Mental Health Awareness: Wanted Compassion and Understanding

By: Elise Ronan | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel

Impressions we make are essential to how we view each other. Social awareness, some call it mindfulness, of the unsaid signals we emit are part and parcel of human interactions. But what happens when a person doesn’t understand the nuances and the secret handshake of unwritten social rules? What happens when these people become so overwhelmed by their environment that they exhibit actions, such as a meltdown, inappropriate yelling – laughing, or experience a panic attack complete with hysterics and uncontrollable crying?

It’s one thing if the helpless person involved is a child. Most of society has all sorts of qualifiers for a child that has issues and mental health concerns. But, as a person ages, society’s tolerance for such actions not only becomes mute, but in most part disappears altogether. Mental illness becomes an unspoken burden in part because it is sadly ignored,  swept away by families due to societal derision. As a person ages the stigma associated with mental illness becomes as much of a weight as the illness itself.

Society lacks basic knowledge about mental health issues. And in many ways tabloid journalism is to blame. The issues are sensationalized, especially when a violent individual commits some unspeakable crimes. (Ignoring the fact that most heinous crimes are actually committed by person considered sane.)The news will drone on and on about a subject that they know nothing about, simply making life unbearable for those already viewed to live on the fringes of society. The uneducated make conjectures, elicit ignorant opinions and promote fear instead of trying to enunciate understanding of what mental illness is and what it is not.

-Mental illness covers a wide range of illnesses. HERE Everything from ADD to autism to panic attacks to PTSD to the more severe forms of schizophrenia.

-The overwhelmingly vast majority of persons with mental illness are NOT violent. In fact they are more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than the perpetrator. HERE

-With help recovery is possible. HERE

It is important to remember that those with mental health illnesses are trying their best. What they need is understanding and acceptance. We can talk about accommodations and we can talk about civil rights until we are  “blue in the face,” but in truth, if someone is uncomfortable around a person with a mental illness, there will never be friends, employment and a successful navigation of society. Can comfort be taught? Can compassion become part and parcel of society?

First, what society needs to understand is that meltdowns, panic attacks, “episodes” are personal to the person. It is how the effected individual is feeling at that one given moment in time. Their being overwhelmed is about how they are processing the sensory information before them. They are in that space and they cannot necessarily remove themselves from that tornado that is their mind. (And as I have said before this inability to see beyond themselves-mindblindness- becomes more problematic as a person ages. A meltdown by a 10-year-old is taken alot differently than a meltdown by a 200 pound, 6 foot tall, grown-adult-male.) HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE

Second, yes, once their “episode” is over, they are capable of understanding what has happened. They realize, once they feel better, if they have been mean, cross or had been inappropriate. “I’m sorry,” is something heartfelt. Apologies abound. They truly feel embarrassed when they have digressed in the presence of their peers and they truly feel shame.

But unfortunately if their actions have frightened someone, scared off a potential friend, or have lost them a job, sometimes there really is no going back. What is lost is lost. The question becomes how do you teach them to understand their feelings in the moment and to control themselves? How do you teach them that impressions are real and that they have consequences before these consequences are life effecting?

Lastly, so what is a parent or caregiver to do? It is trying to teach the idea  that it is the little things that become important when talking about perception. It is the little things that become important when preparing someone for the future.

Walking out of a room, class or environment when they start to feel overwhelmed is a typical self-help method. (Making sure that they leave the room before they exhibit any negative actions is important also, and part of a long process of education.) Trying to get them to understand that their “tone” in a conversation is essential to how their emotional state is perceived is important for social interactions at both school and work. Teaching them the appropriate way to horse-around (even though it seems that in a school setting typical male bonding is seen as anathema in the first place in today’s world) and what to say as a “joke” in public is a good place to start, when teaching about community acceptance. Getting them to understand the necessity of therapy and medication to their own well-being. Promoting a healthy attitude towards exercise, food and self-care can also help in their navigation of the world.

But in the end we do need to accept the fact that there is also just so much anyone person can do to accommodate the world-at-large as well. We also need to understand that no matter how hard those with mental health issues do try, there is always going to be that one person who is just totally unaccepting towards them. This person will, no matter what, never forgive the ill for who they are. They will never see beyond the disability or mental health issue. Honestly, its better to teach the effected individual how to identify these antagonistic people and to just stay away from them. You can’t please everyone and honestly it’s not even worth trying.

As I have always taught my children this primary life lesson…wherever you go in life there is always going to be one “shmendrick.” The trick in life is to NOT be the “shmendrick.” That is basically impressions in a nutshell. That is the basic goal of those with challenges.

In the meantime, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Maybe one day there will be more give and take with society. Maybe one day the partnership will actually be 50-50. But until that time we work, we teach and we hope that the stigma of mental illness will be lifted and those that are forced onto the fringes of society will be accepted, understood and welcomed into the world inwhich they live.

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Londonderry School Uses Therapy Dog in Classroom

Southern New Hampshire Montessori Academy (SNHMA) has become one of the first schools in New England to bring in a therapy dog as a full time member of its community. Guardian, a Portuguese water dog, was chosen for his temperament, his silky soft hypoallergenic coat and teddy bear looks. While he’s in the process of completing his year-long training, Guardian is already having a positive impact in the classroom, where he is charged with being a calm, emphatic and steadfast best friend for little boys and girls.

“While school therapy dogs are still currently regarded as a cutting-edge educational tool, research is showing that dogs in the classroom can play a huge role in boosting students’ happiness, calmness, overall emotional well-being, and ability to learn,” explains Debra Hogan SNHMA’s Founder and Head of School.

Guardian, who is always here to greet student with a wag and a lick in the mornings, has helped the younger pre-K students with separation anxiety as their parents drop them off in the morning. “He is happy to see the children come in in the mornings and offers a welcome huggable friend to little ones who are finding it hard to see Mom and Dad go,” says Hogan.

Guardian is also helping first graders hone in their reading skills, as Ms. Hogan explains: “Dogs are perfect listeners. They are not judgmental; they don’t care if you don’t get the words exactly right, and for most children, practicing reading aloud is all they need to become fluent readers.”

“Therapy dogs can have a positive impact on every aspect of the classroom from lessons planning, to teaching social skills and responsibility, to comforting students in a time of grief or personal crisis. They teach, they listen, they are unconditional friends. I have seen children who had attention deficit disorder become calmer. I have seen children with emotional difficulties lie down beside the dog and whisper things in his ear, things they’d never tell an adult, and then rise up ready to learn. Their self esteem really soared,” says Terri Hamilton, an Elementary Guidance Consultant and Parent-Child Connection Advocate.

Images courtesy of Tanya Swann Photography.

Southern New Hampshire Montessori Academy offers an academically focused education to children through an integrated curriculum. Concentration is given to educating the “whole child” (all facets of the child’s being, including: intellectual, physical, emotional, social and creative aspects) with a strong emphasis of hands-on and experiential learning where children develop their passion in technology, science, visual and performing arts, foreign language and physical education. Complementing a strong academic core, the school offers an enrichment program that includes elementary Latin, creative arts (visual and performing), daily physical education, technology and Spanish. For further information, please visit their website.

Source:  Londonderry News

Tapping World Summit – (Part II)

What is Tapping or EFT???

EFT is an alternative healing technique that requires no special training or equipment, and using only your hands, can produce incredible and instantaneous results.

EFT is an emotional acupressure technique that utilizes meridian energy points across the body to 'discharge' past emotional trauma. While the concept itself may seem dubious, it has consistently demonstrated such amazing results that many psychiatrists and doctors have begun utilizing it as a part of their healing arsenal. What makes it particularly noteworthy is its high success rate for phobias and anxiety. EFT has been said to work where often nothing else will.

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Tapping is the Key to the Secret

The Secret is a revolutionary Self-Improvement DVD sweeping the planet, that explains how our thoughts create our reality. Tapping is a powerful acupressure technique that eliminates negativity. Using them together you can literally achieve anything you want.

The Secret is the Law of Attraction. It says that thoughts become things, whether they are negative or positive thoughts. We are always creating our reality, whether we know it or not. It's just that as often as we create what we want - positive thoughts, we also create what we don't want - negative thoughts.

Tapping is a meditation/self-hypnosis technique that helps you let go of negative thoughts and feelings. Every negative thought has a feeling attached to it. That feeling is an imbalance in your body's nervous system. You tap various acupressure points on your body to release that feeling, and the negative thought starts to change.

Whatever positive thought you try to focus on, negative thoughts jump up to get in the way. This is due to the body's survival mechanism being over-enthusiastic about it's job. Based on past experience, it perceives danger in what you are wanting to do. It's warning you that the last time you did something even remotely similar, it resulted in feeling bad - so it brings up the negative feelings ahead of time to make sure you don't do it. Negative feelings lead directly to negative thoughts.

The survival mechanism is doing its job, but a little bit too well - it gets confused with the complexities of modern life, and starts matching situations to past experiences that aren't really relevant, and bringing up feelings of danger when there are none.

Tapping literally removes the feeling attached to the past experience. That way the irrelevant warning feelings don't come up, and you don't think negative thoughts, and it becomes much easier to hold a positive mental picture of what you want, and take appropriate action.

This is extremely powerful - Tapping is the Key to the Secret.

How to Do Anything

This is simplified from The Secret, and also inspired by The Science of Getting Rich:

1. Make a PICTURE of what you want
2. Take the FIRST STEP towards making it happen

When you think about it, we follow this process to do anything, whether it's making a cup of tea or building a skyscraper. For big tasks we often chunk it down and make mental pictures of various milestones along the way, but this is just a detail.

So why does this process fail?... Negative thoughts, of course!

When we go to take that first step, that's when most negative feelings come up. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of what other people might think, fear of it just being hard work. Our sub-conscious mind is reminded of a previous time when we took a similar step and it ended badly. So naturally it's bound to warn you not to do that again... even though this time it's a totally different situation.

The feeling comes up, and we rationalise it with negative thoughts. We talk ourselves out of what it is we want to do, and go and watch television instead, or smoke a cigarette, or eat, or drink, or maybe just lie down and stare at the ceiling, wondering why we are such a failure.

The other option is to Tap away the feeling. Work out at which point the feeling was the strongest, and what that feeling reminds you of - when have you felt it before? When you find the first time, use Tapping to wipe the slate clean. Then take that next step again, and find that it's effortless to do so.

When you think about your mental picture, of when you've got where you want to be - what does it feel like to be there? Hopefully it feels pretty good... But maybe there are negative feelings lurking beneath the good feelings. Jump right into the picture, and look for fears, worries, self-doubts. What's the worst that could happen in that picture?

If there are any negative feelings in that picture, then guess what... your sub-conscious mind will find ways to avoid it. It will sabotage you, probably by convincing you that the next step you want to take is one that will actually take you further from your goal.

So tap away any negative feelings you find in your mental picture. The positive feelings that are there are your motivation to get there, positive feelings can't be tapped anyway. But underneath those, find each negative feeling, trace it back to find when you first felt it, and tap away the feelings stored in that memory.

If you apply this process repeatedly and thoroughly, all negative thoughts relating to your goals are vanquished. You can literally do anything you want.

YouTube - Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Introduction

There are several versions of tapping and tapping points. Here is a quick little cheat sheet drawing, but the points are a little different than in the videos above, which is how I learned.

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth

Tapping or EFT – (Part 1)

How Tapping Works

Before you read this, realize that you don't need to know precisely how Tapping works. If you try it, and watch your body and mind carefully to see what happens, you will realize that it does.

You just have a set of beliefs that say you need to fully understand something before you can use it! So you could try tapping those beliefs, because they probably hold you back in other areas.

You will still be left with unanswered questions after reading this explanation. My suggestion is that you experiment with Tapping and find your own answers. You don't really know how electricity works - no-one really does! But you still switch on a light, and you still cook your dinner with it. It's really true, even the most knowledgeable scientists don't know precisely how electricity works.

A Belief is a Thought that we are Emotionally Attached to

If I tell you that above my bed I have a painting of a tree, your mind will accept that information. If I then tell you actually it's not a painting of a tree, it's a painting of a boat, your mind will accept that information too. A thought is like that - easy to change. You receive new information and your mind accepts it.

If however, you touch a hot stove and feel pain, your mind will receive the programming that stoves are not safe to touch. If someone tells you that the glowing red stove is safe to touch, you will not accept what they are telling you. The difference is the emotion of physical pain, which is attached to the information.

This is the difference between a thought and a belief. An emotion becomes attached to the thought, as a signal to the mind that the thought is necessary for survival, and as a result the thought can not be easily changed.

Tapping removes Negative Beliefs. In fact, there is no difference as far as the body is concerned between a Negative and a "Positive" Belief. A Negative belief is just one that you have judged is unhelpful to your wellbeing, and a Positive one is a belief you have judged to be helpful.

In fact, we don't need the thought "Hot Stoves Give Pain" to be a belief in order to follow it. Thoughts that are not beliefs fit into our Understanding of the world and we live our life through them. In fact, when that becomes a strong belief we start to behave irrationally. For example someone might be burned by a stove as a child and when they are older still be very afraid of lighting a gas hob. There's no rational reason for them to be afraid of that, but it affects their life in a negative way - a positive belief becomes a negative one.

Bad Emotions are imbalances in the Nervous System

Good emotions occur when nervous energy can roam freely in the body. Bad emotions occur when nervous energy gets stuck. You can picture it as a standing wave of energy formed in one of the nerve channels in the body.

This is why we feel different emotions in different parts of our body. Sometimes we feel nervous in our stomachs, stress in our shoulders, fear in our hands, etc. Energy is trapped in nerve channels that run through those parts of the body.

Sometimes we tap on a feeling, and sometimes on an actual belief. In fact there is no difference. The emotion that is attached to a particular belief might be very strong, so we don't even notice the belief, just the feeling. It might be very weak so we don't even notice that there is a feeling attached to the words. But the feeling is there, otherwise we would not hold the belief.

Tapping Balances the Nervous System

When we tap, we say the belief out loud to bring up the corresponding emotion in the nervous system. Then we tap the various points to reset the system. Each point is the end of a nerve channel in the body. Tapping sends a shockwave down that channel.

There is no easy way to know which nerve channel is holding a particular emotion, so we just tap them all. Sometimes when you have done a lot of tapping you'll be able to just feel where it is, and you'll feel it clear as you tap it.

When the emotion is gone, your mind is no longer attached to the belief. Suddenly your mind is free to re-process it, and realize it isn't true or that there are easy ways around it.

YouTube - Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) Introduction

Posted: True Health Is True Wealth