parts work

Mental Health Awareness -- what is that anyway?

We are wired for healing. Our bodies and our brains know how to heal, and move towards this phenomenon without our even realizing it sometimes. Think about a physical wound. You don’t have to tell your cells to begin to make new cells, to seal over the wound to protect inner layers from infection, to heal and recover. Your body just does it.

Sometimes, though, there are barriers to our healing. We keep getting injured. We don’t take time to slow down to heal. We push ourselves (or our relationships) too hard, too fast, too much. Or maybe we abandon ourselves and others, in both significant and subtle ways. And the healing gets hijacked.

What are we healing from? What is mental health awareness anyway?

Coming Back to Home Base

Sometimes the path to connection, of coming back to yourself, is first noticing when you have needed space to breathe. We rush; we lose time; we put too much on our plate. We lose track of ourselves. Our self-care practices and rhythms get hard to maintain. And for whatever reason, it becomes clear, we know we have to step back.

Perhaps this change in season is a time for coming home.

We extend ourselves, we work hard, we give much. And then comes the need for coming back. For the long exhale, a slow and steady rhythm, a state of rest and recovery.

I hate disconnection…especially with myself. I am a nurturer. Relationships matter immensely to me. It is horribly painful when relationships are distant, broken, or unhealthy. I’ve learned, though, that the one relationship I will always have is with myself. If I’m not taking care of that, from what do I have to give?

Attachment language uses the concept of a secure home base. Knowing that you can always come home, to safety, to connection, to attunement. From that foundation, you learn that you can launch. It is the way we can become our best selves, to keep coming back.

Love is Not Enough

What is love? And how do you know when you feel loved? How injured do we feel when we don’t feel loved?

I have the opportunity to sit with people who are working hard to heal. There may be parts of themselves that are conflicted or tangled, or perhaps only buried and never known. I welcome and hold space with all the parts. I stay curious and compassionate. I give room for their autonomous self and join them in the discovery.

An amazing thing happens when we are seen, heard, understood, and felt. These attachment dynamics are so powerful that they have the ability to co-regulate us, calm our nervous system, and grow our stunted emotional parts back up.

It’s been said that being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable (David Augsburger).

So for us to love, it requires something of us. Simply stated, but not simply done, it takes work. Love asks us to be present, to hold space, to be safe enough to allow us to be known and, often, a response. We want to know we’ve been seen or understood. We want to know that what we’ve shared with others has resonated with them or impacted them enough that there can be a response. We’ve risked in sharing something of ourselves, so what will the other person do with what we shared with them?

Love alone, as a thought or a word, is not enough. To say “You are loved” is lacking the depth that is willing to engage to do the work of that connection. It keeps up a wall that doesn’t enter in. If we love someone, are we willing to back that up with our action? Are we willing to do the work it requires — to hear, to understand, to drop our defenses (when the relational space is safe enough to do so!) and to take steps toward someone or be responsive? It might mean having some intentional conversations that bring connection, depth, and understanding.

Ready ....or not. The Paradoxes of Reality.

Perhaps one of the key foundations of mental health is the ability to be in reality. It is the truth of what we are experiencing, in its fullness and entirety. To be fair, sometimes this is too much, and we have to take it in smaller pieces.

The alternative is to avoid, deny, push away, and bury what is happening — and this does not help in the long term. For a time, or a season, it may serve a purpose to protect us to function in those ways — and then at some point it is worth the effort to step into what is more real, accurate and true.

It is okay (and needed) to be able to say this hurts. This is hard. This has lots of layers and conflicting feelings. There are parts of me that I have to acknowledge and be true to, so that I can authentically show up in the world. Things I can’t pretend or minimize the impact of what it means to me. There may be some things that are really bothering me that I need to do something about.

When You Don't Know What To Do

Sometimes it’s hard to find your way in the dark. A difficult relationship, an ongoing struggle, patterns of spiraling, the exasperation of parenting, the journey of healing trauma. Where do you most relate? Perhaps life feels really out of balance. Maybe it took being off balance for you to notice. In the noticing, we can do something about it.

Go back to what you know to be true. What are the frameworks for mental health that give you (and your relationships) a strong foundation?

Somewhere you may have felt derailed or thrown off balance. The beautiful thing is, we can always come back to center. We don’t have to stay stuck; we don’t have to keep spiraling.

Life In Balance

Nature teaches us daily rhythms: morning and night, light and darkness, seasons of budding growth and dormant hibernation. Our inhale speaks to our sympathetic nervous system to bring energy and mobilization; our exhale whispers to our parasympathetic nervous system to bring a calm that settles us. Like the tide that rolls in and out, our bellies lift with the in-breath and contract on the out-breath.

In yoga, we work both sides of the body and notice the differences in how it feels when we reach, stretch, and contract — on the left, on the right — awareness and attention to the upper body and the lower body. We awaken and check our posture, our alignment, and notice where we hold tightness and need to soften.