Short one today, but I always find myself thinking in analogies of physical health, when it comes to our mental health. Why? We know about patterns & routines with our physical health because working out and striving for “health” has been normalized for so long.
This comes in many forms – things like: we have a gym for the body with MANY options like free weights, universal, plyometric boxes, boxing, swimming, treadmill, elliptical, stairmaster, bike, rowing machine, pull ups, etc…so why do we settle only for: “talk therapy,” meds, meditation & yoga w our mental health? There’s so much more.
Then I was thinking to what we learned as little kids. To motivate us to “work out” and get our muscles active, we learned why lifting weights works – we may feel for sore the next day, but it’s because putting stress on our muscles with the lifting, leads to tears…& those tears eventually (with the right protein intake) repair even stronger. Capable of doing MORE.
So we gotta ask the question – if this is how our body is built – to take on stress, feel the pain of the tear, & build back even stronger, can’t the same be said for our mental health?
Just a paradigm shift where we can look at our struggles as part of the empowerment path we are on, instead of thinking of ourselves as victims. Let’s use the struggles to our advantage to become even stronger & more resilient