It was a great session with clients today, with fantastic conversation across some important topics that all hinged around some aspect of mental health. It started with a light discussion on how in Finland going to a therapist is a taboo topic and seen as a weakness, but in the US it seems that everyone goes, and then the conversation progressed.
For instance, what if going to a therapist is a weakness depending on what the reasons are? For example, in the US are the right people going to a psychologist, or are the people in need not accessing them, while the people who have pretty good lives do go? is the constant access to get mental and emotional support meaning that we are improving ourselves, or is it making us weaker, lowering the bar for how quickly we are impacted by negative and how quickly we have to turn to others for support. Are we learning how to stand on our own two feet, or are we learning how to walk with crutches?
And then, in what areas are we becoming weaker? For example, one of the things that came up was how outraged people get over events that barely impact their lives. My client brought up the building of an exercise staircase in his town at the local ski jump (they have local ski jumps in Finland), and how people are outraged that they are building it there, as it is not in the center of the city - but not acknowledging that the city is built in a flat area. He said the anger and vitriol was amazing for what is essentially a public good, no matter where it is. And, it is also relatively cheap to build.
I mentioned that it is this kind of mentality that people make their voting decisions on too, where they feel very strongly about one particular item and will support or go against a candidate based on that singular thing. For instance, Trump uses this mindset well, as he can throw out a whole range of opinions on polarizing topics and get focused groups to vote based on one of them, even if they would disagree with multiple others on the agenda. For example, a person might be anti- immigration or abortion, so will make their decision on that individual point, even if everything else the candidate stands for goes against their belief system.
What is happening is that we are polarized on independent topics, but we aren't connecting them to the bigger picture and how it fits into the entire landscape of our lives. This means that we are unable to build a consistent flow or line of best fit throughout our experience, which leads to being disconnected from parts of our world that are important for our health and wellbeing.
Is this a mental health issue?
We talk about work-life balance, but what about thought balance, or belief balance? Should we be considering what is important to us, but also investigating how that thing fits into the ecosystem of our belief system, our physical needs, our emotional predisposition?
Because what I think is one of the things driving this breakdown in conversation and increasing polarization, is our conditioning around lies catalyzed by our ability to choose our content or have it fed to us with precision. What are the lies? Well there are many, but over the last years we have been told that we can be anything we want, that we should trust our emotions and intuition and, that we shouldn't settle for anything less than we think we are worth. The catalyst is our ability to build information siloes that support our emotional beliefs, whether they are valid, logical, proven - or not.
Let's start with intuition, which is a feeling that we get based on our environmental awareness. It "tells" us information. However, what it actually requires to be relevant accurate, is experience with the topic. For instance, my client is an expert in Power Plants and when he is onsite, he will get a "sense" for what is happening based on many variables he unconsciously calculates in the background. However, if I was there standing next to him, my intuition would give me nothing useful in terms of the power plant. If anything, it will say
"Taraz, stay quiet, you don't know anything about this."
I rarely stay quiet. But that is another issue.
However, we live in an online world where we are able to comment on anything and this includes topics that make us emotionally charged, even though we have minimal information. We don't have to worry about our behavior, because we are safely behind the screen and no one can punch us in the face. And, we can say what we want because we don't have to face that person's reaction, nor do we have to acknowledge them as a person at all. All they are is a way to score a point for our silo.
And of course, we have to believe in ourselves which means that at any given point in time, whatever we do, is the right thing to do. It doesn't matter if it is in conflict with the next thing that we do, or if it has a negative affect on our greater ecosystem, because it felt right in the moment, so it must be right. And, because everything has become an independent event, we are always right.
This means that even when our actions cause a future pain, that future pain is not tied to our action, instead it is another independent event that has an immediate cause. It is like a bully at school bullying a kid for a few months and then when the kid retaliates and smashes the bully in the face, the bully sees it as an unprovoked attack.
Everything is an attack these days.
But, instead of working this out for ourselves, we are encouraged to keep turning to external support sources, where we can again build walls to protect our opinions and beliefs. And the more we do this, the less resilience we develop, and the fewer tools we have to cope with our world. This results in us being "triggered" by less, and being more reactive and emotional once triggered, which in turn is going to be more triggering for others, as they are also largely weakened by their experience and their conditioning too.
Mental health, or are we all sick?
As I mentioned the other day in my article, I don't think that many of us are having enough in-depth daily conversations on topics and with people who keep us mentally or physically healthy. I think that a lot of the people who go to therapists do so to have the types of intimate conversations on emotional subjects that we might have had earlier with partners who knew us, who were invested in us being our best too. However, the more disconnected we are from each other, the less people know us. And, the more we silo ourselves into topics without considering their larger impact, believing that how we feel makes us right, the less connection we are going to make, because we are going to feel attacked, even by people who have our best interests at heart, or their self-interest aligns with us being our best.
It is a travesty of society and humanity.
I used to believe that therapists and psychologists are unnecessary, but I have changed my mind, because we have been conditioned to not have the skills we need for ourselves, so we have to seek them out from professionals. But, it creates a doubling-down effect for most of us, as we become reliant on the professional, rather than learn for ourselves.
I used an example recently using a massage as the illustration point. Instead of learning how to give a good massage to a partner, it is easier to send them to a masseuse instead, as they will get a professional result. But, learning to do something for someone else is part of the intimacy profile, as well as part of the way we develop relationships, compromise, reciprocation, and skill developments that support each other's growth.
But, we have built a culture where there is a specific tool for everything and we shouldn't settle for less than the best. But, no single individual can ever be the best at everything that is important to others, so if we silo off all of these traits rather than look at them as a cluster of an individual human, we are never going to be good enough for anyone. And no one will ever be good enough for us.
Healthy mindset?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
