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Mental health day

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I’ve finally realized that my job doesn’t pay me in real money. It pays me in days off. That is part of government jobs.

And while I resent having to work another 14 years before I can retire, I’ve realized that I can kind of “retire” right now. If I waited until I was able to retire, I might be too infirm to do what I want to do. If I follow the path of my parents, I’ll not even make it to retirement time.

So I’ve started taking what in calling “mental health days”. Once a month I take off the Monday after I’ve had the weekend off. This means I have four days off in a row. I don’t do anything I have to do – I do stuff I want to do. I read, or write or work on art. I do the stuff I would do if I was retired.

I’m practicing being retired. But I’m also doing preventive maintenance on my soul.

In whose hands?

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Some of us started talking about our deceased coworker, and I mentioned that his death of a heart attack at 42 just furthers my belief that I need to take care of myself. I said this to the coworker in my department who is obese. She has a Y membership and has been maybe four times. The last time was about a year ago. She eats the same way that the dead one does. About monthly she says she “really needs to go back to the Y.” And she never does.

She said “It is all in God’s hands.”

No, it isn’t. We have free will, and sure, Jim Fixx, the guru of running, died of a heart attack. People die when God chooses. But they have a vote in it. They can take care of themselves. As my chiropractor says, we can’t add years to our life, but we can add life to our years.

We are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. This includes our bodies.

The other person in the department smokes constantly, and is out sick a lot.

I’m afraid I’ll be left by myself. I’m afraid they will both die and I’ll be stuck. It takes a long time to train a new person. We joke “It’s all about me” is our phrase in that department, and that sounds self-centered, and it is. But it is true.

But there is something deeper going on.

To not take care of yourself because you think that it is “all in God’s hands” is bizarre. Let’s compare it with the phrase “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” You shouldn’t do something you know to be stupid just to test God.

Honestly, I don’t know why I bother. They are killing themselves, and they know it. But to drag God’s will into it? That takes their own power out of it. It means they are helpless to do anything about it.

What a life of victimhood.

Now is the time.

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A coworker just died. His wife died about a month ago. He was young. They were both young.

He had been not taking care of himself for the past year, ever since she got sick. His blood pressure was high. He drank a lot of sodas and ate a lot of breakfast sandwiches. He ate fast food. He never took time to exercise.

He said that he used to take care of himself, but that he just didn’t have time now.

Now it is too late.

Pointless. Pointless. Pointless.

Such a waste of a life.

Jeff Russell was a good man. He was kind, caring, and funny. He could do any impression. He brought cookies and snacks for us all the time. He was good with the patrons. He was easygoing. He didn’t gossip or badmouth anybody.

And he suffered. He was quiet about his pain and his loss. He didn’t know how to handle life after his wife died.

He laid down because he wasn’t feeling well, and he didn’t wake up. His family thinks it was a heart attack.

His heart stopped. It was broken. His sadness filled him up and drowned him, and he died.

Now is the time. There is no other time to eat well, to exercise, to take care of yourself. There is no other time to rest, relax, and process your feelings. Now. Or never.

You have to build up your flame, or it will go out. You, and nobody else, can do this. You must do this.

Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Today is all you have. Use it well.

Waiting to quit

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When I quit smoking pot, that very morning a patron verbally attacked me. It was a real test of whether I had really grown up and decided to quit. It was a very vicious verbal attack and I was emotionally scarred. I went in the break room and I sat down and cried for a little bit. And I prayed as well.

I said “God, if you really want me to quit then why would you test me by giving me this evil woman who says that she “is a Christian and she treats people in a Christian way’?” Of all the ways I could have been attacked, that was the most difficult – for a “Christian” to yell at me because she broke the rules and I had to call her on it.

If I have been stoned I wouldn’t have even noticed how hateful she was. It wouldn’t have affected me at all.

I briefly considered going back to smoking and then I realized if I did then I was letting her win. At the time I was smoking not only pot but clove cigarettes to escape my feelings. I realized that I could not continue smoking pot because I wanted to buy a house. There was way too much paperwork and too much preparing to do to be stoned.

In the past, every time someone would upset me I would look forward to having a smoke. Every time I would smoke I would forget how much they upset me. But the problem was that I was polluting my lungs and fogging my mind. I wasn’t harming them at all. I wasn’t getting back at them. I was harming myself. It became important to me to stand strong.

There are many people who say “Oh, I can’t quit smoking cigarettes right now because I’ve got too much stress going on.” You will always have too much stress going on.

Here’s the crazy part. Smoking is what causes the stress. Or, better said, smoking is just putting off dealing with the stress.

We all have stress. Smoking just delays it, and then the problems multiply. Smoking doesn’t make them go away. Then, you have the worry over the fact that you are smoking to add to it. And your lungs don’t work as well, so that it stressful.

Smoking becomes the reason for your stress. It is a stupid cycle but it’s a very human one. We all do it.

If you wait until life is simple and easy, then what are you going to do when times get difficult again? You gave up your pacifier, your teddy bear, your security blanket. So what are you going to reach for when things get difficult again?

You have to learn how to take care of yourself when times are hard. You can’t wait until life gets easy.

I know a guy who is not taking care of himself after his wife died. He is doing all the wrong things and he knows it. He is eating badly and not sleeping well and he says he can’t take care of himself now. This is the time he must take care of himself. If he doesn’t do it then it’s just going to get harder.

The time to
learn how to fly
is when
you’ve been kicked
out of the nest,
not when you’re safe in it.

It is absolutely insane that our human bodies are designed to crave all the wrong things when we are under stress. The things we desire – extra salt, extra fat, extra sugar – are all things that make us feel worse in the long run. These things keep us drowning.

Rather than
dragging us
to the shore
they drag us
under.

But maybe that is our animal nature. Our human nature is to know better and to learn from our mistakes. Our human nature is to rise above and use our minds. Perhaps that’s the difference – our animal nature hurts us but our human nature helps us.

When we are under stress, we are said to have a fight or flight reflex. All our lizard brain wants to do is run away. And certainly run away is a great answer to pain. Who wants to be in the middle of pain? But running away sometimes only causes more pain. Often we run away with drugs, alcohol, smoking, and food.

Interestingly, the stuff that we humans take into ourselves that harms us was made by humans. It isn’t natural. We crave caffeine and processed sugar and excess fat. We crave things that come in packages and have labels. The more we go for healthy things the healthier we are not only physically but mentally.

Ideally people would never ever experience processed food. The moment a child eats a candy bar instead of an apple all he is going to want is the candy bar. And because it makes him happy and excited that’s going to be what he reaches for when he is under stress.

Preventive maintenance for the mind.

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I envision a mental-health center, but like the Y. Not a hospital – not a place where you go when you are sick – but a place where you go to get strong. I want it to be a cultural norm that people go “work out” at a place that strengthens their spirit.

There are too many young boys who are killing people. There are too many people killing themselves, either fast or slow. There are too many people suffering in silence, “faking it” and not “making it”.

We need to take away the stigma of mental health. It is for everybody. It isn’t shameful to get help. It is bad to need help and not get it.

We all need help.

If we make it so it is a cultural norm that people seek to prevent problems, then we will save a lot of lives. And when I say “save lives” I don’t just mean from suicide and murder. I mean people will have lives worth living. There is a difference between “living” and “being alive”.

Here are some of my rough sketches.

A place where you can learn at your own pace or follow an assigned course.

Where you pay based on your ability to pay, or it is free.

People will learn that mind, body, and spirit are all connected. So, in a way, it is an extension of the Y, but has more things.

People can learn how to shop for healthy food choices and how to cook them.

People can learn how to exercise – how to find one that they like and can do – and will do.

They will get support for when (not if) they “fall off the wagon”.

Spiritual direction.

Group and one-on-one counseling offered.

Help each person find their unique gifts and talents and learn how to use them.

Job counseling – finding the right job to fit you.

Healthy approach to grief and death. Learn to understand that grief can accompany any loss – divorce, move, job loss.

How to deal with emotions, both good and bad. Healthy ways to process feelings.

Art and music as a way of life. Journaling classes.

People need to learn how to recover their spirits and build them up. Our souls, our spirits are like flames. If we let them die down, we are done for.

How to establish and maintain healthy boundaries. Classes on codependence.

It will have AA and NA meetings – but for everybody and everything. We all self-medicate with something. We are all trying to get away from our pain with something. Nobody is immune to addiction.

Faith is healing too- there will be interfaith, nondenominational gatherings to celebrate and connect with the Divine/Creator/Spirit/God.

There are some agencies in Nashville that do some of these things. I suspect there are similar places in your own town. Perhaps a stop-gap would be to create a resource directory so people can access these, or at least know that they exist.

This isn’t just my calling. This is for all of us. If you are reading this, you are being called to it as well. We have to make mental health something that everybody works on. We have to remove the stigma about getting help. The well-being of our families, our friends, our neighborhood, and our world depends on it. How many more people have to die, either at their own hands or the hands of strangers, before we act?

Payoff

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What is the payoff?

If you are constantly stuck in a rut, doing things that you don’t want to do, there has to be a payoff. Discover what that is and address it, and you’ll fix the problem.

Say you want to get in shape, but you keep overeating and “cheating” on your exercise routine. You “forget” to walk or go to the gym. You eat three pieces of pie when really you only wanted half a piece. You eat too much at the buffet, even though you say you don’t want to, again and again.

You feel guilty after you do these things, but you keep doing them.

They are symptoms, not the source.

Dig down further.

Who first taught you what to feel about yourself? What did they say? How did they make you feel?

Perhaps your family ignored you most of the time. Perhaps the only time that they even talked to you was to complain about your size or how you “were eating them out of house and home.” You were called fat, lazy, worthless.

Negative attention is still attention.

So as an adult, you still need attention.

But you’ve been taught that the only way to get attention is to be fat, lazy, or worthless.

So you keep repeating that message to yourself.

So you’ll overeat, and skip the gym, and fail, over and over, because that is how you were taught you should be treated. Even though they aren’t telling you this message anymore, you are now telling it to yourself.

Time to learn a new message, and retrain your brain.

Time to create a different payoff – where you get happy that you have achieved a goal. Maybe the goal was only eating two plates at the buffet, instead of four. Maybe the goal was parking the car further away in the parking lot so you had to walk further to get to work.

Little goals count. They add up.

Just like coming off being addicted to a drug, relearning how to treat yourself with kindness takes a lot of work. You have to rewire your brain. New healthy habits don’t have the same kind of payoff that the old bad habits do – not yet. The old habits were wired into you for years – and the work was done by people you should have been able to trust – your family or friends.

It is hard to go against the feeling of loyalty to your family. It is hard to treat yourself differently than how they treated you, even if it is healthier.

But if they weren’t kind and loving to you, they were your family or friends in name only.

Your first and best obligation is to yourself. Your body and your mind are your first and truest homes.

It is time to remodel.

It is going to be messy.

It is worth it.

You are worth it.

Heart full of Jesus – self-care as a religious mandate

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If we have made a home in our hearts for Jesus, then we should treat ourselves like we would treat Jesus. So what should we do?

We’d take better care of ourselves and show ourselves love. We’d cook good, healthy meals for ourselves. We’d take time to play and read good books.

Think if you are going to have a guest over – a long time friend or someone important from another country. What if it is the Queen or the Pope? What would you do? Would you put on tabloid TV? Or soap operas? Would you make them watch TV at all?

Or would you play board games, or have a nice conversation? Would you pull out all your musical instruments and create a song together? Would you pull out the craft supplies and have fun making something?

How would you spend your time with this important visitor? How is this different from how you spend your time with yourself when you are alone?

Treat yourself as if you are an important visitor, because you are. Your spirit, your soul, is a tiny piece of God. Treat yourself as the child of God that you are.

“Be mindful of your self-talk. It’s a conversation with the Universe” – David James Lees

Victim mentality

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Thinking you are a victim makes it so. Have you ever heard the phrase “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.”? It is very true. Our attitude is very important.

We have to get past this idea of victimhood. We seem to have a society now that says that everybody is a victim. It says that nobody is responsible for their own lives and their own decisions. This is very unhealthy and unproductive.

It is essential that we take back control of our own lives. It is essential that we actually start taking our lives seriously. This isn’t about blaming other people for our failures and our failings. Sure, society may have tried to tell us that we can blame our parents or our genes or our teachers for our messed up lives, but really we don’t have to accept that. Blaming other people only shifts responsibility to them, and takes it away from us.

When we give away our power, we become passive agents in our own lives. Don’t blame anybody, even society. Don’t blame the media for selling the message, even. Just get going, and start living your own life.

Food abuse

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I see obesity as a symptom of food abuse. It is the same as alcoholism and drug abuse. It is a sign of an abuse or mis-use of food.

I used to be obese. I’ve had to work hard on relearning what (and how much) is healthy to eat and how to incorporate more movement and exercise into my life. But I’ve also had to work hard on addressing the root cause of why I wasn’t taking care of my body and my soul.

The problem is, we have to eat. We can’t just stop eating food. We can’t drop it like we can alcohol or cigarettes or any other addictive substance.

So we all need to develop a healthy relationship with food – and to address the issues that are causing us to use food to (not) solve our problems. Food can heal us, but it can also harm us if we use it improperly. It can be too much of a good thing, but it can also be the wrong thing.

Food wasn’t the only substance I had a wrong relationship with. Back when I smoked pot, I would smoke it to feel better. I’d have a bad day at work, or my family was hassling me, or there was some other stress to deal with. I’d smoke pot to numb the pain. It would ease the pain long enough that I’d forget about it, until I’d sober up again and the problems would come back. The thing is, the problems never went away in the first place. I just anesthetized myself to them. Instead of dealing with them, I ran away from them in my head. When I got sober, I’d still have those problems, and I’d still reach for pot to “fix” them.

It was a terrible cycle of stupid.

Plenty of people do the same thing with food. Because food isn’t seen as a drug, and because it is not only socially acceptable but normal to eat, food abuse is an easy addiction to pick up. And it isn’t like our society in general has a healthy relationship with food. Everything is super sized and fried. It is too much of a bad thing.

Is this fat shaming? No. Not any more than pointing out that someone who drinks to solve their problems is an alcoholic. This isn’t “blaming the victim” either. It is pointing out that when we use food to solve our problems, we are creating our own problems.

Victims are people who have things done to them. They are passive agents in the story. A person who gets hit by a car, or lightning, or something falling out of the sky is a victim.

If you hurt yourself, you aren’t a victim. You have done it to yourself. Thinking about why you do it is the wrong direction of thought. Blaming your parents or society or your friends for your action is self-defeating. You choose your life and your actions. You have control of what you do. You can also make a choice to change.

We need to start naming our demons so we can slay them. If we pretend like everything is fine then we will continue to kill ourselves bit by bit and bite by bite.

Food won’t fix our problems. Facing them will. No, it isn’t easy.

We have gotten into the habit of shoving our feelings and anxieties down, ramming them into our mouths with food. We have to learn how to let them out rather than shove them down. We have to learn that it is OK to speak up and be heard.

Exercise exorcises

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I don’t exercise to fit into my clothes. I exercise to fit into my body. I exercise to fit inside myself.

My body and brain don’t feel right when I don’t exercise. I feel sluggish and stupid. I feel out of sorts.

I exercise so my joints work without hurting. I exercise so my muscles are strong enough to lift what I need to lift. I exercise so I can sleep well.

I exercise so I don’t get angry all the time, so I can think more clearly, so I can have some space in my head for the thoughts I want to think.

Exercise shakes out all the rusty bits. Exercise stops me from feeling rusty in body, mind, and soul. Things just work better when I move.

Every now and then I’ll take a break. Every now and then I “cheat” and I’ll not walk at lunch, or I’ll sit while checking in the inside book drop. Every now and then I just don’t want to go to the Y. Usually I’ll spend the same week eating sea salt caramel gelato, sour cream and onion potato chips, and drinking Yoo-hoo chocolate drinks.

The only person I’m cheating on is myself. I feel fine for a bit, and then it catches up with me. Then I feel terrible, and I hate being inside my body. I’ve put bad stuff in it and I haven’t done anything to get it out.

Exercise exorcises.