Étiquette : Mental Health

Publié dans IFS, Mental Health, Reflections, Sam's adventures, Stress Management

Building Community

Publié le par Snowrose

I have often wondered what it would be like to live somewhere where building community is part of the culture. Over the last five years, I have been trying to build community intentionally, and I have found it to be needlessly hard. Canadian culture, especially in the big cities, is not anything like the international community imagines. We have an overdeveloped sense of autonomy and an individualistic mindset. From the conversations I have had with those who immigrate to Canada, the culture shock is isolating. As someone born and raised here, I love my country, but I hate the autonomy of our culture.

My experience has been common: building community is hard. It is easier to live interdependently in rural areas, but in the city? Oh boy, individualism is the ideal. This has been detrimental to our population for so many reasons. While everyone has a fundamental integrity need for agency, individualism takes this principle too far. People wonder why rates of mental illness are continuously on the rise in Canada. The simplest answer? Broken homes and no community. I realize those topics are heavy and loaded, but as an adult child of divorce, I can attest to the impact of both. Canada is a land with so much potential, despite its cosmopolitan history. It’s not too late to turn things around for the next generations.

The solution? Intentional Community Building.

If we want to turn the tide on mental illness and suicide, we need to work intentionally to make and foster a culture of community. To be honest, we need to embrace the Canadian stereotype and welcome the level of hospitality and kindness that the international stage believes we have. To be honest, I don’t know the steps needed to make that change, but I know it is the direction that we need to go.

It has taken me 5 years to start seeing the fruit of building up a community at my local parish, with consistent support from my friends who live in other parts of the city. It took even longer to overcome the internalized autonomy. I believe every effort is worth it. As I have learned more about psychology, I’ve come to understand the importance of community. We are a species that thrives on healthy interdependence. Isolation kills, community gives life. Let’s work together on building a community.

Publié dans ADHD, Goal Setting, Mental Health, Sam's adventures

What am I all about?

Publié le par Snowrose

If there is one thing that I am passionate about, it is helping an individual heal, grow and flourish. I can’t say that I have been on this road for very long, but the more I travel it, the more I realize, “yep, this is for me”. Over the last 4 years, I have had the privilege of accompanying my husband on his healing journey battling mental illness. Let’s be clear, I am no spring chicken, I’ve had my fair share having gone through major depression caused by chronic illness in my mid-twenties, and Post-Partum depression after my son was born… but there is something different walking with someone else. Was it easy? No. Was it fun? Eh, not really. Was it worth it to get to the other side and really experience them beginning to flourish and grow? You bet.

My husband and I both came into our marriage knowing we had no idea what the heck we were doing. We grew up in broken families, with divorced and remarried parents, stability wasn’t really our forte. I can’t say we did it right, but I can say we tried our best in the first years. After miscarrying twice, we had our son, our little rainbow baby. That’s when my husband’s mental health took a turn for the worse. You see, he had been working shift work for more than a decade by that point, had undiagnosed sleep apnea and the physical implications of that were really starting to hit the fan. Add in a little munchkin bundle of joy? Well, I learned that you start reliving your experiences of childhood… and either embrace them and grow or repress them and get pretty stuck in who you are. For my husband, mixing those with a toxic work environment, some added family struggles helping extended relatives, a little COVID Isolation, and well, it was enough to reach the breaking point.

It was this journey of accompanying him that set me on the path I am on now, determined to be there and accompany those who are ready to take the next active step in their lives. It took us 4 years, many hurdles and hardships, a lot of grit and even more grace, to get here, and I will never look back. Now that he has been symptom-free for almost a year, we are building a healthy home based on accountability, forgiveness, gratitude and trust; we are learning as we go and overcoming obstacles along the way. I am homeschooling our son, studying to reach my goals, and building my business.

I have to say that starting a business based on art, healing, growing and flourishing, is also not easy, but, it is oh so worth the efforts. I am loving coaching, and making art. It may be a small start, but it is the right direction and I look forward to meeting all the beautiful people who will come and join me on this path.