mental illness – Don's Golden Blog

“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” – Viktor Frankl 🗣
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A life filled with purpose and meaning is what drives a person forward. Without either of these, why does a person desire to live? Why does a person then wake up every single morning: to live…or to maintain? 🤷‍♂️
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I believe these are very important questions we need to ask in a world where mental health continues to be a grave concern. 👍
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⚠️ According to the World Health Organization, depression is now the leading cause of mental illness with an estimate 300 MILLION people affected. ⚠️
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A few years ago I would’ve also been a part of that list. But I’m not anymore. 😲
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“So what changed, Donald?” 💬
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I’ll tell you it definitely wasn’t a quick-fix. As much as I want to tell you that, I’d be lying. We all want a quick-fix, the path of least resistance, the least amount of work for the biggest reward. But it’s really not the case.
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🌟 Quick fixes are not how sustainable changes in our lives work. 🌟
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Here are key factors which helped me in changing my life:
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📍 I started doing things I was deeply passionate about, even if it wasn’t “realistic”.
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📍 I started choosing to see every problem I had as a “gift” I could learn from.
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📍 I started challenging my bad habits. I quit drinking soda. I started eating more vegetables and whole foods. I started exercising more. In turn I eventually lost over 80 pounds.
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📍 I studied philosophy and saw there’s MANY ways to look at our lives and how we can live them.
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📍 I started meditating daily and becoming aware how my thoughts were greatly controlling my life.
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📍 I made a habit to always be grateful for something in my life, no matter how little.
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It wasn’t a magic pill that “treated” my depression; it was making lifestyle changes that were meaningful and purposeful. ❤️
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It wasn’t seeing depression as a biological defect that helped me alleviate its symptoms; it was seeing my emotions as messengers telling me something had to change in my life. 📬
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The status quo isn’t working; otherwise we wouldn’t have so many people feeling this way. This calls for additional solutions to solve our mental health crisis.
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🌟 I’m not saying to get rid of the current menu, but rather we expand on the available options people can become aware of and choose from. 🌟
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I’m very grateful I’ve had the opportunity to step outside the norm and go in a different direction the past year. I feel so much happier than I ever use to. 😊
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It’s not to say everything is perfect, but that life is much more fulfilling these days. And that’s a life worth living! 👌
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I will also never forget to help others do the same! It gives my life even more meaning! Eudaimonia! ❤️#TranscendLabels

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Do you ever feel lonely? ☹️
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We all have at points in our lives. It’s important to add there’s also a difference between “feeling lonely” and “being alone”. A person can be with a group of people and feel lonely. A person can be completely alone and feel content. 👍
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So why do topics like mental health continue to be an issue in our society? I’ll give you one BIG reason:
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⚠️ Many people are rejecting their emotions, especially due to the influence of others and their environment. ⚠️
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We’ve been taught to believe that emotions are a sign of weakness, that they are not useful in our modern world. 😔
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🗣 “Just be happy!” 🗣
🗣 “You have no reason to feel this way!” 🗣
🗣 “You’re being irrational!” 🗣
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In people’s good intentions, they unfortunately have made the problem worse. In their good intentions, they fail to meet the other person in their emotional home. 🏠
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Why? Because they aren’t able or willing to go there themselves. 😲
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🌟 If you want to help someone, you have to meet them where THEY are, not where YOU want them to be. 🌟
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Because we’ve been taught so long not to accept our emotions is the very reason why it’s become a bigger problem today. Psychologist Carl Jung said: “Whatever you resist persists and grows larger in size.” 💬
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I see our current mental health crisis as the long-term response for embracing this idea (which is in and of itself irrational). The bubble of “resistance” has grown so “large in size” it’s finally burst. The pendulum is now swinging in the opposite direction. 🤬
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But with noting the problem, what is the solution?
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🌟 We need to stop pathologizing our emotions, especially the negative ones. 🌟
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What if we could see our emotions not as spam to delete but as mail giving us an important message for our lives? 📭
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What if we could see our emotions not as biological defects but as essential character traits for our evolutionary survival? 💪
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How different would our society be if we stopped treating our emotions as a nuisance and more as an essential tool for our personal growth? 🧠
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I understand why some disagree with me here:
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😡 “If you let people focus on their negative emotions, you enable them to feel more depressed!”

😡 “Emotions make you irrational! We need less emotions and more logic as the solution!”
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It’s funny because I very much agree with these statements, but to an extent. I definitely don’t want to enable anyone to feel more depressed. That’s the last thing I’d want to have happen with what I am communicating! I also am a huge advocate for logic, reason, and critical thinking. I believe they’re also crucial for the epistemic crises we will experience. 👌
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So I won’t throw either of those criticisms away but to say we can extend on them! 👍
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❤️ I’m talking about using our emotions in an intelligent way, with intention, with purpose, not as an indulgence. ❤️
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🌟 There’s a difference between allowing someone to feel their emotions for constructive solutions and allowing someone to feel their emotions simply to dwell in them. 🌟
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Mental health is so easily swept under the rug because it can be an unpleasant topic to discuss. The very reason we “resist” talking about it is the more reason why it will “persist” and be discussed! 👏
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🌟 While you may not personally feel these negative emotions on a daily basis, there are plenty of people that feel it constantly. 🌟
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The fact that a lot of us (including myself at times) aren’t willing to discuss it says a lot about how we treat our emotions in society. 😟
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Again, it’s NOT to dwell on our emotions! That’s the last thing I want people to presume with what I say here! 👍

❤️ I’m talking about using our emotions in an intelligent way, with intention, with purpose, not as an indulgence. ❤️
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I share this with you all today:
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☯️ So we as a society allow ourselves to be okay with the existence of negative emotions.
☯️ So we can let ourselves and each other know it’s okay to not be okay, not to enable but to accept the present moment.
☯️ So we continue bringing awareness to this issue.
☯️ So we continue being persistent in our focus on solutions.
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PLEASE SHARE so others hear this message! Let others knows they are not alone and there are solutions we can focus on! ❤️ #TranscendLabels

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Tag: mental illness

Why a Life of MEANING and PURPOSE is Worth Living!

Why Your Emotions MATTER!