Mental Health – A calling to lead a better life
When you think of physical health, what comes to mind? A fit person running across a trail? A bodybuilder pumping weights that would probably make us regular folks faint? An older woman keeping up with her impatient dog without breaking a sweat?
Now, picture the phrase, ‘mental health’. Where did that sunny disposition disappear? Why are all our associations with mental health so gloomy?
Doesn’t that sound like a problem? It does to us!
Emotional First Aid Academy has a solution.
With over a decade of experience as a psychotherapist, Sunita K Mani’s work spans across specialties. She has been a Post-Trauma Crisis specialist, worked with UNICEF’s Nepal Earthquake Relief, and impacted many lives with therapy.
Time and again, her experience showed her the gaps in the way mental health is approached. As a result, she drafted the Emotional First Aid Certification to create a frontline of citizens who are mental health advocates.
Sunita K Mani wants to change how we see mental health. She wants to break that dam and make your mind flood with thoughts of self-love, happiness, and compassion for your fellow beings. For that, she says, we need to focus on what’s strong about the mind, rather than what’s wrong with the mind.
Enough of this obsession with mental illness, let’s talk about MENTAL WELLNESS! Let’s become THRIVERS, not mere survivors!
What is Mental Health?
Adulting is tough. Don’t we know it! Expectations. Commitments. Responsibilities. Big words that we wish we didn’t know how to spell, let alone understand.
Sometimes we miss that little child in us who couldn’t give a toss about what people thought. You know, that little kid who got so engrossed in playtime that they lost track of time and came home with muddy shoes? Kids are natural at being happy. We could take a few pages out of their mental health book.
For Sunita K Mani, mental health is a journey we embark on in our childhood and enjoy throughout our lifetime. It’s leaving fear at the door when you start something new. It’s being shamelessly true to yourself and guiltless self-care.
Mental health is putting a band-aid on those tiny psychological scars everyday life leaves on you and letting them heal. It’s all about taking care of your mind, just like you take care of your body. It could be as simple as getting a good night’s sleep, drinking enough water, or eating your greens (Yes, mom was right all along!)
Enter Emotional Hygiene
Over a decade of experience in psychotherapy has taught Sunita K Mani that often mental health professionals are too late to intervene in psychological issues. This has inspired her to shift the focus to the very origins of those issues.
She has tried and tested the method of addressing the roots of psychological problems. They are often things we underestimate like loneliness, rejection, or failure. Practicing emotional hygiene can help you nip it in the bud.
Emotional hygiene can create awareness within you and around you, of how we can impact each other in a positive way and reduce friction from everyday interactions.
Honestly, who wouldn’t love a world where people look out for each other AND themselves?
First Aid for your Soul
When you were in school, did you have a teacher who was like a ray of sunshine that lit up the room? They walked into class and gave wings to your imagination. You could be anything and anyone you wanted to be. Your dreams knew no bounds. Those were the days, right?
Also Read: What Is Emotional First Aid: 5 Ways To Practice It
Wouldn’t it be nice if we always had people like that in our lives? Their pep talks could make your anxiety dissipate; they could enable you to become the best version of yourself.
Emotional First Aid Academy has a secret to tell you. There still ARE people like that in your life! And they are everywhere—at work, in your neighborhood, literally everywhere! You just need to recognise them for the light they bring into your life.
What if we told you that, YOU could be that ray of light for someone else?
Don’t have a background in psychology? No problem. You can be anyone. A concerned parent, a well-meaning citizen, or someone who wants to be a mental health advocate and make a difference.
With EFA Academy, you can be a mental health champion or what we call an Emotional First Aid Responder, no matter who you are, where you come from, or what your background is. After all, mental health doesn’t discriminate. YOU can help us become the wave that will overtake loneliness.