I have an underlying question for you today to consider as you read this Sunday's post: What makes you smile?" Since 1949, May has been designated as Mental Health Month in America. While Mental Health awareness has become a global initiative with other dates, programs, and sponsoring organizations that highlight the significance of mental health throughout the year, the May Mental Health Awareness Month brings a national campaign in America to spotlight its critical importance with outreach, educational programs, and a specific theme each year. This year's theme circles around the environmental context of our mental--and emotional--health. As such, I have been receiving many psychiatric/medical updates and various tool-kits that promote public awareness through individual aids to a healthy mental state in this current social environment. Rather than offering a simplistic rationale of "mental illness" to explain away violence in this country, caring for our own mental health gives us new strength and clarity to add our voice, to participate in a deeper collective process of action, healing and change.
Today, I am sharing two of the "tools" sent to me. From the Psych Congress community (a professional psychiatric network that offers conferences throughout the year) comes a "Kindness Challenge" for the rest of this month, aimed to create more positivity through rotating daily tasks:
Monday: Give a compliment to a stranger
Tuesday: Prepare a meal for someone you love
Wednesday: Cozy up with your favorite book
Thursday: Send a thoughtful text to a friend
Friday: Donate clothes or household items you no longer need
Saturday: Leave a nice note for a neighbor
Sunday: Spend some quality time with yourself
A related organization, Evolution of Psychotherapy (with a national conference each year), suggests taking a few moments every day to recognize the positives in your life, and do one thing each day that makes you smile. As you can see, the underlying ideas here are a positive outlook and a balance of social connections and self care.
Since my early years as both a psychiatrist and a minister, I have worked to bridge mental health, physical health, public health, and spirituality. To me, the essence of a positive approach is faith, with a cultivated awareness of the underlying Goodness of Life. I use the word 'cultivated' to reflect my sense that the more we consciously choose to see life as Good, the more a deeper understanding of the actual Joy of Creation is revealed (although it cannot always be communicated). In the world of mental health professionals, spiritually is seen as one component of a "healthy" life, but to me, it is the core from which all health arises. Either way, positivity with a smile, is one place to begin. (Susan Nettleton)
“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.” F. Scott Fitzgerald
For further inspiration: https://allpoetry.com/.../15768221-The-Miracle-of-Morning...