Today we cover part three of my Wellness, Organized series: The Mental. For context, there is an overview post and podcast here and my focus on Physical Wellness here.

This is Mental Health Awareness month. I’ll start this post with the information that if you are struggling with anything serious - if you need to chat with someone - there are people who care, will listen and are specialized in meeting what you need. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline phone number is 1-800-273-8255. For other countries, you can look up yours here.

Mental health, just like physical health, requires ongoing attention to wellness. They are not the same, yet they are inextricably linked. What keeps someone “well” differs from person to person. The statement ‘you need to focus on self-care” doesn’t mean anything. Defining self-care for you, and starting on the learning journey of what you, personally, need is the name of the game. Hence these post. Here is a bit of my focus on mental wellness and I hope it’s helpful for you. I went through the process and I’m continuing to go through it.

To me, there are three aspects to mental wellness: Self-Love, Self-Care and your Belief System.

Self-Love

I used to think this was the most ridiculous thing on the planet. Asking me 10, 15, 20 years ago my opinion on “self-love,” my opinion would have been that people needed to just get over themselves, move on and get shit done. It wasn’t until I started to allow myself to grow and learn it for myself did I realize how far off the mark I was.

In essence - one way I like to say it, is that self-love is a respect for yourself.

Jacques Rousseau provides my favorite quote of all time in his book Confessions: “How can anyone be satisfied in life if they aren’t satisfied with the one person they can’t be separated from?”

Think back to a person that you loved or still love more than anything - a child, a spouse, a friend. You would do anything for them. You would drop anything and be at their side in a moment if they needed it. Are you willing to give yourself that attention as well?

The reason self-love is a challenge and difficult is because we know all of our secrets. We know our self doubts. We don’t see them in other people. We don’t see the mistakes that the people in front of us made 10 years ago, yet we remember ours and they gnaw at our confidence. We don’t see other people’s indecision - yet we feel our own.

Are you able to take things from the past, recognize them as lessons, or forgive yourself, and move on? Are you able to take your self doubt and recognize that only you see it, nobody else? Are you comfortable, in your own skin, to be who you want to be? We all want to be this way, yet we struggle. These are good places to start as an exercise to go through.

Figuring out the self-love thing was groundbreaking for me. If I hadn’t figured this out, I can say without a doubt that I wouldn’t be married. When I was chatting with her about this post, we were both in agreement that there is no way she would have stuck around if I hadn’t figure that out. Her question was how could you possibly love anyone else if you don’t love yourself? It turned out I wasn’t ready to meet someone until I had figured the self-love part out.

And this is true for any relationship - not just romantic. For friendships, co-workers, community, whatever - figuring out you, and bringing your best, is step one.

There is power in self-love. It’s about knowing that at the end of each day, you are going to be OK. That no matter the struggle - no matter the challenge you are faced with - you are comfortable with the choices you have made.

Self-love is about recognizing that you have value - to others and to yourself. It’s not self-adulation; this isn’t about false confidence or arrogance. It’s about respect, love and trust - which will lead into care.

Self-Care

When I say self-care,