It’s Mental Health Awareness month! And, although it’s nice to have a month dedicated to mental health, I’m happy to see there has been a consistent rise in awareness since the pandemic.
For anyone who has been in therapy, you know that most issues begin with awareness. As I like to say: if your car breaks down, and you just stare at the car with frustration, not much will change. Your narrative will be all about how the car is useless. You’ll continue focusing on how this has negatively affected you without any proactive behavior that will lead to fixing it.
Now, if you’re proactive, and take a look under the hood (or take it to a professional to look under the hood), at least now you can be aware of what the issue is. And explore options to repair it. This is empowering. Now we get to choose how we react and handle the situation. Our mental health is similar.
One of the main expressions that ignited mental health awareness is “It’s OK to not be OK.” I like the simplicity. Let’s take it a step further.
When you realize you are not OK, give yourself some grace. Give yourself proactive acceptance, love, and care.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Many times, it’s difficult to work on ourselves because the focus is more on punishing ourselves for not being ok. Don’t do that. It’s ok to say “hey I’m going through something. These things happen, and it’s happening to me right now. It is ok, and perfectly acceptable. I haven’t done anything wrong. I am going to gift myself the opportunity to work on it”. Carlos Escanilla, LMHC
