Reacting to disappointments

How we react to disappointments in our daily lives says a lot about how mentally healthy we are. Do we accept them as clouds with silver linings or do we fret, nag, feel depressed, or blame others. Are we able to glean truths from them that will be lessons for tomorrow, or are we so dense that we believe we are always right.

Naturally we’re depressed and downsized when disaster strikes and it’s hard to be pleasant about much of anything, but for sanity’s sake we must believe there’s a reason behind these that’s beyond our understanding. That is not the point we want to make here, but first a moment of silence for the Joplin, Missouri disaster victims and their families. (++++++++++++)

Accepting everything that comes our way without getting too steamed up over success or failure goes a long way in creating balances in our lives. And balance is what mental health is all about. Did not the Creator program our life that way? Day and night, warm and cold, high and low, good and bad, are part of our existence, and so is happy and sad, joy and heartbreak, knowledge and ignorance and so on the teeter-totter of life goes.

Why this subject today? I am a writer and recently I wrote an article I was extremely proud of having written. And yes, I was aware that it might meet with a few raised eyebrows, but I believed in my words and I forged ahead, believing it would be accepted by the editors. Well it didn’t go over well. I was asked to rewrite and not to editorialize so much.

How did I accept it? I was disappointed but I reread the article and I decided to leave it as it is. I absolutely have no interest in making it more professional! It deserves better than its designated first time out venture, I told myself. I told myself that while at the same time I knew I could be wrong. But overall I understood the matter to be of small importance.

You win some and you lose some! I give that only as an example of how to accept these daily little annoyances ¬— and that’s all they are — and not let them take up more of your precious time than they deserve.

Time never stands still nor repeats itself

It's good to look back and see where we've been years after we were there, but to do so with regrets cancels out the positive reason for looking back. It was neither better or worse than now, the difference is the age we were then. Of course we wrote bad poetry, thought we knew more than we did, but we were younger. Today, years hence, we've learned more and if it advanced us further in our journey, good; if it didn't stop fretting and get on the right path toward the direction you were meant to go. And of course, good mental health is the goal of everyone,isn't it?

PS:
The at the seashore accompanies a poem Bad? Of course not. It was right for me at the time I wrote it. Since it isn't dated I can only say it probably was twenty years ago, maybe longer, maybe sooner.
The Words:

Perfect feet rotating / sands of time at intervals of three. / Without bonding. / [what did I mean by that? don't remember] Sending back oceans of truth, / leaving no trace, no path to tell, / where you wade and where you turn / and swoop upward
to the other side: / Starting life anew, / telling nothing of what you plan to do./ Scrub brush in tow/ where you dump. / only the morning after will show.

Thoughts now? No comments only to say were I writing that today I would change some of the wording. Why didn't I? That would make the whole effort of Mental Health Viewpoints a lie. What would I gain, and really, who cares? Those were my thoughts then when I tried to do a water color of earth, ocean and sky. Inept, probably but it was an honest inept effort. Even the umbrella looks like an egg, but if anything about this image looks real, the bird must have been a large one to have laid an egg large enough to shield a woman from the sun!

The truth of those words is as now, they were written down as they were thought or are now being thought. That's not a good idea when we are out to make a good impression on some, we often fret and stress over. But we must also admit sometimes truths ooze out around the edges of the most carefully written sentences.

Why? Because we are imperfect creatures, and mental health demands that we learn how to accept that fact. Tomorrow we have a chance to do better, God willing. I learned those last two words from my father. He was, the same as his daughter, imperfect,but he was wise enough to know who was boss.

How to refrain from being judgmental

In the world we live in today where evil is so rampant, it is comforting to know others are worse than we are. But is our goodness something that we can boast and brag about? No! But for the grace of God, go I is a more humane approach. Who knows the mind of God, or his ways? All anyone knows or can know is their own experiences with him, or lack thereof.

For instance, who knows when that invisible spark of humanity unknown and thought of by the crowds to be non-existent, may actually have taken root? Although unlikely in most obvious circumstances, still, it is best to leave the matter entirely with God who alone is in charge.

Why? It is unseemly and no matter how mean or evil a person is, they did not come into this world alone, they had a mother, a father, brothers, sisters, and perhaps children who may harbor no such evil intents as the horrid one. It is best to keep quiet about what we know little about. And along those lines, I admit, I may be putting myself in that category by writing this.

Until the next time I step up and talk about what I know nothing about, I will now close. And hopefully I will have something more than a dirty sock to show you!

Reigning in on your thoughts

Aspiring to be mentally healthy is not something that comes naturally,you must constantly work at it. When you find yourself being snooty or gossipy and talking about others and saying things that you wish you had not said when later thought through, have a good talk with yourself.

Don't make excuses and try to save yourself from guilt, be truthful and suffer through with the discomfort of knowing you've wronged someone. As soon as possible get back with the person that you told that smear to and try to make demands. Let them know you had no right to say what you did and henceforth try to find something good to say about the maligned one.

What happens if the person is actually guilty of what you accused them of? If it's none of your business and it does not affect you personally let the judge and the jury take care of the matter. They will know how to get at the heart of the problem and they don't need you complicating matters.

Of course we're not saints but sinners, yet that doesn't mean we have to put ourselves above others and pretend we don't do most of things that they do. It means we are working on our mental health.

Mental Health Awareness

To be mentally healthy you must be aware of the difference between unhealthy thoughts and healthy ones. It is easy to slip into inferior thinking without even knowing you are doing it.

Taking what 'they say' as the gospel truth without first running it through your own mind to weed it of its fallacies, is one way; admitting that although you strongly believe something, there is room for doubt; and understanding that no two people think alike and it's not necessary to accept as gospel truth everything those whom you admire, say. Actually, it's quite unhealthy to idol worship.

We worship God,not humans! And that brings me to the reason that on this first workday of the Holy Week, Monday, I felt the need to begin a new blog on Mental Health. Certainly if the horrific crucifixion of Him was not unhealthy what is? It could have been the thinking of the day which made the crucifixion necessary.

The old mental health blog Headline Hunting did not start out being a site dedicated to mental health, but it gradually turned into one.

The Image: I've been trying to share my thoughts for years. Years ago, when I was new to the computer, and when newsletters were fashionable, I wrote a newsletter. I tried to get others' interested in my way of thinking, but how much impact it had, I will never know.

Now I realize the effort was for me! It kept me thinking about other things instead of how much others laughed or made fun of me, how to improve on myself and how to learn, and how to appreciate the good earth the Lord had created.

No doubt these newsletters were riddled with grammatical errors and would have been an editor's worst nightmare,were they hiring me, but I was oblivious. It was the intent and I believed what I had to say was important. I still do. But now I have a day job, I write for Helium and I can't get by with bad grammar, therefore, I try to learn.http://www.helium.com/users/edit_show/188961