Exceptional Mental Health

So I've previously done a podcast on mental health , but recently I came across some few new concepts that I've integrated into my practice , so I want to share them with you to give you the most benefit . So , in essence , this podcast is mental health 2.0 , or exceptional mental health .

Since this podcast is mental health 2.0 , or exceptional mental health , we always talk about mental health in terms of mental illness and there is a rise in mental illness diagnoses during the pandemic . I believe most medical models are based on illness , and I can demonstrate that based on one question .

When I ask people if they think they're mentally healthy , and the answer they give is usually in terms of mental illness , most will say since I don't have a mental illness , I must be mentally healthy , and that , to me , is a very low standard , and I have mentioned this before that the lowest of the low standard of mental health is a lack of mental illness .

This is most commonly and generally accepted societal standard of mental health . So the next level , which is slightly better , of the definition of mental health is a person's condition with regard to their psychological and emotional well-being . Okay , so this is a little better . It has words like emotion and well-being in it .

So it is a level up from the previous definition , but I'm going to take it to even a higher level in just a minute .

First , let's talk about why mental illness diagnoses are so prevalent in our society , and I'm going to say that that is because , as soon as a human being starts to experience an emotion that is uncomfortable for them , first of all they self-label as anxiety , depression , and then they get approval of the diagnosis from their doctor , from their friends , from the

media , and they seek a pill to fix the issue . A very good example of this is recently I had a patient who got admitted to the hospital because of chest pain . We appropriately did all the cardiac workup and when it came back negative , I followed up with her in her hospital bed to tell her the good news .

She was obviously relieved to hear that the stress test and the cardiac enzymes and the other workup was negative , but she went on to reveal to me that she was suffering from anxiety and that she needed me to give her a pill to fix it .

I asked her some more details and the questioning revealed that she was anxious because she couldn't travel to see her first grandchild being born Earlier on in the pandemic . The risk of flying and catching the coronavirus was much higher .

So in this case , the patient's son and his wife had struggled with infertility and after many IVF cycles they were able to conceive .

And the patient had always imagined being there for her son and her daughter-in-law , especially because they were told that this was a high-risk pregnancy , telling her that coronary disease has been ruled out as a reason of her symptoms .

And she's telling me that clearly her symptoms are because of anxiety , because every time she thinks about not being able to see her grandchild she feels very anxious . So she rightfully came to the hospital for her symptom of chest pain , which was appropriately worked up for coronary disease .

Because , let's face it , in females the presentation of coronary disease can be atypical . Because , let's face it , in females the presentation of coronary disease can be atypical . But this is not a medical podcast , so we're going to keep this contained to our example .

So while she came to the hospital appropriately and we ruled out coronary disease , the most appropriate diagnosis turned out to be anxiety , which is a diagnosis of exclusion to begin with . But again it was something that she was self-diagnosing . The diagnosis itself of generalized anxiety is not something that I agreed with .

She might have been feeling the emotion of anxiety , which was different , so she was appropriately feeling an emotion of anxiety because her lifelong dream of becoming a grandmother was happening somewhere in a distant state but she could not be there for her son . So what was wrong with feeling anxious in this situation ?

Nothing , there's nothing wrong with that emotion . That's the right feeling . In this example it's clear , and in many other cases , that we as a medical community and as a society in general , label a negative emotion as a disorder and we want a quick fix pill to immediately numb out of the state because we are uncomfortable with feeling that emotion .

In reality , life is about a range of all emotions . Creating a mental illness diagnosis out of an appropriate human emotion is injustice to being human Simply and purely human , is injustice to being human Simply and purely human . So , going back to my second definition of mental health that defined it as psychological , emotional well-being .

That still has an undertone of an expectation of well-being 100% of the time , but that's unrealistic . The human condition calls for negative emotions , like we saw in this case , which is appropriate .

But according to this definition , where mental health means psychological and emotional well-being , it would mean that the time that the humans are feeling a negative emotion , you do not have mental health . But again , that is wrong . Just because you are struggling with an emotion does not mean you do not have mental health as human beings .

This definition obviously induces some resistance because we don't want to identify having a mental illness just because we don't have well-being . But what if we said that well-being includes the whole spectrum of emotions ?

So that would mean the best news is , in this case , that human emotions that create negative sensations in your body do not mean you have a mental illness . In other words , you can be experiencing a negative emotion and also be in a state of well-being . How cool is that ? So negative human emotion does not mean mental illness . That is music to my ears .

That's such good news . If you're feeling any resistance to this definition , it's possible you're still in a space where you think your circumstance causes your feelings , like in the example of this woman . She thought she was anxious because of the pandemic , so she was trying desperately to gain some control over the situation , asking for a quick fix pill .

So in this particular situation I did something that's probably never been done before in the history of hospital medicine . I coached her right in her hospital bed .

I helped her see that her thoughts about not being able to see her family were causing her anxiety , not the pandemic , and soon after , like a light bulb turned on for her , she had that facial expression when a human comes to that moment of enlightenment , like she had been trying to solve a great mystery all her life and all of a sudden she knew the answer .

By the way , that face in my clients is just so rewarding for me . I get such a dopamine hit from it when I see someone having an aha moment . That is extremely fulfilling and that's why I do this work . Okay , so I digress . But that patient came to the moment of clarity and all of a sudden she was not interested in any anxiety pills .

Since she realized that her thought was causing her anxiety , she immediately switched it to asking what can I do to see my family instead ? And this thought switch was so quick that if I wasn't trained as a coach I would have never noticed the change . And the next word that came out of her mouth were I think I'm going to drive to see my family .

And I was like , excuse me , what do you mean ? And she said that I'm afraid of flying in the pandemic causing me anxiety . Then I'll just drive to see them and just like that , her brain gave her a solution .

I wouldn't have thought of that solution because I'm not in her brain , I'm not in her situation , but when she came out of the cloud of thought errors that there was a mental illness and that there was something wrong with her , she actually had authority over her brain .

And in that moment of clarity her brain did the rest of the job of providing her the answers . I see this type of case scenario play out over and over again in my patients , in my clients and in my personal relationships . So at this point I'll offer you a third definition of mental health , which is less glamorous but is the most useful .

Mental health is having a spectrum of human emotions and knowing that you have control over them . And since , at Islamic Life Coach School just mediocre , mental health is not good enough . We strive for exceptional mental health , and that comes from self-coaching .

The formula and the model I teach you guys will help you create superior mental health and a life of your design . A medical professional most likely has never asked you to work on your mental health . They might have asked you to work on your mental health .

They might have asked you to work on your physical health , which is to watch your diet and exercise , and all of those are very important , but what they have never taught you is how to maintain mental health , and that is because , unfortunately , a medical professional has never been taught how to do that themselves .

How can they impart that wisdom on their patients ? How to do that themselves ? How can they impart that wisdom on their patients ? That is why burnout rates among medical professionals are one of the highest compared to any other profession . Medical professionals are in the business of giving .

They are natural empaths Without ever actively engaging in their mental well-being . They give , give , give and burn out . Medical professionals and all other human beings need mental hygiene , just like they need to go to the gym . Nobody and let me emphasize , nobody is taught this knowledge in traditional schooling on how to maintain mental health .

It becomes a special tragedy when this education is not provided to medical professionals . They are taught mental illness instead . This pathology based model of mental health only serves a fraction of the population that is actually suffering from mental illness , but it does not serve the majority of the population , and that's because disease is not the norm .

It is present , but it is not universal . Most human beings on the planet are not suffering from an illness that's debilitating to them , so the illness model to mental health is extremely limiting because it doesn't apply to the majority of the population .

And the well-being model of mental health is also limiting because human beings are not in a state of well-being 100% of the time . They experience struggle half of their lives , and that experience gives an illusion of anything but well-being . My definition of exceptional mental health is a managed mind .

This is a skill that can be learned when humans accept the natural order , understanding that they create everything from their thinking and their thinking is under their control . It gives them a sense of agency , which is of prime importance . Choosing thoughts of higher brain or the lower brain origin will create results accordingly .

This sense of agency leads to managed mind , which is exceptional mental health , regardless of the emotional state you are in , which can be an appropriately negative emotional state depending on what the situation calls for .

So imagine a staircase going from one level to the next and , summing it all up , we went from mental health being the lack of mental illness , which is the lowest level . The next higher level is mental health , is an emotional and psychological well-being , which is slightly better .

And the third highest level of mental health is being open to the full spectrum of human experience , from negative to positive , with an understanding that with mind management , any emotion can be created . The highest level of mental health is practicing the skill of agency over your thoughts .

It is a skill that is learned over time , just like driving or ice skating . You are horrible at it in the beginning , but with practice it gets better . None of this means that you won't be angry or anxious or sad sometimes . It just means that when you are all those things , you're not going to think that there's something wrong with you .

You will have the insight that you're creating those emotions from your thoughts , and exceptional mental health is about being able to tell the difference when it is appropriate and inappropriate to create these emotions .

So , going with this definition of exceptional mental health , we come to learn that it is available to the majority of the people on the planet , even for the people with the diagnosis of mental illness that are on treatment .

I pray for the best of mental health for all of you . I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us insights into our own mind so we can tell when we are creating an emotion appropriately and when we are in error .

I pray to Allah SWT that our nafs and shaitan's whispers do not lead us astray in this path of skilling up to our next best level of mental health . And since it is a skill , I have provided you a guidebook to practice this , which is available for you to download at wwwislamiclifecoachschoolcom .

This guidebook is available for you to start your daily mental hygiene today . It provides definitions so you can start gaining insight in your thoughts immediately . Put your effort in do your work through this workbook and , inshallah , you will see the results . I pray to Allah SWT for all of our success in this world and the next .

With that , I will talk to you guys next time .