by Jumh Tantri
Counsellor / Parenting Coach / Career Coach

I think in our society we have been taught to work hard and sacrifice our time to get more money until we neglect both mental and physical health.

The rich family does not educate their children to exchange a unit of time for a unit of dollars but rather they embrace the concept of working for free with the vision of getting a huge return instead. Initially, they may face umpteen failures but once they figure out the pathway to make money work for them, they can rest assured that their retirement is secured, and money will be working for them. You may say, “It is ridiculous! Who will work for free when everybody is struggling financially?” However, we need to accept that we can never earn enough money and they will not be the ones to bid farewell to us in the last stage of our life but our loved ones or friends.

One of the inspirational people I know is Chow Yun Fatt, a Hong Kong actor who is a billionaire, yet he lives frugally by taking the subway daily and eating affordable food. He shared that he spends 200 dollars each month. He would be seen taking photographs with the passersby. His quote is "The toughest part of life isn't about making tons of money; it's about keeping your mind at peace." I felt that he got his priority right where peace is the ultimatum so even when he gets rich or lives a materialistic rich life or not, he remains at peace and always pleased to help others by spreading happiness or joy simply attending to his fans daily.

Just like this Hong Kong actor's life, peace is often what a lot of us are craving both consciously and subconsciously so that we can have the freedom to do the things we love and enjoy. However, because of different life circumstances that have been bogging us down, our energy gets zapped away gradually and we often find no peace whether we are rich or not materialistically. Perhaps the fundamental task to do is to reflect and examine what should we do to attain peace and wisdom. That alone is the journey to maintain a healthy mental well-being and when you prosper in mental health, your physical health can experience positive effects, more inclined to have natural dopamine to keep you sane and healthy.

The route to achieve prosperity in mental health is firstly becoming more self-aware of yourself and what you should be doing is to seek professional help from a psychologist, psychotherapist, or counsellor who is trained in helping you to navigate your mental health and enabling you to see your blind spots that may hinder you to become optimum self. Individuals who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should seek help from a GP or specialist to manage this disease by exercising and eating healthy foods that will not rapidly spike the insulin level. In addition, use medication to regulate the sugar level. Similarly, individuals who are diagnosed with depression or anxiety can seek help from a counsellor or psychotherapist (for counselling or talk therapy to better navigate these mental illnesses), psychologist (for diagnosis of the mental health illnesses), and psychiatrist (to prescribe necessary medication if needed). Seeking mental health professional help through anxiety counselling or depression counselling is like getting screening and assessment for your mental state of mind which we will do physical health check-ups by meeting a doctor. Hence, it is getting an early intervention before it is too late. An important insurance to keep you sane and healthy mentally.

I think nowadays a lot of people would go google for symptoms and self-scare which is not uncommon but rather risky such as self-diagnosis and becoming more paranoid that you have certain mental or physical illnesses when in fact, you are far from it.

There are ways one can do to prosper in mental health as per following:

Treating yourself with compassion and loving yourself

Surely some naysayers would say you will be selfish if you over-prioritize yourself over others or you may turn into a narcissistic. That is where people's pleasing habits will never die off and individuals would be trapped in a negative cycle where they assume others' responsibilities in how they should think, feel, or behave instead of taking control of their own lives. Probably some of us unknowingly have failed a couple of times to take control of our lives so we may subconsciously try to control the things or people around us without realizing it. Therefore, the first step to prospering in mental health is to stop being a hero for everyone and you need to be sane and healthy mentally before you can participate in volunteering to help others, or else both you and your recipient will fall altogether.

Creating healthy boundaries for self and others

To love yourself is to know your limits, and pet peeves and know when to say no and stop the activities. Be mindful and take signals from your physical body that you are either reaching your limits or you can push further. This must be communicated so that you are informing others on how to respect (love) and not assuming others know what you are thinking and feeling. This itself is a sign of being respectful to yourself too so that others can respect you the way you are.

Many times, why we behave certain ways and think of certain perspectives have some close connection to our childhood experiences which could be the main factor to shapes who are today such as our attachment pattern, drivers, and injunctions (dos and don'ts, concept derived from Transactional Analysis). For this, you may approach me to find out more. I hope that you will take the first step to explore your ways to better optimize your mental health in turn letting your physical body find peace as you approach the serenity through mindfulness and be the master of your thought process, filtering negative intrusive thoughts and replacing them with positive truths plus evidence to know that you are loved and not alone.

Book a counseling session with me at The Counselling Place Singapore to work collaboratively on how to prosper in mental health and receive an optimum physical state as you live your life.