How to Care for Your Mental Hygiene
Lessons from time inside and backing away from Medium for 24 hours
Sawubona.
As I write, the blue spruce that dominates the northwest corner of my Colorado yard is draped with snow, its great spreading boughs moving gently to the northern winds. April and May are big snow months, which is why so many flock to our ski resorts in spring. I would imagine that many a skier who had planned to spend plenty of time on Aspen powder is frustrated.
Lots and lots of folks are frustrated. It’s spring, it’s getting warm and gorgeous outside. Well, other than our spring storms, that is. People are tired of being inside. I am too. But I do stay inside.
Still, and yet.
Yesterday I woke up not feeling well. None of the classic symptoms of our current conditions, but I just didn’t feel good. No cough, no raised temperature. Just….tired, man. So I settled on the couch to watch Netflix all day long. It passed. By 6 pm I was much better. By this morning I am almost 100%.
There’s a lot of wonderful healing to be had in shutting down everything. Just shutting ALL of it down, to watch movies all day, not read about the terrible stats or respond to insistent, demanding, stressful texts. Or read anything AT ALL. At least for me there is.
In the weeks since returning from Africa I have, as I suppose many have, had the occasional cough, or the occasional sore throat, or the occasional…whatever. Heightened fear of any symptom at all has caused me undue concern about any kind of minor illness. I’ve learned to simply watch. So many symptoms can be caused by stress — including unnecessary stress about minor symptoms. So I sit, watch. Usually whatever it is quickly resolves. The body is a simply incredible machine. It often takes care of business without much help from us other than regular movement and good food.
And good mental hygiene.
I took a 24-hour break from Medium as well. To be honest, as much as I enjoy it, I have begun to weary of the incessant beating about my head and shoulders by titles that shriek at me:
What you MUST do…
What you HAVE to have…
What you REALLY NEED…
and the like. I am weary of thousands of other writers imposing their stress on my eyeballs, cascading what they appear to be trying very hard to tell themselves that they must do, or have to have, or what they really need onto me.
They likely have no idea what others need, nor what their unique circumstances are, nor what those other people “must” do any more than I do. I’m clueless about your world. So are they clueless about mine. (I might specifically set aside those safety guidelines from the CDC about our safety, but that’s not what I am addressing here)
Kindly, the chances are that a good number of us are dealing with plenty of stress already, and we probably would prefer not to carry someone else’s. But I can only speak for myself, as do we all.
I might posit that many of us may not realize that when we write this way, we are probably speaking only to ourselves.
(Here’s the imperious, pushy way to write the above sentence:
You don’t realize that when you write this way, you are only speaking to yourself.
See the difference? Remove the imperative, substitute gentle qualifiers and you just took out the stress.)
Other people cannot possibly know what we must do, what you and I have to have, what we really need. Only you and I do. Yet these insistent, shrieking headlines abound on Medium. The unfortunate impact can be more stress on many of us who are already pretty stressed out. I know that happens to me, and chances are good I’m not alone here.
When I have periodically perused those articles, I also check out the author. In so many cases, the writers don’t have much experience at all, their credentials aren’t particularly significant. That’s not intended to be a slam. What it does say is that many writers appear to be trying very hard to preach to the masses what they really need to be doing for themselves.
Anyone with a basic Liberal Arts education will recognize this behavior right away. It’s Psych 101, Projection.
It’s human nature to do it. It’s also a way to try to bleed those uncomfortable feelings off onto others.
One of the gifts of doing this as a Medium writer is, if you and I choose to be a bit more conscious and aware, we can hold off on pressing Publish, and read through what we’ve written. Ask, how much of this material is myself talking to myself? How much of what I am saying really only applies to me?
Chances are, a good bit of it. That’s not a bad thing. I am only challenging us to notice. And in noticing, we may learn a great deal about ourselves. It’s entirely possible that the emphatic nature of our writing is a prime indicator of how much we might need to take a break, veg out, take a nap, whatever works best.
For example, one sub headline that I just now plucked from another Medium writer reads:
“We’re all guilty of these 5 common errors in logical thinking.”
How can she possibly know such a thing? She doesn’t. This kind of hyperbole is exactly what I’m addressing here. When I scanned that article, what she wrote doesn’t apply to me at all. Therein lies the danger of including the entire Universe in what really is uniquely our own experience. That doesn’t take away at all from the validity of what you’re experiencing, but it has the unfortunate side effect of undermining the potency of the message if you and I seek to speak for eight billion souls. We can’t. Kindly, I’m not sure anyone can.
The first draft of some of my stories on Medium will often use similar language as above. When I discipline myself to read it aloud, I can hear the undue and unnecessary pressure on Dear Reader. That invites me to soften the language. Upon softening the language to Dear Reader, I also soften the internal voice to myself.
For example: if a sentence reads
We have to take the time to exercise to work out every day.
becomes:
It might be valuable to set aside time to work our bodies, as it fits our age, our fitness levels and how we feel that day.
The difference is significant. The first is imperious, demanding and non-negotiable.
The second is gentle, inviting, and respectful of Dear Reader.
This process allows me to hear the stress in my voice, my body and my heart. And, if I take it seriously, calm down not only the stress I am carrying, but respond to it with great kindness, take a deep breath, and rewrite my words.
Both writer and reader can be calmed down in the process.
Yesterday was a snowbound day of grace, plying myself with orange spice tea, a warm fuzzy blanket and mindless, distracting entertainment. What a lovely, wonderful, kind day. I was able to watch the body soreness, the persistent headache, the aches move through. Develop a far greater awareness of how the body, hour by hour, held, then released each feeling. I might just do it again today, it felt so good.
Rewriting our titles and our words can allow us to address our stress, and be kinder to our souls, and much kinder to our Dear Readers.
You and I don’t HAVE TO WRITE EVERY SINGLE DAY.
You and I don’t HAVE TO DO ANYTHING EVERY SINGLE DAY. Well, okay. Breathing and eating are rather useful. Relieving ourselves is right handy as well.
However, during times as stressful as right now, I might posit that self-care comes first, and part of that self-care might well be building awareness around our choices of reading, our choices of wording in our own material. Both are instructive, should we care to use them that way.
You most certainly don’t have to.
I may well need another full day of watching the snow build on my deck. Not doing my kickboxing DVD sessions. Not bulling through a big workout routine. Just…..being with the spring snow. Allowing my mind to rest, to wander. Not being exhausted by too many hyperbolic, hyperventilating titles on Medium for a while. Not all are like that, but enough so that at times, even a quick perusal of the offerings is just….not what the doctor ordered for now.
My inner doctor is advising some mental hygiene. I can’t speak for yours. Nobody else can speak for mine either, no matter how desperately those other authors bang on my brain about how to spend my day. What I can offer is only my experience.
Only you know what mental hygiene looks like for you. Only you know what your heart, your mind, your body might or might not need at any given time. This kind of focused time given us right now is rich with possibilities, including being more mindful of what we put out in our writing.
For my part I chose to increase my Other-focus, being kinder with my choice of titles, being more aware of my choice or words. For if I choose to do that, that is also being kinder to myself.
Now I am going to go take a long, hot bath, and watch how the day unfolds, blanketed by a perfect Colorado spring snow.
