World Mental Health Day for Teens

As our world progresses speedily in technology and material comforts, mental ailments among people are also rising like never before.?According to the World Health Organization, more than 370 million individuals are suffering from mental disorders.?Mental health struggles are unfortunately becoming common in teens?also – an age which is often considered the best phase of life.??March 2nd?is observed as?World Teen Mental Wellness Day to raise awareness about mental health issues that teenagers deal with.

Mental health disorders are of various kinds, but depression is the most common in today’s generation. It is estimated that 280 million people in the world suffer from mild to severe depression.

It leads to the understanding that despite all the medical advancements, something is missing in treatments, doctors and in the solutions available in millions of websites.

Depressing thoughts can have myriad origins. For eg, Teens are known to report depression about how they look, or their grades, or something which their friends have but they lack in terms of social stature, friendships, material possessions, etc.

Depression cannot be cured by taking care of each such individual desire, because there is no guarantee that tomorrow you will not have a new desire to again loop into depression.?

So how do we address depression at its root?

The multitude of thoughts that cross our minds, causing varying degrees of feelings and emotions, are based on our attachments. Attachment creates impingement of a particular thought due to its repetition in the mind.?

Most of these attachments are normally based upon our values. For eg, if money is the most important thing in the value system, then the mind repeatedly thinks of money. If physical attractiveness is a prime value for us, then the mind repeatedly thinks of fashionable clothes, makeup, etc. If we believe that narcotics are the way to ever-lasting happiness, then good life gets defined by?experiencing the euphoric “high” from drugs.

Where do our values originate from?

Upon working backwards, we find that it stems from the beliefs that we have chosen to install within ourselves. When the values are skewed, no matter how hard we try, the output will always be incorrect.

How do we tweak our value system?

It all starts with knowledge. The right knowledge helps create the right kind of beliefs.?

Beliefs are convictions of the intellect, they are enormously powerful. They can authoritatively command the functioning of both our subconscious and conscious mind.?Therefore, beliefs determine the quality and direction of our life.

Beliefs work like a double-edged sword. Good beliefs empower us for ever-increasing success, while bad beliefs impair us like nothing else.

Whatever we strongly believe becomes our virtual reality, irrespective of whether it is true or not.?And the stronger the intensity of our belief, the greater its influence over our emotions.?We think we walk by sight, but factually, the course of our life gets determined by our beliefs.

What is the way to good beliefs?

Wrong knowledge leads to wrong beliefs and good knowledge leads to good beliefs. Therefore,?to develop perfect beliefs, we must get perfect knowledge from a trustworthy source.

The Vedas propound two branches of knowledge. First is material knowledge and the second is spiritual knowledge. Material knowledge will help one understand the phenomenal world, its laws and harness its forces while the spiritual knowledge helps one illuminate the inner world and manifest its divinity. Problems arise when this balance is skewed and the spiritual knowledge is ignored.?

We observe in the world how scientific theories keep superseding each other every few decades. But the spiritual principles of Vedic scriptures are the same after thousands of years.?Therefore, in leading a successful life, spiritual knowledge is like the 1 and everything else is like the zero. You prefix the 1 ahead of the zeroes and it brings value and meaning to everything in life. However, without that ‘1’, the zeroes have no value.?

Here are two pieces of knowledge which will help you rise over depressive thoughts:

1) We are not the body, and we are also not the mind; we are divine souls, distinct from both.

This knowledge provides us the escape route from emotional distress.?Whenever a negative thought pops into the mind, let us remember that the thought is not us.??Rather than adopting it, we must distance ourselves from it. “Oh, my mind is playing mischief! I will not associate with this thought.” By thinking in this manner, we will establish a gap between ourselves and our mind.

The beauty is that the moment we disidentify ourselves from thoughts, they lose their power.

2) The universe is benevolent and not hostile.

Life is a tremendous opportunity bestowed upon our soul. If we believe that the universe possesses abundance and there is plenty for all who strive for it, we will end up seeing the good in others. We will be optimistic about situations and hopeful for the future. As a result, we will naturally attract and receive more blessings and progress, as compared to the pessimists who blame their luck without realizing they enticed it to themselves.

Save yourself from the assault of negative emotions and depressive tendencies. Focus on revolutionizing your beliefs by gaining and contemplating on divine knowledge.