Proper healing of our mind, body, and soul takes time. We can’t expect to wake up one morning and be better. By nurturing our entire being, we learn to forgive, listen to our inner self, and mend. To start our journey to mental, physical, spiritual, social, and intellectual well-being, we must explore what health means.
Growth occurs in small steps. Like plants, we need nutrition to grow. Feeding our minds, bodies, and souls with healthy food, activities, and spirituality requires patience. We all choose when to blossom, but we may not be sure how to start. Beginning mental health therapy before there is a mental health issue is essential.
Planting A Garden
Therapy, whether it is a group or individual therapy, is the seed of mental health. We can’t grow as a person until we are planted and nourished. Expecting a plant to grow without proper care is unrealistic. We can find truth in a parable.
A person has decided they want to plant a garden. They take seeds from vegetables in their refrigerator, go outside, and throw the seeds over some dirt. When the seeds don’t sprout after a few days, the person begins to water the soil. Every day for weeks, the ground is saturated; still, nothing grows. The person becomes frustrated and gives up on their garden.
Over the next few months, the person begins to join gardening groups. They sit and listen to the advice and realize why their garden didn’t grow. The next growing season, the person takes properly prepared seeds, spaces out the holes, so the seeds have room to grow, and feed the seeds the right mix of water and nutrition. The seeds sprout, blossom, and produce vegetables. The key was seeking advice, taking what they learned from others, and finding nutritional balance.
Mental health therapy is nutrition for the mind, body, and spirit. Like seeds, we need to find the right formula to grow and prosper.
Therapy Before An Issue
Mental health is essential to our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. We know we can’t throw seeds into a hole and expect them to grow. When a life crisis occurs, we turn to ways to make us feel good. Alcohol or substance abuse can temporarily solve a problem, but they are unhealthy choices. Throwing your feelings into a hole, burying them, overwatering, and failing to give our minds, bodies, and spirit, proper nutrition prevents growth.
Our decision to go to therapy before a problem occurs is our way of researching and learning how to cope with life issues. Using coping techniques, avoiding potentially damaging situations, and recognizing temptation can prevent harm. A therapist will discuss our behavior patterns and ways to incorporate healthy lifestyle choices. Working with your therapist to determine if alcohol, substance addiction, or a mental health disorder is genetic is helpful. Knowing a genetic predisposition before it presents is a way to build substantial treatment options.
Taking Care of the Plants
Proper care of a garden includes the right depth, amount of water, spacing between seeds, and nutrition. Mental health therapy teaches us how to create depth, avoid emotional crowding, and nourish our mind, body, and spirit.
- Depth – Depth takes digging into our emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. We create the extent to which we need to establish roots. Our roots keep us grounded and stable. There are times when we lose our leaves, but a healthy root system helps grow new leaves. Our root system is created by finding what holds us to healthy lifestyle choices. We can dig down into our mind, body, and spirit with these:
- Religion – Traditional religion is faith-based. Teachings from books such as the Bible, Quran, Torah, or other written scripture may shape moral beliefs while instilling comfort and structure.
- Spirituality – Faith or a belief system isn’t limited to traditional religion. Some find peace climbing mountains, surfing, being in nature, or anything that promotes a sense of peace. Structure and comfort occur when the mind finds peace. Those who surf understand the waves, their body, and connect to something. Finding a connection is essential to growth because emotions come from the depth of our feelings. The relationship between our emotions, physical and mental well-being creates a space for us to meet our needs and give us the tools to become better people.
- Space – Our lives are emotionally, mentally, and spiritually clogged with commitments and expectations. We need to release ourselves from overcrowding. Therapy helps us prioritize what is essential to our well-being. When we control our mental, physical, and spiritual health, we eliminate the congestion that buries our being. Learning to step away from what brings us stress, depression, anxiety, or fear frees us to focus on our mental health. Activities such as meditation, yoga, Tai Chi, or reading allow us to calm our minds.
Therapy is the tool which plants our emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Laying out the proper space, nourishment, and depth assists us in establishing our well-being. A garden doesn’t weather a rainstorm without the appropriate care. Healing our mind, body, and spirit takes time and the right resources. Talking with a therapist is an essential resource for our mental, physical, and spiritual health.
Health and healing is a lifelong process. We grow when we nourish ourselves with fitting, healthy lifestyle choices. Learning to recognize and listen to our minds, bodies, and spirits isn’t something we achieve overnight. Depth, spirituality, and mental health awareness establishes the roots we need to blossom. Hence, when we feed our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs, we connect with our feelings. The connection formed between our emotions and our physical and spiritual bonds binds us to our commitment to being a healthy person. Therapy strengthens our relationship with ourselves. We learn to recognize our priorities, our behaviors, what brings us peace, and genetic predispositions. We can avoid negative behaviors with robust coping tools. Achieve Concierge offers many different services, including genetic testing, individual therapy, nutrition counseling, and wellness counseling. For more information, call (619) 393-5871.