Mental health is a crucial component for wellness. While it’s estimated that more than 1 in 5 adults meet criteria for a major mental health disorder, many of us are experiencing increased anxiety that does not meet full criteria but interferes with our lives. Despite high rates of emotional distress, only about 14% of U.S. adults received mental health services over the past year.
As a psychologist, I strongly believe in the effectiveness of mental health services. However, while psychotherapy works, the most important part of treatment happens after you leave the therapist’s office.
Therapy and mental health wellness work best when they are treated as a daily routine, not a weekly appointment. I often tell the trauma survivors that I work with that trauma takes away people’s power; it changes the way we see ourselves, others, and the world. I encourage people to take back their power by becoming lifelong learners and practicing a broad range of safe coping strategies. Approaching life with an openness and willingness to learn is essential. Seeking out and practicing effective coping skills is empowering.
I reached out to Steve Martino, a professor at Yale who conducts research on Motivational Interviewing, an evidence-based approach to enhance individuals’ motivation for change. “Staying committed to daily therapeutic practices in between therapy sessions can be challenging,” he told me. “Revisiting our reasons for change, setting simple achievable daily goals and plans to reach them, and recognizing progress made each day can help keep us motivated.”
Martino also trains mental health providers and peer specialists across the country in how to deliver Motivational Interviewing. He often encourages his trainees and sometimes his patients to read Finding Your Way to Change. The text provides self-reflective exercises and practical tools to apply Motivational Interviewing principles to support positive goal-directed change.
Many of us don’t have time or attention to read a book. So, one way to engage in this on our own (or with the support of friends, family members, communities) is to identify and set goals, create a wellness plan, and healthily motivate ourselves to take steps towards those daily.
Daily necessities like eating, bathing, and brushing our teeth are crucial to good hygiene and wellness. On that list, we must add dosing ourselves with motivation, such as adding a powerful phrase to remind us why we are doing what we are doing. This can be an intention we set first thing in the morning and throughout the day to keep us grounded in the work and on track. For example, “Today I will stay focused on being true to my values,” or “Today I choose to meet work challenges with patience and grace,” or “Today I choose connection over arguments.”
Think of this phrase as a kind of positive fuel to help you get up and get through hard days.
I also tell the people I work with that no person is an island. We need others for connection and support. If we don’t have a strong network, we need to encourage ourselves to build one. Years ago, I was working with a veteran with PTSD, and he told me his goal was to get married.
“Great,” I replied, “Do you have a girlfriend?”
It turned out that he didn’t have a girlfriend, know any suitable partners, and rarely left his apartment. We set some steps to reach his goal: leave his apartment at least several times a week, take a community college class, attend small social gatherings where he could potentially meet appropriate partners, and ask a woman out for a coffee or to a movie. We talked about how it was impossible to meet his goal without choosing to take small steps.
When we are feeling depressed, anxious, and super stressed, we often have a tough time clearly seeing our skills, assets, strengths, and capabilities. This is also indispensable to our confidence-building. If you don’t know your strengths or are unable to see them, you can work with a therapist or a friend to identify and develop your strengths. As I tell my patients, “You have strengths, or you wouldn’t be in my office.”
Recognizing that you can’t and shouldn’t go it alone seems like a vulnerability or weakness, but it is a strength. When we allow supportive people into our lives, are willing to self-reflect, and commit to doing the hard work to bring about positive change, we are already being resourceful, tapping into our courage and tenacity.
A lot of the people I work with, myself included, can get stirred up by their newsfeeds. It’s easy to fall into the traps of hyperarousal and doomscrolling. It draws us in like moths to light, and we tend to go deeper and stay in that jacked-up state. This is harmful to our brains, spirits, and bodies. I am not suggesting we don’t stay informed, active, and engaged in our world, and help to make it a better place. But if all we choose to take in is doom and gloom, that’s all we are going to get. And that won’t make us helpful to ourselves or others.
It’s important to take in positive and aspirational information and build and glow on it throughout the day. This is going to be different for all of us and can come from unexpected places.
Interestingly, I recently took my own advice. My husband and I had a couple in their 80s over for dinner. The husband served in Vietnam and is one of the most balanced and brilliant individuals I know. He handed me a book, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and The Art of Living, and told me to read a page every day.
Immediately, I thought, “I’m a working mama with three kids and two dogs. I barely have time to shower some days!” But then I paused and saw the book as the gift it was intended to be. I open it every morning and use it as a positive daily dose of inspiration.
Healing often starts with therapy. But it is only possible when the lessons of therapy, like goal setting, motivation, and safe coping, actually become part of your daily life.
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