Dealing with isolation and pain
Whatever is happening inside of us can rob us of the mental health stability that we desire. Furthermore, it can become external and affect our abilities to interact with others around us in healthy ways. Here are another 10 pieces of advice that first (#1-5) address barriers that can exist externally and make us feel isolated, and then (#6-10) ways to deal with internal pain that often reminds us it is there. May you find one of these helpful to you to deal with life better and enjoy improved mental health.
Advice #1: Seek new places to make friends with a modified weekly routine
When someone feels isolated, it is difficult to make it through each day about. My advice here is to modify one’s routine to expand the number of places or circles with which a new relationship can be sought out. Starting in one’s own neighborhood to see what is nearby, or examining closely an already established routine for possible modifications can help. Seek out new volunteer opportunities, new workplace, sports, or family connections, or even at a church or other like-minded purpose-driven organization to make a connection with another person. If your schedule is too busy to find the time to visit any of these new areas, then perhaps that is a personal change you have to make as well to slow down and create space to allow new connections to exist.
Advice #2: Transparency and openness lead to identification with others
It may be likely that there are potential friends and deeper relationships that already could exist around you, but your own hesitation with becoming transparent stands in the way. Relationships grow by revealing something that’s important to you, difficult for you, or by talking about a passion that you have in life. These open admissions can help with starting and building that new relationship you desire. Transparency is not easy and is a skill to grow in, but it is one that is essential to having relational depth and meaning. Practice increasing it in your current relationships to fine tune your ability to expand it with new people.
Advice #3: Increasing self-awareness allows you to not flee from failure
I think that often times when someone experiences failure, the sting of it leaves quite a profound impact. Failure can cause someone to quickly stuff any of those emotions that arose after the failure. Self-awareness allows someone to examine him or herself in proper ways in order to understand what the true meanings are to take from failure. Rather than having something be held as too comprehensive or too black and white, there is probably more to take away from within the failure and will help to redeem it. A good lesson can exist within a failure, but people need to be willing to try and look at a second time.
Advice #4: Work to be non-judgemental in your response to others
Sometimes the barriers to friendship that cause people to feel isolated are their own response to other people. Inability to pick up on social cues, poor self-awareness, and perhaps most importantly, critical or judgmental comments to others can be off-putting. These struggles creates challenging situations when someone fails to identify them or fails to control a response to other people’s behaviors. It takes intention to be silent because we can be quick to say something and give an opinion rather than be self-controlled and quiet. The later will help us to maintain and reflect a non-judgmental attitude in the early stages of peer interactions.
Advice #5: Ask any friends, mentors, or professionals about what gets in your way of relationship growth
We can all have blind spots, and when it comes to feeling isolated, there may be one or more weakness we have. Despite our own previous best efforts, we still are missing what stands in the way. Having the courage to ask a friend or other person – or even to go to a professional about the relational barriers that exist around you – is it good decision. Blind spots can be identified and weaknesses can be strengthened, which will lead to better opportunities for connection with others. Personal growth leads to relational growth.
Advice #6: Process past emotional pains via self-directed assistance, peer-assistance, or use a professional
This piece of advice echoes a weekly chat from last month but is very relevant to this week. Emotional pains that go unresolved can tax the mental fortitude someone has and rob him or her of the physical energy that is needed to feel active and healthy. There is no reason for people to remain in emotional pain with all the help that is available to him or her. Have the courage to look inwardly and identify what is bothering you and standing in the way of feeling connected and free of internal pain.
Advice #7: Seek as much relational reconciliation as possible to reach a point where “the ball is in the other person’s court”
It is true that many relationships can be broken and challenging, but I think that there should be an occasional revisiting of an estranged relationship just to see if something has changed. Often times silence and letting things be dormant helps. Even as years pass, people gain insight through interactions with others, and there might be a willingness to try and make amends. If you can find it in you to provide an opportunity for reconciliation or a second chance something good might come out of it. When there is brokenness in a primary relationship, be sure that you have done everything you can in order to make sure the other person is aware that next steps are up to him or her. Using advice #6 can be very helpful in this situation as well to know what to do.
Advice #8: Reestablish healthier mental expectations for yourself to overcome any mental pains about failure
Setbacks, failures, and disappointments can cause people to be condemning and critical of themselves. It is in these moments that people have to recalibrate the mental expectations they have for themselves. Without adjusting expectations, someone will continue to experience the negative feelings and critical self-thoughts of failure. That pain can echo and impact a person as profoundly as any physical pain that might exist. Take time to adjust your expectations in light of your current circumstances, and not to continue to judge yourself against past circumstances and outcomes.
Advice #9: Be honest about the choices you make to deal with physical pain in order to ensure that you are not consumed by a substance or behavior
This piece of advice is a clue about what we will talk about next week concerning how mental health can be affected by the choices we. Substances are a threat to our mental health because they work so well at helping people feel different, to forget what happened, or to try and be a different person and escape the pain. Lifestyle choices and decisions also create the same kind of escapism and distractions that people want. Excessive gambling, shopping, eating, etc. all can lead to a negative impact on mental health. Many things seem like they are okay in the short term, but they can set people up for bigger problems down the road. Ultimately, the things described above rob people of their own sense of self-control and ability to determine their outcomes. The behavior or substance becomes in charge of those outcomes, and it is a downward spiral.
Advice #10: Seek out answers to the spiritual and existential questions that cause you discomfort or to feel frustrated (or worse) when a significant event or crisis occurs
There are certainly events that people experience in their lives that cause them distress and affect the sense of identity, locus of control, and their view of the world or humanity around them. When this occurs, my encouragement is for people to seek out answers rather than remain in that disappointment or internal pain about what happened. Whatever your pathway for answers is or your sources for figuring out these spiritual questions, it is important that you embrace that effort rather than try and ignore such a significant impact and probable list of spiritual questions.
It has been good to add another lengthy list of advice that can lead to feeling better during this mental health awareness month. Hopefully, there is an item or two in the list that will help you relationally to feel more capable to build a brand new or to make a current one go deeper than before. Furthermore, silencing pain to creating more space and energy for healthy ways of living can be an outcomes as well. Next week will be about addressing in further detail an overview of further advice to help us resist consuming behaviors or substances due to their negative impact on mental health.
Do your best at applying what you can from all of this information and see what happens in your life.
– AWS believes that wellness incorporates both a strong body and a strong mind –