Fitness gyms are especially popular at this time of year, most notably because of New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and/or get physically fit. And that’s a good thing. Good health translates into good living. That is, it is hard to live well if one is ill. Just note how miserable everything becomes because of a simple toothache.
But good health is more than a sound body. We need mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual good health as well. Our whole being needs healing and wholeness. Yet how often do we overlook holistic personal health needs? How often do we tend to focus on the body, for example, while avoiding the possibly more painful aspect of giving attention to our mental or emotional ills?
Constant break-ups, persistent lying and/or cheating, addictive and/or co-dependency behavior, explosive outbursts of anger over trivial matters, mean-spiritedness, unresolved resentment and/or hatred, bitterness, loneliness, shame, unhealed hurts and grievances, all these and more are signs of ill-health—mental, emotional, spiritual. Indeed these may be the reasons for also having persistent physical ailments as well.
Mental health is as critically important as physical health. So, for example, there should be no shame in going to see a counselor, psychologist, or psychiatrist anymore than seeing a medical doctor or hiring a fitness manager.
You’ve heard the saying, “Hurt people, hurt people”? It means that if you have been deeply and emotionally hurt by someone and that hurt has not been addressed, healed, or taken-care of properly, you are bound to turn around and hurt someone else as much as you yourself have been hurt—someone that really does not deserve it, as you most likely did not deserve to be hurt by the one who hurt you.
We need to address our deepest hurts in order to be healthy people. It does not work to pretend that they’re not there. Thinking that time will take care of these hurts by sweeping them under the rug or ignoring them is misguided. Their effects do not go away and they tend to surface here and there in most inappropriate ways, if not adequately and properly addressed.
The inability to sustain and maintain long-term healthy relationships with friends and/or family is also a sign that there is something internally wrong. Constantly blaming others for one’s own problems and/or running from and denying the problem are also signs of the need for addressing mental/emotional health issues. The next relationship that goes sour, instead of immediately cutting off and blaming the other, ask yourself, what is it about me that contributed to this break-up? What do I need to change within me as to how I relate to others?
In short, as in physical health so in mental/emotional health, we need to take ownership, accept and admit that there is a problem and be willing to address it, acknowledging that we are responsible for ourselves not others—only we can fix our own problem. That is, we must not expect others to fix problems that arise from our own bad choices. I am responsible for me. You are responsible for you.
Likewise, we must not take on someone else’s problem(s) as if it is our own. It is not. We must avoid playing the Messiah, as if we can save the world—or save those closest to us. We can give counsel and advice. We can delineate principles and help define parameters or mirror back to the other what we hear and see the other is saying or doing, but we cannot and should not take control, force him or her, and/or make decisions for him/her, decisions that he/she must responsibly make for him/herself. In short, we must always maintain proper and healthy personal boundaries—which is a sign of good mental and emotional health.
Among other things, having good mental emotional health means being a person of honesty and integrity, having personal confidence and equilibrium and self-respect with humility; it means having inner peace with energy and focus and direction. It means being a well balanced person of sound mind and body and heart (physical and spiritual). In other words, the truth is, none of us have complete perfect physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. We are a work in progress.
As such, it means we must be “in touch,” or be “real,” or as the 4th step in the 12 step AA recovery method says, “Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.” Or as the Greek philosopher said, “Know thyself!” The point is that in a world such as ours, where so many things go wrong and so many challenges arise, we do ourselves a favor by making sure that we are physically fit and able to cope—not only physically fit, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually fit as well.
So, how fit are you?
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