5 Reasons Why Your Mental Health Should Be Your Highest Priority

When your inner world is thriving, your outer world will too

One trend that continues to trouble me in these new roaring 20's is how so many people make their own wellness such a low priority and it almost paradoxically makes them extremely selfish. When people make themselves such a low priority, they are resting their awareness onto other things and other people instead of themselves and they almost always seem to drift in a direction towards selfishness and general destruction. Many of them become destructive to themselves and others without even realizing it.

Our culture has widely adopted this attitude that taking good care of yourself and practicing self-love is somehow ugly, selfish and narcissistic. "Crazy is the sane and sane is the new crazy," is something that I find myself repeatedly saying these days. This set of beliefs is the destructive nonsense that is partially responsible for our steady decline into the hell of mental illness. If you ask me, the lack of awareness is what leads to small degrees of malignant narcissism. It's almost as though the subconscious mind is crying for help.

How mentally healthy people act

Happy and mentally healthy people are good for society. Very good for society. Think of an individual cell in your body that is really healthy like a healthy blood cell. It will serve the entire community well. It promotes health and healing while doing more good in the body than a dozen unhealthy or sick blood cells.

Happy and healthy people are kind. They are caring. They are conscious of their individual impact to those around them. They choose their words carefully while practicing a greater capacity for compassion and empathy. They are careful to not cause more harm or damage on top of what is already taking place. The fact of the matter is that we need far fewer people giving up their own wellbeing for the advancement and improvement of society when doing so is exactly what is causing society to decline. Giving up your own wellbeing to try and make the world a better place is making the world a worse place. We need far more people to make their own wellbeing a much higher priority as they are the ones that are going to do more good in the world. And for the record, I don't believe you can do good in the world if you are in a bad place. Your attempts to good in the world will be misguided because you will have inadvertently drifted to that place of selfishness and you can easily become destructive without realizing it or being concerned about the harm that you could be causing.

We currently have a culture of criticism. Society has many problems and all we hear is criticism. It's useless and destructive. It's kind of like when a public building lacks a wheelchair ramp, people get busy destroying the stairs. This culture of criticism acts in this way. They are destructive when they think they are doing good in the world but this is what hurting people do. They harm. The adage that hurt people hurt people is true.

A lot of people don't dedicate themselves to being well because they run into a worthiness issue. They don't believe that they deserve it and while I realize the importance of finding personal worth and value at a very basic and core level, we also need to be aware that if we aren't well, we are far more likely to do harm to others. We don't just owe it ourselves to be well, we also owe it others.

Here are the top 5 things that happen in your life when you improve your mental health.

1. Your relationships are much better - we need human connection but our relationships aren't going to be very good ones if we aren't well. Relationships are better when you don't take things personally, when you're not expecting your partner to fix you or save you and when you're more willing to be vulnerable. When you're well, you have better boundaries and better boundaries make for better relationships. You can't be deeply connected to others when you're entirely disconnected from yourself.

2. You do more good in the world - I already discussed this but when you're well, you are more likely to be constructive. You're going to be more generous and caring. You're going to be a better person. In sense, you have a duty to be mentally healthy.

3. There are few limitations and barriers in your life - A mentally healthy person is a capable person. They see limitations and barriers as things to get around, overcome and in many cases as a wise and powerful teacher. One of the biggest barriers between people who get better and those who don't are those that see barriers as things that they can't work around are those that remain defeated. The process of addressing your issues is an empowering one.

4. Better physical health - I don't think most people realize or appreciate the relationship between your mental and physical health. Stress, is destructive to your body because your body releases a constant stream of harsh stress hormones, for example. Mentally unhealthy people make poor decisions for their health. They make bad food decisions, they drink more alcohol, they tend to cope in more harmful or destructive ways. Their sleep is often poor and your body needs sleep.

5. You are far more likely to live your best life - Sadly, many people give up on living their best life which is tragic and sad. If we're not here to experience joy, happiness, fulfillment, connection, love and meaning that truly what would be the point at all? I'm the type of clinician that aims for my clients to find their best life, even in small degrees. I love to see people feel more connected to their daily living experience. So many people are more like a walking corpse, they aren't truly alive. Most people look for happiness and being able to truly live in entirely the wrong places and I have learned that it has to start within and it really doesn't matter how perfect your outer world is, if your inner world is in chaos, it will tear down the good things.

If your mental health is not in good shape, everything will be shambles. Everything. It starts with the mental game. You're far more likely to clean your life up if your mental game is in order. The same is true for your career, your love life and quite literally everything else. Many wise people have said that if you change your thoughts, you'll change your life and I am a firm believer in that. I've made a career off of showing people the way.