The Lie About Our Mental Health

Our mental health is as crucial as our physical health. Each affects the other significantly. Many people prioritize physical health way more than mental health as though it is an indulgence. However, it is crucial for each and every one of us.

Our emotional well-being, like our physical well-being, needs to be attended to every day. EVERYDAY. But how do we do that? We weren’t taught emotional intelligence (EQ) so most of us are winging it, hoping life will get better, or we become one of the many, needing to numb out pain through a variety of substances, screens, busy-sickness, or workaholism.

As a therapist, I have seen hundreds through the years sad, burdened, overwhelmed and burned out. And in the United States, we look at busy sickness and burnout as a badge of honor. But we have been brainwashed. Our bodies were not meant to work 40 to 70 hours a week. Believe me. I see more stress disorders than anything else. I see broken-down bodies and worn-out souls.

Life isn’t supposed to be this way. How the heck did we get here? When we were kids we had unlimited energy, so many things were magical, and we were excited to get up in the morning for the next new adventure that is life.

How did the magic of life get sucked out?

One thing that I have seen in almost every single person over 30 years is that our creative freedom has been repressed, stomped on, beaten up, thrown up on, made fun of, shamed, and wrapped up and thrown in the garbage. Can you relate?

We are raised to think that creativity is for the “creatives” “artists” “writers” “sculptures,” and the talented rare few. This is a Big Fat Lie and it is making us sick, addicted, and repressed. We are all creative from the very beginning. WE ARE ALL CREATIVE. Did you make something for breakfast this morning, did you order a complicated coffee drink? Well, that is creativity.

Can you remember when you entered preschool or kindergarten? The room was filled with colors, tables of things like stickers, play doe, crayons, markers, paints, and stations where you could pretend to be a pilot, superwoman/man or baker. There were no grades, no critics, no judges, and no shamers… you were free to uninhibitedly create. You can walk into many preschools and feel the electricity in the air. Until the grades, critics, and peers began to judge what you were doing.

This is the beginning of our joy, natural happiness, and uninhibited self-being squashed, mutilated, distorted, plucked, pulled and ultimately so deeply repressed that we begin to believe that we are not creative and only a few have talent. The energy is being slowly sucked out of kids like a vacuum cleaner until one day, you are part of the herd making a penguin that looks like everybody else.

As we can do as a people, we can take something so amazing and reduce it into a box that can squeeze the life out of people. It is in our nature to create whether it be playing with make-up, gardening, cooking, cathartic drawing, or painting… the moment we begin to create we start to move that leavened stuck energy.

Creativity is a crucial part of our mental health. It is scientifically proven to change our brains out of trauma, improve well-being, help process the hardships of life, bring joy, and cathartic releases, help in the healing process of illness, and difficult emotions.

In this country alone we have a 70% obesity rate, an opiate epidemic, an all-time high of anti-anxiety & depression medication use, a high addiction rate… etc. There is something wrong with the way we raise people to adulthood. While the creative may seem trivial to many, it is crucial from a mental health standpoint.

We need to include creativity and the healing arts as a way of life. No one gets out of this life without having to deal with hardships and there are magical ways to deal with these challenges. You don't have to be one of the herd, chewing grass, and being roped into a corral of brainwashing. But that means taking a risk, facing a fear, and doing the uncomfortable of not believing the indoctrination that the creative, the arts, are only for a few.

Try to remember how you felt when you colored freely with crayons, built mud pies, and squeezed play-doh in your hands. Do you remember how free your curiosity was? Do you remember creating without someone grading you? It can touch a joy in you, a curiosity without a critic, an unknown magic that you didn’t know was coming.

Let’s bring life back into our lives.