Mental Health and Well Being
Last week, there was a virtual Mental Health and Well-Being Global Summit. It was temporarily free and now you’d have to pay a fee, but it is a worthwhile collection of videos. You can find more information here: https://www.mentalhealthglobalsummit.com/ My inbox, like yours, gets cluttered with advertisements for educational courses and products to buy and honestly, I mostly ignore it. A person I work with kindly sent this to me and it got my attention. Honestly, I wasn’t abundant in free time last week, but it was appealing enough that I found time to watch these videos. The Nuggets and the Avalanche are in the playoffs this week, so those are the only streaming things I’m watching now. I’m guessing you won’t watch these videos either, so I’ll attempt to summarize.
The thing that grabbed my attention about this virtual summit was that it expanded the mental health conversation beyond individual therapy to other ways that we can care for our mental health. Mental health is a term thrown around frequently, after mass shootings for example, without real consideration of what we mean. It seems that often when people are talking about mental health, they are actually talking about mental illness. Other times, people are referring to depression and anxiety. Yet, many people have mental health challenges that are not diagnoseable illnesses, but cause stress none the less. Some of what we label mental health challenges also are people responding to an unwell culture. To quote Jiddu Krishnamurti : “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
All though mental health care is still not covered in the same way as physical health care and it is still stigmatized, we’ve come a long way as a culture in normalizing going to therapy or taking medication. Gen Z rarely has barriers to seeking mental health help. Celebrities have normalized seeking help for your mental health and there is no shortage of encouragement to be open about it. Even rappers rap about it. I love that we have come so far. Something that seems missing in the conversation is how to be well, how to be mentally healthy, and using the many tools we have available to feel well, even in a sick society. The external world will always present stressors, things to be scared about, and adversity, yet we are capable of having internal resources to face the external world.
One of the speakers in the summit was Wim Hof, the Dutch iceman. (https://www.wimhofmethod.com/) His method incorporates breathing and cold exposure to reduce stress. I’ve heard of him and seen every tech bro and their mom doing cold plunges. Thank you Joe Rogan. (sarcasm, sort of). I didn’t know that Wim Hof actually lost his wife to suicide, was left with his children, had very little money, and came up with this method for himself to be able to go on. His story is a great reminder of the resilience of all humans, even in the absence of external resources. If we have nothing else, we can always return to our breath and our body.
I didn’t get a chance to watch all the videos, but there were some other highlights. One was Chief Phil Lane Jr. who talked about what we can learn from indigenous wisdom. He, in particular, talked quite a bit about the above quote about how we adjust to a sick society. It is hard to summarize, but I appreciated him sharing a prayer that relates to the indigenous wisdom that we are all related and connected to each other and the earth. The overall message I received from listening to him is that we have to take care of ourselves, each other, and our planet as a way to care for our mental health.
The last specific person I will highlight is Dr. Thema Bryant, author of Homecoming. https://drthema.com/ I really love her Homecoming book and podcast. She acknowledges the ways that trauma disconnects us from ourselves and how reconnecting with our truest self is healing. I also appreciated her interview in particular, because she shared about how religion and spirituality can be a great resource in healing and well-being. I agree with her that the psychology field gets caught up in science and practically ignores religion and spirituality. Yet, most people coming to therapy have some sort of religious or spiritual belief that guides them or has guided them at some point in life. It is important to acknowledge.
Without going through a play by play of the whole summit, there were various speakers on various topics that were fun to learn about. I didn’t really understand ketamine therapy before, for example. I knew it was helpful, more popular, and there is research to support it, but it was interesting to learn about how it works. I appreciated the videos sharing current research about psilocybin too. Maybe we’re approaching a time where no one will need Prozac and people won’t have to go to therapy for years. Who knows? There were a few videos on nutrition, gardening, exercise, breathwork, post traumatic growth, the 12 steps, nature, and connection with others.
As much as I love getting to do therapy with people, I’ve always been a strong believer that therapy is just one way. To say that therapy and medication are the only ways is an approach based in colonialism. There are many ways to address our mental health and to have a sense of well-being. The Western medical model does a great job of reducing symptoms. What it leaves out is the humanness involved in healing. I’ve long recognized that people aren’t simply coming to therapy to “reduce symptoms”. People are coming to therapy because they long to connect to themselves and others, to feel well, and to live a rich, meaningful, happy life. I encourage you to check out the summit and the various speakers. More than that, I encourage to explore the many tools available to have better mental health.