More open, liberated and lighter
The World we live in, changing rapidly has a wide array of innovative approaches to health and well-being. The prolonged focus on diagnosis, prevention and cure while defining health to a mere absence of disease and a state of complete physical and mental well-being, has reached to a dynamic view that focuses on promoting individual’s self-regulation and self-resilience.
One such aspect that needs some light is positive mental health and well-being. Reaching our potential best with a feeling of extreme self-worth to face challenges as they come, promotes to positive mental health leading to greater life satisfaction. Factors such as self-care and self-compassion, immunity, good interpersonal relationships, optimism and physical fitness are ‘Health Assets’ that promote a healthy long life.
The well-being of the mind incorporates emotions and feelings attached to the self that builds our self-esteem in a way contributing to how we feel about our own self. The Positive sense of self creates a more therapeutic base to allow one to cope better with stressors of life and meticulously maintain the work life balance.
The mind and the body are in synchronization with each other. When we fall sick the body-mind coordination is evidently seen where the body and mind manifest symptoms based on the condition. The body-mind connection works with the thought process, belief system, emotion quotient and attitude we carry affecting one’s biological functioning. The mind can simply influence our physical functioning and overall health.
Mental wellness being a major aspect of health allows one to enjoy life the way one wishes to. Participating in all activities and being fully present requires not just physical strength but utmost mental fitness too. This doesn’t mean that we never become sad, emotionally tired or go through any stress. Of course we do and that’s natural. But how we deal with it, the attitude we carry and the coping style we use helps us bounce back with a healthier outlook. This approach totally depends on individual differences and is known as Resilience.
With a positive mental attitude, one can recognize Strengths and Abilities, cope with the normal stresses of life, maintain a healthy work-life balance, be productive and strengthen the immune system.
With interdependence, your positive mental attitude often overlaps with mental health. The positive mental attitude helps strengthen the mind and it’s coping while improving self-resilience. An open mind is aware of the challenges and is able to analyse and act.
While ‘Positive Mental Attitude’ is a concept of philosophy that talks about people having an optimistic disposition in every situation, it advocates the belief that people attract positivity if they feel positive. Yes that surely could be true!
It changes your outlook towards the most trying situations in life while strengthening your self- resilience. In such a state of mind, one may find it easier to look for possibilities to grow, recuperate and win desirable outcome regardless of the circumstances.
Talking about optimistic attitude in life, this very much draws attention to the practice of staying positive. The real challenge is about how we learn to practice positivity amid the ups and downs of life. It surely is an art though!
And… How much is this achievable? Is it possible to always remain optimistic in life?
Surprisingly, the answer is No! It may not be possible to always remain optimistic in every situation that’s thrown at us in life. In fact a healthy coping style would be to feel every emotion we experience. We all get angry or feel sad. Often we hear others say ‘don’t get angry or sad.’ Then what happens to these emotions?
We might just let them bottle up within or shy away from such feelings.
Uncomfortable or unaware, we learn to avoid certain emotions such as feelings of anger, sadness, guilt and shame. Most of the times, these emotions are hid under the carpet as we don’t confront them. An individual might end up with suppressed feelings and repressed emotions. Over time, this plays havoc on our mental well-being and physical health.
A temporary solution cannot fix a problem; it’s just a short-term solace. Repressed emotions could manifest in the most clueless and unexpected ways in forms of anger issues or anxieties in the long run. For example- ‘an individual who represses feelings of anger may have a habit of nail biting.’ Repressed emotions not just affect the mind but also the body.
In an attempt to escape or overpower our emotions, we keep piling them up into our unconscious mind without a let out. These repressed emotions can manifest in different forms like passive aggressive behaviors.
Sometimes emotions expressed without self-control could negatively affect our lives by actually feeding the emotion instead of resolving it. A lot of times, we subconsciously judge our feelings and control them with statements such as ‘I am not supposed to feel this way.’ This establishes an intellectual pattern of avoiding certain emotions that hinders its healthy flow.
Emotions are energy and there are no right or wrong feelings. At times our feelings seem to be irrational but when we get to its source is when we understand their existence.
“We are not defined by our emotions rather we define them, with either acceptance or resistance.”
A healthy way to manage our emotions is to allow the feeling to flow and experience it rather than hiding or shying away from it. This helps to be self-aware, understand and regulate emotions in a healthful manner. Every person is different and so are the coping styles. Some find it easy to let the world know how they feel and some find it extremely hard to even say how it feels like. It’s strange, we tell the world how happy we are and hold ourselves back when it’s about sharing our troubles. Of course, we do not have to go around telling the world about how we feel but definitely letting emotions free liberates our mind, achieving it depends on each individual and the way they choose to deal with their emotions.
Different strategies to help yourself work with Emotions
- Regular Exercise
Physical activity not just is good for physical health but also affects the brain and our mental health in many ways. Regular physical activity increases flow of oxygen to the brain and promotes growth of brain cells. Exercising aids the release of happy hormones — dopamine, endorphins and serotonin control and reduce stress, anxiety and help to uplift your mood and make you feel happier.
2. Developing the Self-awareness skills
Awareness is the key to understand and accept emotions. Self-awareness helps one to know why they feel the way they do. To work and process through our emotions, it is important to be mindful with a goal of being more conscious of what’s directing our actions and behavior.
3. Mindful Meditation
Meditation is a process of calming and relaxing the mind. This effective method trains the mind to focus and increase awareness of oneself and their surroundings. Meditation with numerous benefits also promotes emotional well-being, enhances self-awareness, helps to develop healthy sleep patterns and practice self-discipline.
4. Know your Emotional Strengths
We all have psychological strengths. They are built-in capacities for every emotion, feeling or behaviors. Some forms of psychological strengths include patience, resilience, attention, gratitude, self-compassion and grit. Knowing these emotional strengths helps manage emotions better and promotes healthier coping styles.
5. Journaling
Journaling helps capture our inner thoughts, emotions and feelings. All of these are energies and while journaling, some amount of energy of the emotion makes its way out. This helps lessen the intensity of that emotion and creates a map to objectify them. Journaling also reduces getting emotionally drained while helps to break down the resistance around them.
6. Eating a well-balanced diet
Often food and nutrition is neglected when talking of mental well-being. As much as food is important for maintaining a healthy body so it is for a healthy mind. A nutritious diet with right proportions of calories, proteins, minerals, vitamins and alternative nutrients is the basic requirement for a holistic lifestyle.
7. Self- reflecting
The form of personal analysis, Self-reflecting helps to analyse and observe oneself with the practice of introspection for self-growth. This helps expand the consciousness to get to the sources of triggers and original experiences of the emotions. This practice facilitates better processing of emotions. Often our ignorance keeps us away from self-reflecting, but this positive mental health mantra could be actually simple to practice on an everyday basis while keeping mindfulness in mind.
8. Practicing mindfulness
Mindfulness is a conscious ability to be fully present. Being mindful of our emotions is being aware of what we are feeling and why we are feeling. It is a basic human quality that we already possess and is not something we need to conjure up but rather have to just learn ways how to access it.
9. The Practice of ‘letting go’
This can be a whole different experience adding therapeutic value. The purpose of this practice is to release the emotion than to hold onto it. It is very essential to get to know of the triggers and sources of these emotions for processing them. Once aware of the triggers, it is easier to let go.
We should always be aware and regularly do a ‘feeling check’ and that’s nothing but label your feelings on the basis of how you feel. Avoid saying statements like ‘I shouldn’t feel like this’ and practice to keep away from judging your feelings and stigmatizing emotions. Learn to relax the tendency of reacting to emotions rather feel and respond to them.
Feel every emotion in a more open, liberated and a lighter way!
“Emotions are like those saplings in your garden that need nurturance. Give them sunshine, nourish them well, and they’ll grow into pretty flowers…”