Mental Health Awareness Month

May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the US. Given all that is happening in the world right now, the awareness of mental health feels critical right now. 

But what is mental health? 

Is it helping people:

• Feel happy, joy, laughter, connection to all the good stuff?
• Find ways to acknowledge the sadness, aches, and hollowness that linger behind the smiles? 
• Give words to an inner rage and volcano of fire that wants to erupt at the injustice and abuse that they feel is present in and around them? 
• Let go of feelings of shame, guilt, and judgments of the past?
• Create healthy routines that honor their holistic physical wellness - body, mind, and soul?
• See the good in themselves and others, and to access the ability to give grace and compassion for when they or another “stumbles”? 

As you can guess, there is no one aspect of mental health. To me, it is all of the above and more. 

Cultivating mental health and wellness often includes developing the ability to befriend, understand, and consciously help re-parent or guide our survival self – or thinking self – into alignment with a present-time felt sense of Self, or what some might call our authentic or True Self. The True Self isn’t something outside of us, but rather who and how we want to be based on our heart and soul, instead of the many versions of ourselves rooted in past conditioning and trauma responses.

Trauma-Informed Approach to Mental Wellness

A core shift in a trauma-informed approach to mental wellness is that our mind isn’t the enemy or the problem. It is our relationship with our mind and how we’ve been taught to work with ALL that it is trying to do to help keep us safe and to survive life, that can be problematic at times. 

That relationship needs healing, not fixing. The good news is that there is a way to bridge the gap between our → thinking-self → our personal or ego-self → our true-self. 

The first step in this journey is to consciously say no to trying to “fix” my mind and yes to working with it as a friend and companion that, while well-meaning, is often a bit reactive.

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), this first step falls under what is called Creative Hopelessness. I used to really push back on this title, and parts of me thought it was incredibly unfortunate. However, once I stepped back, I understood that what the founder of ACT, Steven Hayes, was trying to help us recognize is that we have all worked so hard trying to fix ourselves that we become exhausted and begin to feel a sense of hopelessness about our ability to create anything different from the “pain” we feel stuck in. Our mind is cooked – it is done. It is stuck in an endless feedback loop of trying to change, but it just can’t seem to “figure” it out.

His first step asks us to stop trying to fix, change, and control our thoughts and our minds because it isn’t working. We are trying to “change” within a closed system that is only answering itself from what it knows. We need to access a “bigger” system that isn’t bound by our protective programs. 

AND I want to acknowledge that, like my reaction to his label for the first step, letting go of our attachment to needing to “fix” ourselves is one of the hardest, most counterintuitive things we can ask ourselves to engage in. Everything within us will scream, “Danger, danger,” because our ego-mind thinks it is being asked to give up.

The exact opposite of that is what is really happening when we surrender our need to “fix.” When we stop trying to fix ourselves or others, we stop being at war with ourselves and with others. We stop the crazy cycle of inner shame, guilt, and demands that lead to resentment and self-rejection.

When we let go of fixing, we come into a place of stillness and give ourselves permission to not know. We let go of the weight of trying to figure it all out, calm our mind, open our heart, and become finally willing and able to work with heart- and soul-led insights and inspiration on how to best support ourselves – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually – giving our mind whole new perspectives to work with.

From there, we can cultivate new thoughts, perspectives, ideas, and movements that our survival and protective mechanisms would never have access to in a million years, because they wouldn’t even know to look through that lens or trust it.

Building Bridges

As a healing and wellness program, we view mental health as a core component of what we aim to improve—but our approach is quite different from the norm. We help build a Bridge of Connection™ from the survival-driven ego-mind to the personal heart, and ultimately, to the True Self. With each bridge we build, authority over our health shifts away from fear and shadow control, allowing love and compassion to become the final authority in our systems.

I share a clear roadmap and step-by-step approach for bringing this method to life in my recent publishing project - the Sacred Witness Oracle suite and companion book - Trauma Informed Enlightenment: Awakening to the Healing Power of the Sacred Witness.  

Side-note: If you haven’t had a chance to bring this suite home for your own self-work, now is the perfect time! We are having a Spring Sale where everything in our “shop” is 25% off, including our on-demand courses which also share this method. 

In addition to the books, here is a short practice that I engage with to help me remember to release my survival attachment to fixing, which is leading to creative hopelessness within me and switch instead to a willingness to witness and befriend myself instead. 

Repeat this mantra or healing prayer two to three times.

Afterwards, check in and reflect on: 

• what is different in and around your body, 
• what is present in your heart,
• and what inner guidance do you feel coming forward to help you see things differently once you have opened to the mantra.

Mantra for Releasing the Habit of Fixing 

May I soften my thoughts

May I soften my judgements

May I let go of fixing

May I let go of trying to control

May I have compassion for my fears

May I have compassion for my desires

May I open to my breath and let it connect me with my heart

May I hear my heart

May I open to its wisdom.

And so it is….breathe in…breathe out…I am safe to see things differently.

This month I hope that you are able to befriend your mind and honor how hard it has been working to try to keep you safe. 

Offering you light, love, and JOY! 
Michelle

PS - If you are looking for ways to gain more direct support on your journey of befriending the mind, check out our current offerings to join a live class or workshop course where I can work with you as a Guide more directly.