands floating in the sea of life. In truth, if we could connect with our souls, we’d realize how interconnected we truly are and no longer suffer so much.

So it is absolutely critical for everyone to know themselves for a wholesome, solid and awesome mental health. And this process is continuous as we perpetually change, we keep on rediscovering while at the same time recreating ourselves. 

Thus we know now, the objective is to be ourselves, connect with our soul, one with our body. This is laid down as the first and the overarching requirement of optimum mental health. At least in this blog, here.