Whole Person Mental Health Care
Anxiety & Trauma Therapy in Colorado Springs
Not long ago I sat with a woman in tears who said...
"I just don't know what's wrong with me. I have plenty of money. I can do what I want. Why am I so unhappy?"
And my first thought was, it’s so common and human to automatically assume something is wrong with us when we're sitting in uncomfortable feelings - but having feelings in response to life events is normal. We're created to feel. Sometimes no one has taught us how to have feelings without getting overwhelmed, but we can learn. And learning to accept feelings as normal and sit with them can actually make us feel much, much better.
My next thought, and what I said to her, was...
"That seems really unfair to yourself. That statement implies that you're just a financial being. If you were just a financial being then, yes, money would be enough to solve your problems. But you're also a body, a soul (mind & emotions), and a spirit. You have a physical life, an emotional life, a spiritual life, a relational life, and a financial life. A lot of needs that exist outside of money aren't being met right now."
As we talked about all the areas of life where her needs had not been met well in the past or were not being met well in the present, we were able to not only make her feelings make sense, which always makes them feel more manageable, but also identify solutions that would get to the heart of the matter and create lasting change.
Issues like anxiety, depression, emotional overwhelm, and even trauma, are whole person health issues
They have physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual components that all need to be addressed to achieve balance, to feel present, and to heal. Unfortunately, a lot of what we learn about mental health is one dimensional and can leave us believing things like...
if I just had more faith I wouldn't feel anxious (overemphasizing the spiritual)...
if I just had more money I wouldn't be overwhelmed (overemphasizing the physical)...
if I just wasn't so sensitive I wouldn't feel depressed (overemphasizing the emotional)...
But mental health is multi-faceted and requires a whole person approach.
What are you doing for self-care in the areas of physical health, mental/emotional health, and spiritual health?
Self care is so much more than taking hot baths, grabbing a latte, or planning a vacation
Self care is a daily discipline, it's putting consistent habits and routines in place for body, soul, and spirit, and then maintaining them over time. This is different for everyone and it takes some experimenting to figure out what works for you, but whole person mental health care routines might look like...
Daily quiet time
Consistent exercise
Unplugging from electronics
Healthy sleeping and eating habits
Gratitude practice
Journaling to process emotions
Social connection
Routines that relax and reset your nervous system
And there are so many more. In therapy I walk people step by step through a process to identify in what areas things are going well and in what areas needs are going unmet, then individualize self care routines from a whole person health perspective that create deep healing over time. Many people tell me that they've learned coping skills but they're just not entirely doing the trick, so we search for what works specifically for them and without fail, we find it.
