Today, more than ever, Elizabeth Gilbert's words about mental health that I shared before resonate with me profoundly:
“My hobby is writing, it’s my vocation, it’s what I do. My actual job in life is managing my mental health every day,
because if I don’t — and it’s practically a full time job for me — I’ll be taken under by it. There are about ten tings I do every day that keep the black dog at a safe distance. If I don’t do these things, if I let it slip and get complaisant, I’ll find out because, very soon, I’ll be in a very bad state.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert (author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ and ‘Big Magic’)
Corey L.M. Keyes from Emory University identifies three components of mental health: emotional well-being, psychological well-being and social well-being.
- Emotional well-being includes happiness, interest in life, and satisfaction;
- psychological well-being includes liking most parts of one's own personality, being good at managing the
responsibilities of daily life, having good relationships with others, and being satisfied with one's own life;
- social well-being refers to positive functioning and involves having something to contribute to society (social contribution), feeling part of a community (social integration), believing that society is becoming a better place for all people (social actualization), and that the way society works makes sense to them (social coherence).
These three aspects of mental health affect how we think, feel, and act. They help determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.
However, this definition lacks context. By inviting us to strive for and achieve an equilibrium of these three components, it misleads us into
believing that our mental well-being only exists when all criteria are ticked off and mastered, but no one masters managing responsibilities in life or good relationships every day and no one — no one on this planet — is ever happy all the time.
Good mental health doesn't mean that we are happy 24/7. Being human means experiencing
a range of feelings like being unhappy, angry, frustrated, nervous or fearful.
To me, good mental health is there to help me navigate these feelings which means that I can have good mental health and feel sad, tired or annoyed. I can feel negative emotions and use the tools that help me move through them more quickly. Most of them are art related
and I am making an effort to turn to them instead of turning to distractions.
I write a short poem in the morning, I work for five minutes on a canvas when I am having my breakfast and in the evening; I listen to music; I watch documentaries on artists on YouTube or a video from a course; I do a prompt by Jenafer Joy at the weekend. This
doesn't require much time especially when done instead of being on social networks or while cooking. When someone upsets me, I grab a piece of paper and doodle or I take out my journal even if I only write one sentence.
My mental health has been affected by my thirst for perfection in every area of my life. I am obviously not perfect and I don't
live up to the standards that I have always held for myself. This common tendency often leads to depression or anxiety.
My five minutes on the canvas have turned into lessons in accepting imperfections, those on the canvas and mine. Sometimes, I am satisfied with the progress, sometimes I realise I have messed up but instead of beating
myself up, I look for solutions. What can I do next to make it better? I try to take this away with me in my real life. This synergy is what makes art a great self-care. Allowing art to be created freely also trains me to embrace the unknown instead of resisting it.
The art you do for self-expression and personal growth is the purest form of art
because it is not intended to be seen. When you make art for an audience, you might betray your soul by not letting it express itself freely because you want a nice result that will generate positive feedbacks (likes or nice comments). Our soul wants us to understand that we are enough but if we seek praise, our 'enoughness' relies on others' opinions which completely contradicts the notion of being enough. We need to be able to make art that doesn't need approval, just like we need to do our
job without needing our boss's approval or live our life without other people's approval. This doesn't mean that we can't show our art, but we must do so regardless of likes and comments.
"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a
way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
As a reminder, here are those ten things Elizabeth Gilbert does to manage her mental and emotional
health.
1 Prayer: Specifically, she prays to be relieved from the bondage of self. She does this when she wakes up but might also walk into a church.
2 Meditation: She uses meditation apps — in particular ‘Insight Timer’ and she has a couple of meditations of choice by Mooji that make her actually believe that everything’s going to be okay.
(The ‘Insight Timer’ app has an extensive collection of meditations in its free version.)
3 Dance: She will put on an upbeat dance mix, hit shuffle and she’ll dance to whatever comes up. She says “It just seems to be a really good way to move energy through your body and start the day. Sometimes I dance to two songs, but the rule is that I have to dance to at least one. After I dance, I might go running or do
some yoga for half an hour, but don’t get any big ideas about what that means. “Run” and “yoga” should both be in quotes.”
4 Letter to herself from love: Every morning for the past twenty years, she has asked a question like,What would love want me to know today? then sat down to write a letter, an answer from love.
5 ‘The Work’ of Byron Katie: 'The Work is a method of
inquiry, designed to help you let go of thoughts that are causing you suffering. Elizabeth completes a ‘The Work’ worksheet to question a stressful belief as often as necessary. You can download the free worksheet here.
6 Morning pages: She goes through Julia
Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way’ course every few years. Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritise and synchronise the day at hand.
7 Drawing: She just draws in her journal as a creative practice.
Plain and simple.
8 Check-ins with friends: She makes sure she has at least an intimate conversation with one of her core friends on the phone every day.
9 Outside help: At various times in her life, she has gone (or will go) to therapy, to 12-step programs, etc. She’s also taken medication at times.
10 Generosity and
love: She finds that a practice of love and generosity helps her as much as those she reaches out to.
