Frome Valley Osteopaths

We now hear mental health being talked about often, this raised awareness is important for us all, an awareness of our own mental health and at least those of the people we love, feels like important information to me. The mental health of my patients is important information each session.

Mental health is defined by the world health organisation as: A state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realise their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their communities.

We all have mental health, it’s likely that when our mental health is ‘good’ we consider it less, it is there in the background and enables us to ‘live well’ without too much distress. When we, or our people, are struggling with mental health, we are likely to become more aware of it.

Things that support us to have good mental health include (I know we know these, but it doesn’t mean we are doing them, even with the best intentions, so I’m going there again!):

• Eating a healthy balanced diet, having a good relationship with food.
• Regular movement/exercise.
• Getting outside each day.
• Drinking enough water and having a healthy relationship with alcohol.
• Sleeping enough (7-9hrs a night for adults).
• Connecting and enjoying supportive relationships with the people around us.
• Having strategies to manage stress.

These are often the first things that are impacted when our mental health dips, we might reach more for the comfort food, we might isolate ourselves or we might find it more difficult to sleep, making mental health dips really challenging.

Without most of the above strategies in place, maintaining good mental health is more difficult, these strategies support us in many ways, as well as acting as a safety net for when our mental health is challenged. Because life is wonderful and complex and it will challenge our mental health.

There is a difference between a mental health challenge, a period of time where we don’t feel like ourselves, where stress becomes overwhelming or we experience a bereavement, and a mental health condition. Mental health conditions include eating disorders, OCD, clinical depression etc. These conditions likely need far more support than the thoughts written below, but there might be something helpful.

I am cautious to write the next bit, but know that it’s written with the intention to offer another option, not to say that any experience is wrong.

In my own life experience and my experience of sitting with patients for the last 13 years, it is clear that most of us are terrified of our ‘negative’ emotions, we feel like they mean something negative about us and our ability to cope. We feel they make us weak or incompetent and can bring up a lot of shame. Most of us weren’t taught have to manage, sit with, or learn from, our difficult emotions. It is those people who can accept and enquire around their more difficult emotions, who tend to have more robust mental health, not those that pretend nothing is wrong, distracting and numbing.

We can quickly pathologise our more difficult emotions, making them a problem that needs solving, rather than a signpost to our inner state that needs exploring.

I have been reading a book that has been helping me recently and I’m a little in love with, one thing that feels really relevant for you guys, and I know if you’ve seen me in person, I will likely have mentioned something along these lines. Is the understanding that, ‘Unbefriended emotional energy can fuel a host of body/mind symptoms and conditions such as athsma, Gastrointestinal disorders, high blood pressure and back pain, these have been documented in research’ (Greenspan, 2003).

We are not separate from our minds, we are whole beings with many layers, our inner world often reflects our outer world, micro to macro in so many ways.

I know when I talk to patients about accepting where they are, letting go of the internal resistance to their reality, and seeing what’s there, getting curious and vulnerable, people are often concerned about wallowing, concerned that this will make then weak. But ‘Embracing vulnerability does not mean wallowing in passivity, abdicating responsibility, or relishing being a victim. It means being fully present to what is happening, and staking no claim on the outcome (Greenspan 2003)’ .

It means trusting that your body and mind have an intelligence all of their own, trusting that you don’t have to be in control (what an illusion), and trusting that you can manage all the difficult stuff that may come. Our difficult emotions have a lot to tell us. They may tell us that our perfectionism is driving us mad, and we need to find a different way so stress doesn’t hit so hard, they may be telling us that we really loved that person who passed away, they may be telling us that we are really scared to be in relationship.

Without listening how do we know what’s next, why do we think we can move through life without being connected to ourselves. How can we connect and listen well to the people around us if we don’t know how to do it for ourselves. Nearly all of us have painful stories, these stories show up in our patterns of behaviour, in our bodies, in the stories we tell ourselves, why are we all pretending that it’s weak/shameful to acknowledge them.

Do humanity a favour and get comfortable being with yourself, then you can be with others, you can be with your partner without trying to fix it, you can be with your children without telling them to cheer up or be grateful. Compassion is magic and it starts at home, in your own mind and body. It starts with our own mental health.

Susan David wrote a book called emotional agility and it’s beautiful. She says Courage over comfort, Compassion over shame and Curiosity over judgement.

Thanks for reading my soap box moment 🙂 I hope it helps you be more gentle and brave.

All my love

Lauren Manning BSc Hons Ost

References: Susan David, Emotional agility.

Miriam Greenspan, Healing through the dark emotions.