The Unconscious Delusions Around Mental Health and Self-Help in the Wake of COVID-19

I would like to begin by stating this universal principle: to work on your mental health and wellness, you must work on your life.?

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought mental health to the forefront of our awareness due to the collapse of the physical boundaries between our personal, professional, and social lives. Our working hours were extended into our personal resting time because we were all stuck at home with seemingly nothing better to do. The lines were blurred between our professional and social circles. Suicides, family disputes, divorces, and cases of violence and abuse also rose when family members who live in the same house have nobody else to take out their frustrations on.?

It was also during this period that we witnessed an explosion of awareness and advocacy efforts on social media around mental health and self-help.?

However, here’s a misconception we have about mental health: COVID-19 gave rise to the mental health issues that a large population of the world experienced. It didn’t – these issues were already present within each person to begin with – the pandemic only amplified them to a degree that is no longer possible to dismiss and ignore.?

While the spike in conversations and openness towards mental health is good progress, we must still acknowledge one of the biggest gaps in the way awareness is being raised about mental health: we are largely not factoring in the bigger purpose behind working on our mental health in our advocacy and awareness work.?

Currently, mental health is very largely talked about in a vacuum, as if mental health is only about mental health. Emotional and stress management methods are being taught, symptoms of common mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety are being taught, and there are countless self-help books that list down methods of self-care such as taking bubble baths, nature walks, or doing journaling, meditation, or yoga.?

In fact, based on my observations from working with over 10,000 people on the ground from all walks of life in the last decade, what most people do is go into the cycle of consuming one self-help book after the other, watching TEDx shows, attending spiritual retreats and different self-help programmes one after another, and replicating coping mechanisms that have worked for others, hoping that they might finally find solace themselves.?

Unfortunately, if nothing fundamentally ever changes in their reality, this may only lead them in a cycle and eventually down the path of resignation, where they become disillusioned about their lives and accept a delusion that nothing will ever work for them.?

A person does not experience a condition the same way another person does. A person’s experience living with a condition is extremely specific to them, their backgrounds, their psyche, and their circumstances. In that sense, treatment methods or solutions must be personalised according to their backgrounds, psyche, and circumstances.?

A person going through an existential crisis where they question the meaning of their lives will not benefit in the long term by doing yoga. A person who goes through periods of chronic depression may not benefit in the long term by doing meditations. A person who is lost and confused about their lives may not benefit in the long term by journaling endlessly about their lostness and confusion.?

What these methods do is help a person cope with the daily symptoms of their struggles, but it does not resolve them and break them free from their issues because it is simply that – a coping mechanism, not a resolution to the wounds buried deep within that have been causing unhealthy behaviours and limiting beliefs to perpetuate.

The purpose of working on mental health is not to just improve it. People desire to work on their mental health because the state it is in affects their ability to thrive in the different aspects of their lives. Thus, the point of working on it is not just to have good mental health and feel good every time we feel bad, but to examine the underlying pervasive issues present so that we can resolve them at their root, break free from the generational traumas, unhealthy or self-destructive patterns, and limiting beliefs, so that we have the power to make a different choice – one that is more empowering to ourselves.?

If we approach mental wellness with blanket solutions thinking only about mental health, we also generalise the struggles that we perceive someone struggling with mental health will go through. We will likely end up dismissing or brushing it aside. If we approach mental wellness thinking about the overall journey of our lives, we will inevitably examine our mental health at some point in time – with a much more holistic picture on what needs to be worked on, and how.

A common question I receive from many people is this: how do you know when you have truly healed, or are at least in the progress of healing??

It is when your physical, tangible reality shifts as a manifestation of the internal shift that happened within you, that happened as a result of your inner work. And inner work involves much more than the practice of journaling daily, doing meditations, yoga, attending spiritual retreats, or binge consuming self-help videos and books.?

Inner work is the practice of consciously examining the state of your life, having the courage to look at what feels discomforting and confrontational within you, and taking the steps necessary to acknowledge and break free from the chains that bind you, no matter how difficult and painful the journey might be – all this while keeping in mind the highest version of yourself that you are working towards becoming, so that you can unapologetically live a life that truly matters to you.

Coping mechanisms or other practices that make dealing with your daily symptoms and struggles easier can certainly help. But the danger comes when you fall into the trap of thinking that these practices will resolve the recurrent issues in your life that affect your mental health and overall vitality and wellbeing.?

The truth is, the answers that liberate a person from their chains cannot be found externally or told to them. These answers lie within the person themselves, and it is up to them to embark on the journey of looking inwards and seeking out these answers for themselves.