Sakhi Shanker
Universal Prevention
Be transparent- in thoughts, words and what I expect of others.
Often, relationships go downhill due to poor or complete lack of communication. I am a strong believer that most problems can be solved or at least reach the stage of amicable respect if there is transparency between individuals and their intent. Transparency or just keeping the door open for dialogue even if we disagree allows us to be better communicators and learn different ways of thinking.
Be true to who I am and what I stand for
I must know my ideals, values and what I resonate with to live authentically. I will have poor mental health if I continue to live in pretense. Thus I must identify who I am in a specific period of my life (now). This also enables us in building new relationships with like-minded individuals and keep old ones. For example, if I pretend to like rock music and all of my friends deeply enjoy it, an aspect of the relationship is based on pretense and mistrust. Instead I must surround myself with individuals that respect my preferences and vice-versa. Surrounding ourselves with people that live authentically, even if they are different from us will boost our mental health as well learn and grow.
Continue to unlearn and relearn and let go years of conditioning and prejudices
We have all been taught and formed our views of the world and people living in it. So often we generalize an experience and carry our prejudices unconsciously.We must reflect on our ways of thinking and our behaviors and if there our ways we can modify them.
Learn to deal with and work through my emotional baggage and be mentally healthy
This point further delves deeper into the previous one. At the end of the day, we are all human and need to make progress and live with ourselves the best and work through our emotional baggage. Ways we can do this is seek therapy. I believe this is the best to improve our quality of life. Other ways are by constantly checking in with yourself, an example could be journaling or meditating or even taking a walk.
Learn novel ways of thinking and being
Basically saying yes to something we would have otherwise said no to. I believe this will work because we often get stuck in our old ways of being and thinking. In order to feel refreshed and educate ourselves, make life interesting and grow- we must find novel ways of thinking and being.
Lovely readers, please do share your thoughts on how you would make the system mental health friendlier I hope you are doing well. Much love and kindness to you wherever you are.
This can be done by interacting with varied individuals, reading content or books we usually would not, perhaps watching a movie we thought we would dislike. Taking the time out to look outside the window, if we are constantly someone who is in a rush.
