Why Values Matter In Your Mental Health Journey? Everything You Need to Know
Living with a mental illness is something that only those can understand who have experienced mental health problems of their own. When people talk about mental health awareness and how one should always put their mental well-being first, they tend to forget a very important link between the mental health of a person and their personal moral values.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t necessarily have to have personal trauma if you are suffering from bad mental health. For example, if you, as a person, value women’s rights and freedom, then seeing the world being unjust and cruel to women around you can be a huge trigger to upset your mental health. Similarly, we value many other things as humans, and when we see our values being shattered, our mental health suffers.
The real question is how you can get the right help if you have any kind of mental illness while preserving your values at the same time. This question is extremely important as for most of us, becoming indifferent and letting go of our values and morals in order to become numb to pain and anxiety is not an option.
Let’s try to find the answer to this question and see what we can do to improve our mental health while holding our values as close to our hearts as ever.
So, let’s dig in:
Identifying Your Values and Understanding their Origin
The first and the most important step towards your mental health journey is understanding and identifying your core values. It simply means that you need to analyze what you believe in and what is the definition of right and wrong for you.
You need to sit down quietly and understand the source that is disturbing your mental health. Of course, you may need professional help to deal with your mental health issues, but you must know that you need to take the first step on your own. Identifying your core values and beliefs is the first step if you really want to make a difference when it comes to your mental health.
So, make sure that you start your journey by being one hundred percent honest with yourself. It is important because it is the only way if you want to get rid of the constant toll that your mental health is taking on your life.
Setting Boundaries and Learning to Respect Them
More often than not, we let people walk all over us because our values teach us to be patient and empathetic. However, if you keep letting people use you for their benefit, then a time will come when you’ll feel emotionally deranged, and you won’t be able to feel any pleasures of life yourself.
Being kind and empathetic is important, and these two qualities should be a core part of our values. But, there is a limit to everything, and we should set some boundaries for being kind and helpful to others. You must understand that your mental health should be your utmost priority.
So, you need to set some boundaries straight and don’t let anybody cross them because if anyone crosses them, all your efforts to improve your mental health will go down the drain, and you don’t want that to happen. Do you?
Learn To Take Actions to Have Much-Needed Mental Peace
As mentioned before, you don’t have to face trauma personally to be affected by something. If you care about world hunger, then a picture of a malnourished child might disturb your mental health because you feel helpless and think you can’t do anything for them.
When you are able to feel someone’s pain as if it’s your own, it means that you are blessed with a pure heart, and you need to make sure that you take good care of it. However, you must know that sitting there feeling bad for the people who are suffering will not do them any good. If anything, you are hurting yourself and getting no results out of it.
Therefore, you must learn to take action. Do your best in playing your part in making this world a better place one step at a time. You’ve had enough of just sitting there while your mental health suffers. If you want to feel good, then you need to take actions that matter, and believe me when I say that you are going to sleep like a baby knowing that you did your best for the cause you believe in with all your heart and soul.
Never Feel Ashamed for Standing with What’s Right
This world can be a cruel place. You are going to find people who are disrespectful to your values, and they’ll try to shame you for being better than them. If you want to achieve ultimate mental peace, then you need to learn to look past these people, and you need to understand that such people don’t matter. If anything, these are the people who are a part of the problem.
Therefore, you need to ignore these people and keep believing in what you think is right. Don’t let anyone take you down with their mean and shallow comments. Such people are suffering themselves, and if you plan to engage with them, it is only going to make you feel more angry and emotionally drained. So, you just keep doing the good work despite anything that people may say.
Understanding Your Mental Health Limits
Lastly, you must understand what is good and what is bad for your mental health. If you think that you are not in a good mental health place, then you must immediately take action to avoid any and all kinds of triggers.
It is important to separate yourself from anything that is affecting your mental health. For example, if you think that any particular issue is affecting your mental health, then all you need to do is to take some time out and separate yourself from it.
There’s nothing wrong in isolating yourself from a situation that is toxic for mental health. Sure, you need to keep your values in place but still taking a break for your own sake every once in a while will help re-energize you to what truly matters.
I would love to know your thoughts, feel welcome to reach out.
Stuart Polwarth is an award-winning mental health advisor who creates holistic wellness solutions for people and their organizations.
A passionate coach and engaging speaker with the authentic commitment to delivering programs across the varying domains of personality, social connectedness, physical and mental health.
Contact: linkedin.com/in/stuart-polwarth-public-mental-health-advisor-coach-speaker
