Mental Health

Here’s How Ariana’s Happiness Increased After Solving Three Mental Health Issues.

Modest thought and behavior changes can create ripple effects for a joyful life.

Ariana’s Sad yet Empowering Story

When she was five years old, Ariana’s teachers identified her as a child prodigy. This realization made her parents and siblings proud. She learned much faster than her friends.

Her cognitive brain processed information quickly. However, her limbic (emotional) system was average which no one detected. Thus, like many vulnerable kids, she was put into an unnecessary race that dented her psychology at a tender age.

Since she was ahead of other students in her primary school classes, she was put into a special school that served only gifted kids.

As all students in her class were quick learners, Ariana needed to study harder to prove her knowledge. Her goal was to get a 100% score on every test. Not achieving this goal made Ariana feel unhappy and even miserable at times.

Constant worry, anxiety, fear, and desperate need for approval from her parents and teachers adversely affected Ariana’s mental health and learning abilities. As a child, she was not aware of it.

Her family thought she was not pulling her weight and even labeled her lazy, wasting her IQ. Her teachers also felt the same. Fortunately, a child psychologist in middle school saved her life.

Ariana is a successful scientist and entrepreneur now.

When I asked her what she learned from her psychologist at the middle school, she shared three points that resonated with me as I also had these problems in my childhood and resolved them in my adult years.

Unfortunately, I was not as fortunate as Ariana, so I suffered longer than her. However, solving these three issues tripled Ariana’s happiness and gave her a more fulfilling life.

These three issues were psychological problems manifesting as physiological effects.

1 — Perfection Is Unnecessary and a Joy Killer.

Ariana’s counselor taught her perfection was unnecessary. It was okay to get lower marks.

Like her, I learned about the problems of perfection in graduate school when I met Mr. Wise, as narrated in this story.

When I realized my achievements were for my life satisfaction, not for the fulfillment of others, a huge burden disappeared from my shoulders.

The underlying problem for Ariana and I was to make others happy and not to disappoint authority figures like my parents, teachers, and friends.

When her counselor informed Ariana about this reality in middle school, her learning difficulties disappeared, and she achieved better results in her college years. She was not lazy. Her brain was fatigued with constant worry and anxiety.

Like Ariana, I strived for a 100% mark in my school years. This ruthless behavior created cumulative stress. It was perceptive, not reflecting my reality. We both carried unnecessary burdens for perceptive matters beyond reality.

When I focused on what I wanted, I progressed with a pragmatic approach to acquiring them. As a result, I managed to study and work in a flow state. Consequently, my productivity and happiness significantly increased.

2 — The Primitive Brain Fabricates Constant Worries.

This point relates to both the physiological and psychological aspects of human behavior. The primitive part of the brain is designed to protect us from dangers.

With constant monitoring, our amygdala serves as an alert system. Most of Ariana’s problems were perceptive. Her counselor explained how to recognize perceptions and distinguish them from facts.

Even perceptive risks turn to create anxiety due to this delicate wiring.

Our thinking brain can notice the validity of alerts much later than they turn into anxiety symptoms in the form of physical responses such as perspiration and discomfort.

The amygdala always acts much faster than the cortex by design as survival is a priority function for the brain.

Words of other people play a significant role in activating the amygdala response.

If the amygdala senses a risk or threat in a comment, it creates neurochemicals similar to real danger, even if it is not valid. Ariana took every criticism as accurate.

Therefore, her stress and anxiety turned out to be chronic due to suppressing emotions without expressing them.

I also documented similar experiences related to perceptions that adversely affected my life previously.

3 — The Importance of Setting Clear Boundaries

Her counselor taught Ariana to set boundaries with the people around her. Like Ariana, I learned to create and enforce boundaries that guide other people to treat us.

Setting boundaries is vital because, unless we set and lucidly communicate boundaries to people around us, regulating a flux of emotions can be tricky and challenging.

In her childhood, Adriana’s problem was letting others interfere with her life. Her parents, teachers, and even friends criticized her when she couldn’t perform to their expectations.

Since she was known as a prodigy, everyone around her expected her to produce outstanding results. She regretfully struggled to live her precious childhood moments because she feared disappointing others.

However, in her adult years, she learned the importance of setting boundaries to keep her relationships healthy.

As a result, people around her knew how to treat and connect with her as she communicated her rules and expectations openly.

In addition, rather than focusing on what others think, she focused on what she wanted in her life.

Consequently, her self-love, self-compassion, and self-esteem significantly improved. She said the awareness of these three points tripled her joy.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Most of our psychological problems can manifest as physical issues. Our thoughts and emotions can quickly become physical discomfort if they are not observed, analyzed, and challenged.

Emotional regulation is a critical function in living a satisfying life. Here are five tips to improve emotional regulation.

I also shared a similar experience with another friend in this story. Olivia struggled with rumination for many years.

When she learned to observe her thoughts and emotions, she created practical actions to deal with them. She also obtained professional advice to cope with recursive thoughts that paralyzed her life before this awareness.

With self-awareness using mindfulness practices, Ariana reviewed the childhood traumas that affected her for several years.

Then, she reduced her anxieties by expressing her feelings using various methods such as writing, singing, dancing, and professional therapeutic advice.

Interestingly, after solving suppressed childhood issues, her learning abilities returned, and she built a successful career as a scientist and entrepreneur.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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