Loosening Pressure On Your Mental Health
Sometimes life can feel so claustrophobic. When all of the odds are stacked against you, it’s hard to think clearly and come up with solutions for its problems. To remedy this everlasting dread, I try to understand myself and how I work. It helps loosen some of that pressure.
The concept of knowing how you work is simple. You might even be asking ‘why is he talking about the importance of how I work? I know how I work! I know who I am!’ What I mean is understanding and building awareness of your quirks, triggers, joys, and everything else under the umbrella of self. There is so much that we do that we don’t really know the ‘why’ about, and that has effects on us.
Whether it’s a short fuse or general anxiety, some of your habits impact how you interact with those in everyday life. Not to say that every single one will destroy your life, but different things have different effects on people.
It’s important to be aware of these effects, especially when it comes to how they relate to you and those around you. Those you see in class, at work, in passing. Those with different ideas, different ways of living, it's important to maintain relationships with those people while still being true to your feelings. You don’t want to shy away from your feelings, but don’t let them isolate you from others.
When it comes to what makes you, what you consider a flaw might be integral in your identity. It might have been something that’s helped you in difficult situations in your life. Even if you don’t realize it, it’s hard to lose it. To lose something that makes you, well, you.
Your identity is also a culmination of people and experiences you have met and had throughout your life, and if you go against that identity in favor of a specific path of person and/or experience, you won’t have as much exposure to the variety of life. To different ideas, different ways of thinking. This means your beliefs & personal ideas won’t be as challenged. Think of that one person who sorta just lingers around your hometown for a while and doesn’t ever expand their horizons. Are they entrenched in their beliefs?
The point is that you won't be able to etch the definitions of your identity into the sand. You won’t have as much foundation. Your foundation is your individuality, and if you don’t have enough time to exercise that, then you may come to lose yourself in the mix of all of those around you.
During the pandemic, most of us were either with ourselves or the same group of people. With that came comfort, but it also restricted a lot of opportunity for growth. Personally, it made me anxious when I was interacting with those I wasn’t immediately familiar with. This seems to be true for others, because during “the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25%,” according to the World Health Organization.
This anxiety makes it harder to interact with new people, which makes it harder to encounter new perspectives. It’s easier to be restricted to brief hellos and goodbyes from greetings with cashiers, delivery drivers and service workers. And the same conversations with friends and family about topics you’ve already gone back and forth about.
While the self may be intact, it gets harder to know when you aren’t in situations new to you. If you’re stuck in the same routine, punching in everyday, it can be harder to discern how these situations make you feel. Instead, you’re caught in the shuffle of being tired, cranky, hungry and ready for bed.
Figuring out how you work is important. It will (hopefully) force you out of your routine and into a healthier, more intimate relationship with yourself.
Why should you have this intimate relationship with yourself? Shouldn’t you be focusing on maintaining your relationships with others? Yes, we should make sure our relationships with those around us are strong, but before that we have to make sure our relationship with ourself is strong. Foundational.
Why? It will help make the emotional baggage of life easier to deal with. It won’t automatically solve any problems, but it will make them easier to navigate if you aren’t aware of how your emotions impact your decisions.
Say you have a habit of chasing joy and you aren’t aware of it, you may find yourself in an endless chase for things that are both good and bad. If you are aware of the habit, you may be able to counter it the next time it sprouts. Or say you’re someone who tends to overwork for the sake of company loyalty, the bag, your coworkers, whatever. Being aware of that can make it easier to recognize when you are tired. From there, you can put more care into yourself outside of work, making it easier to manage that work-life balance. Having the know on where you want your responsibility to go will make it easier to divvy up. I know those ideas are pretty barebones, but you can apply the formula to other emotional situations and see how they impact your decisions.
For me, being able to map out my emotional highs and lows has resulted in me being able to physically see my ups and downs. Not only does this give me an idea of how the week went, but it also helps me see my triggers and find new ways to ease them. It requires some mindful legwork, but it’s worth it.
Enough about me. The point is that you have ideas that are baked into you. Ideas that have helped you cultivate your personality over the years. Being aware of those ideas can make it easier to confront and quell some of the kinks that have a negative impact on your life. It’s not like we’re machines, we’re human and we are going to have moments where we have a hard time, but you can take steps to make those moments easier on you.
And always make sure if you’re feeling like you might have some type of disorder or brain imbalances, things going on in your head, that you go to a therapist or a doctor. A licensed professional who deals with things of that matter.
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