For Your Mental Health, Keep the Dog Out of the Barn
“The best way out is always through” — Robert Frost
Once a man had a cow and he loved her dearly. After some time, the cow started thinning day by day for unknown reasons. The owner did everything to revive her health, but all in vain. He consulted many vets and used their prescribed medicines on the cow, but nothing good happened. The cow’s health was deteriorating with every passing day.
One day he met a vet and told him everything he did for his cow. After hearing the whole story, the vet wanted to visit the cow, and they set out to the barn of the owner. On the way, the vet enquired further. “how many animals are there in the barn?” the owner replied, “two”. The vet asked about the other animal’s kind and the owner told him it is a dog we tie near our cow in the barn.
The vet stopped immediately and said to the owner, “you don’t need a vet or medicines, all you need to do is to remove your dog from the barn and your cow will start nourishing again”.
Today, the entire world commemorated Mental Health Day.
It is a good sign that recently people are taking mental health seriously. Before these decades, mental health was not regarded as significant and worth focusing.
Yes, we all have mental health problems. Whether we admit, it is very much there.
Closing our eyes to it doesn’t render its presence void. We have to face it and to emerge victorious from it.
Healthy people possess strong mental health. But the weak fall prey to it easily.
But all of us aren’t invincible to it. Some of us break under the pressure like glass and get shattered into pieces.
But it doesn’t mean that the glass cannot be turned into steel. YES, it can be. But you must go through that transformation.
We all have different reasons for the damage to our mental health. However, the outcomes are the same for all — depression, chronic stress, loneliness, lack of confidence, shyness, hesitation and stuttering.
But the good news is, we all can get out of the devastating mental health condition by following the same steps — Facing the problem, doing our work on the time, getting good sleep, eating healthy, and doing exercises.
But with all these common remedies, stop telling yourself these:
No One Knows it and No One believes it
Yes, no one knows until they suffer from it. But if you believe that telling someone about your mental health might embarrass or will expose your weaknesses, you are wrong.
It only exposes their ignorance.
There are always people who love us and care for us. You must confide in someone. Tell them what’s going on in your head.
Don’t hold it back. The more you hold your conditions back in the hiding, the more it keeps you pressed.
So, don’t tell yourself they don’t know. Tell yourself that they will support you if you let them know.
Keep the Dog Out of Your Barn
If you want to grow healthy, take care of your mental health.
If your mind is not nourishing on pleasant talks, your physique won’t get many benefits from healthy foods.
We all have a dog in our surrounding. It might be a family member, boss or friend. Identify him and keep him out of your mental barn.
They only fill your mind with shit. Because they fill their mind with that.
Such people are envious, jealous, and greedy. That’s why they cannot absorb your success.
The success may be of anything. Whether you are growing in your business, getting attraction because of your beauty, admired for your money or other things.
These people will always bark and will try means to snatch your opportunities. Don’t let them do so. Try to kick them out of your life.
If your boss is hard and points all his failures at you, leave. Leave with optimism. Hoping you are not fit here, you are made for something else and somewhere else.
Change your friends if they happen to be stressing you out. They are not friends, they the actual dogs which don’t let your cow grow.
You don’t Need Medicines
For a healthy mind, you don’t need medicines.
All you need to have an attitude, a lifestyle and an approach.
You need to know what stresses you out. Once the stressor is known, throw him out like garbage. It only makes your house stink badly.
Give time some time to yourself out of your 24 hours. That time maybe 20 to 30 minutes. That must your time. Use it in productive activities.
Listen to your favourite music. It lightens your burdens.
Go out for a trip far from the maddening crowd and chill out in the wilderness. It will only enliven your inner nature and will shed away all the artificiality, which is often the only cause of mental health decline.
Follow an approach of a winner. Look to opportunities with great optimism and accept changes. It’s part of life. Adjust yourself to it.
Keep Your Spirit Alive
Don’t kill your spirit. Don’t starve it.
A dead or starved spiritual health is nothing but a catastrophe for physical and mental health.
Try to get energy from nature, as nature is the great spiritual healer. Ancient people have always used it for spiritual healing.
Even today people go out to nature for physical and mental healing. It is even scientifically proved that spending time in nature can have highly beneficial effects on our body and mind.
Avoid material life all the time. It only makes us more stones. All this material world is nothing more than a trap. We are all trapped here and lost our spirituality.
Keep a balance in it.
Enjoy What You Have
The sign of good mental health is to enjoy what you have at present. Sick or weak people long for the past.
I am not saying to forget the past completely or remembering it is bad for mental health. It has always been ecstatic to remember past splendid memories and get inspired by it.
But those who only live in their past glories and have lost their hopes of getting ahead.
Future lays unfolded to us. Who knows what it holds for us. Try not to leave it unfolded.
Change the fold of your future by changing your response to it. Work for a better future.
And that can only be done if you enjoyed what you have at hand. If you cannot make the best of your present, your future won’t give you the best.
This approach will nourish your mental health. As most of our mental problems are the product of the fear, we have for our future.
Be expressive
Have someone to express everything to him or her. Do it even if you look stupid. If you cannot do it to someone else, do it to yourself.
You too don’t know the true meaning of your thoughts and ideas until you hear it. It feels different when you tell something to yourself.
Tell it to yourself aloud and you will then truly know it.
When you keep heaps of talks, idea, and thoughts in your heart, it will only come up to your throat to choke it.
Leave space for your breathing and expressing your fears, wishes, emotions and love amply provide for it.
Final Words
We all have problems to deal with. Some deal with it as problems and some make it a matter of life and death.
Remember! life is most precious. Problems are part of life. Life is not part of problems. When you think the latter, you become mentally sick.
Avoid that by all costs. And the costs are easy and simple.
- Don’t care for someone if they don’t know your problems. Find people who care for you.
- Avoid jealous and greedy people. Change your job if your boss is tough. Move on if your relation stresses you and creates mental problems.
- All those who cannot see your success are not good for your health. Don’t pay heed to them. Let the barking dogs bark more aloud. It will only advertise you.
- Don’t get addicted to drugs. Depend on your lifestyle, attitude and approaches to life. Mend them if they are failing you.
- Nourish your spiritual health, live the present, and be expressive. For the world will respond to you with more joy.
