July Mental Health Collection and Writing Prompt — To Be Well
What does wellness mean to you?
Is it feeling fulfilled without that drink, smoke, or sweet treat you used to feel you needed? Getting your medications adjusted just right? Sticking to a routine? Hitting the meditative state you’ve been seeking for years?
Wellness is different for everyone. We tend talk about wellness as some static state, one which we’ll reach one day with great effort. One which will last forever.
The truth is, wellness is more of an ongoing project. More often than not, it takes sustained effort over time and the ability to adapt and evolve as your internal and external circumstances change. In that sense, wellness is more aspirational than the dominant narrative would have us believe.
Messy Minders are all on our journeys toward wellness. Some days we feel well, and some days we don’t. Some days we can see wellness on the horizon, and some days we feel it slipping away. We may feel well for months or years, only to realize there’s more work to do — or, even more terrifying, we suddenly boomerang back through years of work and have to start over again.
All the while we write about the journey, bumpy as it may be. We might be looking forward or backward or we might be in the thick of it, but the one sure thing is that by writing, we work toward wellness.
Subscribe to this newsletter if you’d like to follow along as we pick our way toward wellness, one essay at a time. Join us as a writer to add your voice and share your path. Emma Laver-Scott and Ashley Broadwater joined us this month, and both have published great stories with us.
Wellness in the World
The world is not well. I feel I could stop there and no one would blame me, especially here in the U.S. where political and racial divides seem to be growing ever wider as the DNC and presidential election loom closer.
But, there are some big issues you should be aware of. First, the pandemic and those who are charged with knowing it inside and out. In his Atlantic article, Ed Yong writes, “Many of them told me that they feel duty-bound and grateful to be helping their country at a time when so many others are ill or unemployed. But they’re also very tired, and dispirited by America’s continued inability to control a virus that many other nations have brought to heel.”
And then there’s the experience of being Black in the U.S. According to Mental Health America, “…the historical Black and African American experience in America has and continues to be characterized by trauma and violence…” Add to that the current health crisis and rising racial tensions due to increased media coverage of police violence, and you get an experience that’s never been particularly good, made even worse.
I feel helpless. I do what I can to help narrow the gap but it’s a long journey that will take generations.
Wellness in Messy Mind
Ashley Peterson published a story with us almost exactly a year ago that still rings true today. Maybe I’ll Never Get Well.
Here’s my story of writing about my unwellness on my path to getting well.
Wellness in Literature
This is How, by Augusten Burroughs. Burroughs is my favorite memoirist ever, hands down. He wrote the book, Running With Scissors, which was later adapted into a movie, and has written loads of others, each just as entertaining than the last. He’s got a really unique way of seamlessly integrating humor and incredulity into some really dark moments of his life. In the first chapter of This is How, he addresses wellness:
“Telling yourself you feel terrific and wearing a brave smile and refusing to give in to ‘negative thinking’ is not only accurate — dishonest — but it can make you feel worse. Which makes perfect sense. If you want to feel better, you need to pause and ask yourself, better than what? Better than how you feel at this moment, perhaps. But in order ot feel better than you feel at this moment, you need to identify how you feel, exactly.”
Writing Prompt
As July’s theme is Wellness, this month’s writing prompt asks you to reflect on what it means to be well. Do you feel well? Have you ever? How will you know when you’re well?
Write about your relationship with wellness, and then submit your essay to Messy Mind. If you’re not already a writer for us, request to be added; do so a week before you plan on submitting a story, just to be safe. If you are, just add your story to the pub by July 31. Please use the tag “ToBeWellPrompt.” Exceptional submissions will be highlighted in next month’s newsletter.
The submissions for the Mirror Moments writing prompt from June can be found here. Thanks to Ryan Fan and Emma Laver-Scott for providing such intimate introspective pieces.
Shameless Plugs
Check out Ryan on the Beautiful Voyager podcast.
Don’t forget to follow our wonderful writers, and to sign up to receive this monthly newsletter for more mental health and introspective resources. If these words have spoken to you, they may speak to others as well. Share This Beautiful Mess with anyone you feel may appreciate it.
Until next time,
NK
