The mental health breakthrough

Sometimes (i.e., not always) our mental ill health is about our lack of insight—we just don’t see mentally, emotionally, or spiritually as we would like.  The proof on these occasions is when the tempest breaks and that build-up of low pressure that precedes a storm, ebbs into a shower, or in other terms, we allow the truth of our emotions to spill forth in honesty.

The mental health breakthrough comes in the moment of insight, which is the precise intersection of truth and humility—our willingness to accept truth, whatever it is.

Insight is the intersection 
of truth and humility.

The mental health breakthrough could be that prayed for moment or day that equilibrium returns after days or weeks of exhaustion, confusion, or unexplained anxiety.  Overwhelm, fear, anxiety, and not coping with stress have double impact.  They expunge the joy, hope, and peace from the day.  They also burn precious reserves of energy that can take days, weeks, or even months to restore.

The mental health breakthrough comes as a solution to the mental, emotional, or spiritual impasse we’ve experienced.  The malaise that we may have been thoroughly sick and tired of, but ironically may not have seen as clearly as we’d have liked.

When the tempest breaks and the mental health breakthrough comes, gratitude and counting our blessings is at last seen as possible, palatable, worth the effort.  Motivation returns as insight inflates our hope.  Faith being the fuel of motivation.

When all of life is overwhelm, 
little wonder hope seems vanquished.

Life in balance, however, is a gift of seeing straight 
however hard things are.

With insight, adversity is manageable;
we come to courage and choose.

The moment the breakthrough comes, you’re aware that re-writing the narrative is all before you, but at least you have an authentic, trustworthy insight to draw upon.  You take a big deep breath as you enter a new day with a newfound faith despite its known hardships.

Courage needs humility as much as confidence, 
humility and confidence in equal measure.

We endure difficult journeys 
when we have humility to keep us from self-pity, 
and confidence to keep us from giving up.

In terms of faith, confidence is trust.

A lot of the time, in the breakthrough, we’re just thankful that the ‘real us’ has returned and that the thunder cloud that seemed to hover over us is gone—for the time being at least.

Sometimes we didn’t even see that thunder cloud hanging overhead until the tempest has broken—this, too, is evidence that our insight is returning.

~

Those who have struggled with their mental health usually don’t make assumptions of others’ mental health.  Suffering teaches an innate empathy useful for the care of others.

What’s learned are simple fixes 
don’t resolve complex maladies.

A deeper appreciation of the intricacies of grief 
that can’t be denied tends to mature a person.

~

‘MENTAL (ILL) HEALTH’ OR GRIEF?

We may not ask ourselves the question, but determining the source of our struggle is pertinent.  If we find ourselves in an unavoidable situation of suffering—through any varietal of loss—our problem isn’t confined to poor mental health alone.

‘Mental health problems’ usually don’t function in isolation.  Circumstances conspire against us, and the grief that occurs outbound of loss is an unavoidable process of adjustment.  Adjustment leading to acceptance or forgiveness.

Everyone grieves losses.
Nobody is saved from this form of suffering.

Loss is not limited to losing a parent, 
a child, a sibling, a pet, or a dear friend.

It includes the dreams that are crushed, 
the career we lost,
relational betrayal or breakage, 
the material loss of a house that went up in flames, 
diminished capacities, and disability, etc.

~

BREAKTHROUGHS CAN LEAD TO HEALING

When hope returns, no matter what is still ahead in the grieving, insight carries us to the valley of decision.  Will we enter or continue on the fuller journey of recovery?

Gathering our resources on a day when we’re feeling a little stronger, we can calculate our capability, we can plan, we can prepare.  We reflect on who we are; who we’d like to be.

Resources are those things we have at our disposal to help us on our journey.  Some of our resources are within us—our knowledge, our belief systems, our motivation, etc—and some of our resources are external—loved ones who might support us, mentors, and knowledge that we might glean in the present and future.

Notice just now how these experiences of suffering are the bricks on which another person will build their recovery.  Just as we build our recoveries partly on the bricks others are supplying right now through their love, care, and wisdom.  In our suffering, we are learning how we will help the next person, even as we recover.  No suffering is ever wasted.

The mental health breakthrough is a catalyst, kickstarting the hope that takes us further toward healing and wholeness.

Every journey toward healing and wholeness 
involves restorative and fortifying processes.

The restorative process makes sense—we are back to who we are.  The fortifying process is taking inventory for what we’ve learned and how we’ve developed.  The restorative process is about maintenance, and the fortifying process is about improvement.

~

The end game in processing grief is reaching acceptance or forgiveness.

Acceptance is a blessing when we can accept 
the thing we cannot change.

Forgiveness is a blessing when we must accept 
a relational situation we cannot change.

Both acceptance and forgiveness 
can feel like mysteries,
but faith resolves them in time,
and with openness of heart.

In effect, loss is something hard that has occurred that we cannot change.

Given that many, many things in our lives occur that we do not like and that we cannot change, learning to grieve our losses by accepting and forgiving them is a key life skill.  The mental health breakthrough is usually the catalyst to help us get started on this work.