To understand your mental health, is to take care of your mental health is to take control of your mental health. Taking care of your mental health means you can live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

A brick wall of experiences

To start with, there's usually a brick wall of experiences that comes between you and mental health. A wall that's up, a wall where our unconscious thoughts, the part of the brain that holds a reservoir of thoughts, feelings, and memories that reside outside our conscious awareness.

To have good mental health, those are the thoughts we need to access and to deal with. It is important to be proactive on your mental health rather than be a bystander on your mental health.

Our mental health journey

Not everyone understands how to deal with mental health or that they need to take control of mental health. If there is little to no support those walls I talk about may permanently stay up.

It is important to challenge your thinking

But it is up to us to challenge our thinking on mental health, to deal with our mental health. Where the world is changed through the pandemic, and it has become even more important to deal with mental health, we're not dealing with mental health. It is important to make your mental health a priority, to talk about how you feel.

The CP Diary

The CP Diary goes some way to challenge the world's thinking on mental health, it's a blog where you can take back control, where you can tend to your mental and emotional state and needs and where you can begin to peel back the layers on your own experiences and your life... but like me, you will need to put the work in.

Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges. In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines. Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.

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2 comments on “Take Control of Your Mental Health”

  1. Yes, that's a fantastic idea, considering how I have put my mental health on the back burner for such a long time.

    I need to focus on my own mental health rather than worrying about everyone else's. I was well trained into thinking it was normal, so it's no wonder I still have a hard time doing things differently. I know that it can be done.

    1. Thanks Randy. Yes, there comes a time when we have to say enough is enough and change the way we do things.

      You're not alone in repeat patterns from childhood though. It is important to stand back and look at what you're doing and ask yourself if you still need to do those things.

      If you always say yes, ask yourself if what someone is asking is something you need to do. Are you saying yes, because you have always said yes, or are you saying yes out of guilt?

      Or say no, if it's not convenient, or a maybe if you have time to do what is being asked and it's not putting you out.

      I was in my thirties when I began to change and I never looked back.

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