Why emotional wellness?

Why Emotional Wellness?

Our need for emotional wellness may be greater than we initially realize. What is the underlying cause of drunkenness which causes so much grief to families and costs us so much, in the courts and hospital system? What is the cause of shootings (power over behavior)? In Canada we have spent over 1,000 million dollars on the gun registry and the carnage continues. Apparently trying to control (another power tactic) guns is not working. What of the robberies (invasion of your privacy) that are driven by the need for funds to buy drugs? What is the underlying cause of drug use?

Estimates say that health care, legal costs and lost productivity caused by alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use in the US alone, costs approximately $559 billion per year. See http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/addiction-science/introduction/drug-abuse-costs-united-states-economy-hundreds-billions-dollars . So what is the value of an emotional education?

After much study and reflection, I believe that emotional issues are part of the cause of many of these societal ills. What we commonly do is to try putting a band aid on the issue (why didn't the gruesome pictures on cigarette boxes effectively curb their use?), rather than addressing the underlying issues. Not that these measures are totally ineffective, but other approaches deserve exploration. I believe there are other avenues or angles from which these issues could be addressed.

My literary work is an attempt to generate a dialogue and language surrounding emotional wellness. This will allow us to speak into the lives of people we know and love, in order to help them get over their emotionally driven behaviors. These behaviors include drug abuse, alcoholism, bullying (shootings), self harm, anger, road rage, sarcasm, shyness, all types of addictions and obsessions, sexual issues, affairs and blaming to name a few.

Phrases and words like responsibility, feeling through (which requires great courage), emotional journal, time line, unmet need, driven behavior, powerlessness, worthlessness, hurt, shame and guilt would be common conversational topics at the office, water cooler and at family dinner tables.

I look forward to our dialogue and the positive outcomes that will result.

Depression and the Shortest Day of the Year (posted late!!)

Dec21 – Feeling depressed? Because of the short day? Or the world did not end?

It is important to define depression – 1) an act of depressing or a state of being depressed; 2) a state of feeling sad; 3) a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty with thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal thoughts or an attempt to commit suicide, a reduction in functional activity, amount, quality, or force depression of autonomic function.

What causes depression? The causes may be physical – such as short day length (SAD) or body chemistry. Another cause of depression is the repression or suppression of our emotions. The stages of depression would be as follows. When we are children growing up in our respective homes, it is very common for several things to happen. 1) we do not have the opportunity to express ourselves and be heard or acknowledged 2) our needs (a HUGE list) are not met so we feel worthless 3) we get hurt, another long list! These events may occur many times.

As we become adults, the feelings of worthlessness and hurt follow us. People deal with these feelings in varied ways – they stuff them (numbness, deadness and flatness), they use substances (alcohol, drugs, food, you get the picture). See my emotional guide for a more complete list. Understanding the way we suffered to cause the depression is critical – we need to go back in our minds to those hurtful times, and feel through those held feelings. As children we could not handle the emotions but as adults we can take responsibility and do the courageous work of facing and working through our feelings.

Suicide and keeping busy to avoid dealing with our feelings are both avoidance techniques for doing what seems so counter intuitive – going into our painful feelings in order to get over them. These pools of long held emotion can be dissipated by the act of feeling them. This is our natural emotional healing power – the emotional equivalent of physical healing! We may need a list of feelings to help us connect with what we are really feeling.

Depression can be mild, feeling blue, or it can be major depression. Medication may be required for a time. Please consult a doctor immediately if you are severely depressed.

Post partum depression may be linked to our own unpleasant experiences at child birth. We are born fully developed emotionally so even these early experiences can affect us. Being separated from our mothers at birth may be very traumatic for new borns. The stages of life of our children may be triggers for our own held emotion. The skill of feeling through can help us with this issue.