It’s world Mental Health Day. Of course, we want to enhance and nurture our mental health. But not to approach this desire in isolation. Our mental wellbeing is a part of who we are. And this part is connected to and related to the other aspects of what makes us human. Emphasising our mental health without understanding and nurturing the relationship with our whole selves risks the very thing we seek. And what’s more, it can be easy to think and believe that something is wrong with us. We are not broken, but the system is. (more on this below). And being a human being is messy. And that’s OK. Infact, our wholeness is made up of the whole mess.
subscribe to the healing tide timesBeing Human is an Endless Adventure and Life-Long Lesson
Attending to, valuing and enjoying all that we are is part of the adventure of being human. Our whole selves, our essence, is nurtured and met when our way of life and way of responding and caring for ourselves and one another is whole, meaning that the psychological, social and spiritual parts of who we are is honoured. I set up The Healing Tide to co-create ways for this honouring to take place.
Being human is an endless becoming and an endless experience. If we can open ourselves compassionately to life we open ourselves to endless possibility. In this space, yes we risk heartbreak, but we are open to wholehearted living. To be healthy as a human being is not just being well. I think a healthy human is someone that is open to learning, someone who is open to being tender with the reality of their circumstance. Someone who can discern when to forgive, when to act and when to pause. Someone who creates more than they consume. This is not only within our power, it is who and what we were made to be. 
The System is Unwell
It’s no wonder our mental health suffers in the face of such a bruising world. However, it’s more accurate to name this bruising world as a system. This system runs on a current of aspiration, consumption and competition, narrowing our hearts and our communal vision. It’s generated, fed and watered by entities fueled by greed and dominance. It emphasises performance, status and power. It’s dopamine hit has its yo-yo of reward and punishment. We’re left separated, bitter, small and unwell. This is both the cause and the symptom. The pain is multiplied by the fact that the same system that contributed to the mental injury, is also a part of the efforts to recover. As such, these efforts can feel piecemeal and inadequate, leaving room for us to blame ourselves and each other, as we do our best to cope, become hardened and embittered, mired in hopelessness and everything in between and maybe all at once. Yes, we need to attend to our mental health. But not in a way that keeps us separated and disconnected. 
Working on being a Whole Human
Importantly, a whole human is compassionately awake – aware of their decisions and motives – using their energy for good and for life itself. A whole, wise and wakeful human recognises the need to practice openness – not to get anywhere, but to be as here as they can be. As Fateme Banishoeib writes: ‘instead of climbing ladders, enter spirals. Instead of perfecting, compost’.
Experiences and communities that nurture and remind us of the reality of our human goodness is a vital foundation for living healthy and fulfilling lives. Perhaps more importantly, when these foundations are given space and value, what emerges will be beyond what we could have imagined, because, when we come together openly to make things better, then things happen.
A healthy human is someone open to a broader and expansive experience of themselves and the world – being open to what’s real – to what’s happening inside of themselves, their community and the world, without closing down. The capacity to hold a space for the essence of their own unique and grace-filled goodness.
A more whole human is someone who knows heartbreak, loss, confusion, devastasion, while keeping their heart open to include the same in others and the world. A whole heart of this nature moves into the world openly, with vulnerability, tenderness and hope. Such hearts find each other and when connected, they channel possibility and life. 
Nurturing our Wholeness – A Contemplative Worldview
For me, this is the essence and fruit of a contemplative worldview – where we take a long hard, loving look upon the reality of the world, ourselves and each other (to paraphrase a saying of Franciscan Richard Rohr who established The Center for Action and Contemplation). A whole approach to living expands our awareness and perspective beyond and inclusive of our individual self. Here, we really are in the realms of possibility and life at a cosmic and very generative level, an emergence embodied in these words by Pierre Teilherd de Chardin, “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire” (“The Evolution of Chastity,” in Toward the Future, 1936, XI, 86-87).
Re-Connecting what’s Fragmented
Loneliness, anxiety, fear and suspicion are all symptoms of a broader and deeper disconnection. It’s easy to feel lost, numb and absent. Soon enough we develop an inability to be with who we are and exist without knowing what we are doing with our lives. That is not the life we signed up for and it’s certainly not what we were made for. We need each other to re-member our common humanity and to co-create something more inclusive and respectful of our lives that we share. This co-creation is a participation with a love that is within and without that has been given to us and awaits our relating. We do not need to be in command. Such openness is our HOPE and our way out, but you need to be willing to have your heart broken and to risk being changed. 
As James Finley states in his own beautiful way, the non essential is always pressing in on us. Therefore, we need to actively create pauses that nurture a regular rendevouz with God.
In establishing The Healing Tide, I am trying to provide a foundation where we can re-connect and remember that we are more than we think we are – that there is and always has been a inherent goodness that has been given that the world (system) and its noise drowns out. More importantly, the possibility of healing, life and love by its nature will never go away – it’s us who leaves. The Healing Tide is a channel for connecting and participating in and with the energy of this current through the offering o…f counselling and learning experiences.
Some ways I’m nurturing myself and generating a movement for this way of life
- Reading: I’ve just ordered Hologram by Cassie Thornton. Let me give the floor to the publisher – The premise is simple: three people – a ‘triangle’ – meet on a regular basis, digitally or in person, to focus on the physical, mental and social health of a fourth – the ‘hologram’. The hologram, in turn, teaches their caregivers how to give and also receive care; each member of their triangle becomes a hologram for another, different triangle, and so the system expands. Community, connection, care all supporting an emergence of something new that supports individuals and the collective. That’s what I’m wanting to co-create.
- Listening: DO Radio is a great place to dive into human connection in a new and refreshing way – at least that has been my experience. Tune in.
- Connecting: I’m designing a whole range of online and in-person workshops, experiences and performances. Subscribe to keep in the loop.
Take care,
Luke
