Hello everyone :)
I hope you are all well! I’m pretty good.
Here is the last essay from my writing class. The assignment was to write an eight-page persuasive essay, using seven references. So it’s not a quick read. And it’s deep! But it might contain some gold. Haha, you decide.
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It’s such an uncomfortable topic, but it opens the gates to freedom: There are two ways to acknowledge that underneath all the smiles and happiness, we suffer. First, as reported by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Problems with mental health are very common in the United States, with an estimated 50% of all Americans diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime.” Second, just look at people you know best. Are they really as happy as they could be? Or do they each carry around their own personal brand of anger, sadness, fear, or hurt? In an age of positivity it’s easy to discount these emotions as inconsequential, but the ways in which they pollute humanity tell a different story.
Current approaches aimed at resolving and maximizing peoples’ mental-and-emotional wellbeing (ME Well) come with financial limitations and drawbacks. Meditation, however, is free, and is an effective tool in personal self-development. It should be taught in schools so everyone an learn how to do it. So that the dark recesses of humanity can light.
If we reflect honestly, do we not find variations of anger, sadness, fear, and hurt within others and ourselves? No matter how small? Lingering, lurching, overwhelming, echoing, vibrating, rotating, suffocating, surviving, festering, fluctuating, and overstaying any logical and useful welcome? Is it worth keeping them? These insidious emotions that fuel insecurity, helplessness, compassion, addiction, deceit, betrayal, cheating, stealing, abusing, blaming, judging, impatience, intolerance, arrogance, contempt, revenge, fighting, domination, neediness, selfishness, and more? Is it worth keeping these emotions and behaviors that cause us - even in subtle ways, bit by bit, little by little - to not really listen, to not understand, to not care, to demand, hurt damage, destroy and isolate? Is it worth seeing these emotions that cause us to act like we don’t affect each other so profoundly that it’s impossible to attain harmony for ourselves without attaining it for other?
It becomes clear that it’s not just about ourselves, it’s also about what we’re spreading to others - often to the ones we love most. Our emotions shape our interactions, and if we aren’t spreading light we’re sharing suffering. And as we all know (from being on the receiving end) even the subtlest amounts are noticed, even the smallest amounts add up. Therefore, if we possess even the tiniest amounts of the darker emotions within us, are they not worth addressing? Also if we are at all discouraged about the state of the world, or have critical opinions about the market behaviors of others, shouldn’t we do as we wish others would? Should we not address ourselves? Imagine what would happen if everyone would take care of themselves in this way.
Current approaches aimed at creating ME Well include self-help, therapy, and medication. Self-help books are usually written by educated specialists or individuals who have weathered a storm successful. Podcasts, blogs, and online or in-person training are other popular mediums. As long as a person takes the time to find the right self-help product, the effort invested can be rewarding.
For example, when I was twenty-two I started experiencing panic attacks. When I visited the psychology section at a local bookstore I was overwhelmed, almost to the point of panic, by the thick, seemingly-endless volumes of psychological theory. The task seemed bigger than the cure. But then an assistant showed me an easy read from the self-help section. It taught me a technique that eradicated my problem; a technique I would find out years later was essentially the same as the meditation technique taught by Buddha. It also taught me how unavoidably involved we are in creating our minds and emotions, knowingly or unknowingly, for good or for bad. Self-help can save the day, but relies on a person finding the right discourse at the right time. It also cost money, which limits its accessibility.
Therapy is another modality which has proven effective in aiding ME Well. Costs, however, can keep it out of reach. Even with health insurance, which itself s a cost, consultations range from $20 to $150 per session. And while there are group lessons available I some areas, some discounted, some free, one has to travel to therapy. For people with demanding schedules this alone can keep them away. Some people are avoiding this issue by accessing therapists online, but report the experience as impersonal.
Medication is another popular choice in addressing one’s inner being. But while medication can alter states quickly, it has a number of drawbacks. First, it’s not free. Second, medications come with side effects: dry mouth, constipation, low blood pressure, kidney or gastrointestinal problems, decreased sex drive, drowsiness, withdrawal, burred vision, and potential death when certain medications are mixed with alcohol or tyramine-related food (Kosslyn and Rosenburg 705). Third, medication doesn’t cure.
To illustrate, an appetite suppressant can reduce a person’s caloric intake, helping them to lost weight. Bt it doesn’t help a person develop the self-sustaining physiological functioning that keeps fat away - it doesn’t create toned muscle fitness, and health. Neither does it help a person develop the beliefs, values, emotions, and behaviors needed to exercise and eat well.
Critical to achieving ME Well is the understanding that we create it - it’s up to us. We are not broken when - no matter how subtly - our emotions get the best of us. We are simply expressing a part of our current make-up. But we are in charge of who we are. ME Well is about each individual taking resistibility for their darker emotions, owning them, owning that its in their control and then exercising th practices that allow them to shape and direct their inner-being.
It’s possible: Imagine two people and a spider. One person sees spiders as dangerous, creepy creatures. The other believes them to be useful and interesting. Notice how their unique beliefs affect their ME Well. Upon seeing the spider it’s easy to imagine the first person reacting with fear, and then stomping, crushing, or behaving in ways designed to kill. In contract, notice how the second person’s beliefs induce feelings of respect of excitement, motivating behaviors such as curiosity and care.
In the analogy the spider can represent anything from certain people to the world at large. Notice that the spider doesn’t change; peoples’ beliefs do. And what a change it makes. Self-help and therapy both teach ways for people to identify aspects of their being which can be changed; changes that can decrease the darker emotions and increase the lighter; changes that through human interaction have the power to transform so much disharmony in the world.
But when we note that self-help, therapy, and medication all require external assistance it becomes clear that we don’t have self-evidently effective, personally accomplished, physiological tools with which to manage, shape, and direct our inner-selves. In comparison, if a person is overweight, unfit, or unhealthy, they know that exercise will help: running, aerobics, walking, swimming, cycling, gym, and participating in sports are all well knows solutions. But if someone is looking to boost him or herself mentally or emotionally, the solutions are far less obvious. One could even say - outside of seeking self-help, therapy, or medication - they’re non-existent. According to Tyson, “The mental health system must innovate to develop more effective models of care, especially for those with mild to moderate illness, who need the tools and support to care better for themselves.” What then, are the mental and emotional equivalents of exercise?
“Studies suggest that regular meditation can affect a wide variety of psychological and medical symptoms” (Kosslyn and Rosenburg 216). Meditation inherently heightens awareness of one’s values, beliefs, thoughts and emotions, while at the same time strengthening one’s ability to shape and direct them. What exercise does for the body, meditation does for ME Well. Can you imagine the state of humanity's physical health if every time a person wanted to exercise they had to find, pay for, and travel to a personal trainer? Or if so little was commonly known about exercise that people had to search for books just to show them what jogging is? Bodies would be suffering and physical wellness would be a novelty. Yet this is the state of our current mental and emotional landscape, because we don’t have relevant exercises, commonly knows and practiced.
Teaching meditation in schools will help remedy this situation. It’s easy to teach, easy to learn, and it’s free. Schools are already offering mental health days - similar to sick days but motivated by low ME Well (Mental Health Days). Shouldn’t we also teach a tool to increase ME Well? As Wisner, Jones, and Gwin write, “Studies have shown that the benefits of meditation interventions for adolescent include improved cognitive functioning; increased self-esteem; improvements in emotional self-regulation, self control and emotional intelligence; increased feelings of well-being; reduction in behavioral problems; decreased anxiety; decreases in blood pressure and heart rate; improvement in sleep behavior; increased internal locus of control; and improved school climate” (152).
People opposing this idea say that meditation is not for everyone because some people aren’t able to meditate. For example, a fundamental element of meditation is to notice when one’s attention has shifted away from a chosen focus (such as noticing the rhythm of one’s breathing). Some people complain they can’t meditate because their minds won’t cooperate, their minds constantly wander.
But a wandering mind is a large part of what the practice is addressing. To say you’re unable to meditate because your ind wanders too mush is analogous to someone saying they cannot exercise because their muscles don’t have coordination and it’s tiring. In both exercise and meditation it’s as natural for there to be resistance, as there is for progress.
Also, it’s important to keep in mind that if a person’s negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are not cause critical levels of trouble in their lives or relationships, it can be easy to do nothing about them. But lifting the deepest recesses of our beings is not just about crises control. It’s also about proactively attaining perspective, patience, tolerance, understanding, compassion, gratitude, strength, courage, maturity, foresight, integrity, calm, and inner-peace. These states don’t just happen, they’re earned. They are the result of healthy, exercised, mental and emotional faculties. Meditation is the activity of exercising these faculties.
Even so, some people argue they are fine without a ME Well practice like meditation. It’s so easy to discount our own level of antisocial emotions as inconsequential. But how can it be that we are exempt, when with so little effort we can point out unnecessary levels in others? It’s so easy to say we’re not part of the problem, but then where do so many of life’s struggles come from: impatience, road rage, insomnia, loneliness, comfort eating, compulsions, addictions of all kinds, laziness, obsessiveness, stress-related physiological conditions, phobias, neurosis, and the stories we hear from each other every day, about people hurting people? We are not exempt. Despite the conviction in our ways, despite the surety of our viewpoints, despite the soundness of our reasoning, we are at the other end of other peoples’ stories. Normally in small ways, little things we could’ve handled better, but things which hurt others none the less; things that add up; and also occasionally some big things.
As far back as 1990 meditation was recognized as being (at the very least) a useful stress-management technique (Sdorow 157). Yet most people still don’t know how to do it. It’s time to teach ourselves how to attain greater levels of ME Well by teaching meditation in schools, where everyone will have a change to learn how to do it. Humanity won’t get better, until we do.
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So there you have it. Possibly a bit preach but I really do believe in what I said. This type of thinking has really helped me grow, through thick and thin. I hope there was something in there for you too. And if you’re reading this, you might be one of the only people to have made it to the end, haha. Congratulations. And thank you.
I'll check in with your again in the new year! Lots of love to you all. May you feel someone’s love, give lot of love, and gain one or two pounds (or kilograms) from some really good treats in the next two months.
PS (I’d love to hear from you!)
Lots of love,
Barrett
Check out my next blog: An update from September 2021 - January 2022
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