Transforming Wellness: People Vs. Categories

Welcome back, people of Cadre, for another video this week. And this week I want to take a step back and explore a little bit the foundations behind why I bring up this idea of needed actualized change, wellness, these kind of clinical words, these things that come up in, in the world of the pursuit of mental health, but often don't give a lot of attention to the actual experience of pursuing those things. So as a clinical counselor, I encounter, as you imagine, a lot of different stories, experiences that come into this room here.

And one thing that always catches my attention, and it's something that actually was highlighted by a co worker of mine in a meeting one time. And this coworker speaks up and says, you know, I really love this work. But one thing that I really find difficult is sometimes I listen to my clients and I don't see much of a difference in myself. I don't see much of a difference in maybe the circumstances I'm facing or some of the feelings or experiences that they're describing to me. Do I belong to be in this position as a therapist if there isn't a separation between me and this person?

And for whatever reason, that that comment always stuck with me. And, you know, over the course of years, you get time where those things just kind of sit in the back of your mind. And I think over this past year, it's really been highlighted to me what that is and why it's significant. And it's. It's because the reality is you and me and everyone else that we encounter exists within the spectrum of what is human. There's this scale, and within this scale is all human experience. And there's not a human being within this scale that doesn't fit somewhere in there.

Henceforth, the challenge that I see as my role in this field, which is when we approach mental health as a category, a category of you're not doing good enough, there's something wrong with you, you're maladaptive, disordered. Those categories become rigid ideas, just very concrete thoughts about what it means to be normal. And I hate that. And, in fact, that's why I'm here in the first place. For me, what I see over and over is not the stories that come in and are told, and it's not the feelings and thoughts and experiences that people have that are like, oh, man, there's something wrong with you.

Quite the contrary. It's actually the belief that because I feel something that isn't perfect, I'm not good enough. And then we create spaces in these rooms and call ourselves professionals and ways that we can analyze and get through and get rid of and reorganize and whatever. But all we're doing is moving objects from one category to another, from one box to another. And in my experience, it kind of misses the plot. It reinforces this idea that there is something wrong with you. I'm here to tell you there isn't.

I know it's a bold statement. I don't even know you, but it's a bold statement, because one thing I know for certain is that if you are a human on the other side of this screen here, you exist somewhere in here. And that's our reference point to what is normal. Being human is the definition of a normal human is not normal. Let me resonate with you, and then maybe that's something you haven't heard expressed from somebody in the mental health field. And I want to close by telling you why that means so much to me is because it's the.

The very thing that changed my life a few years ago. I was struggling with what can only be, through our words, described as crippling anxiety completely infected multiple areas of my life and my perspective of myself. It was a dramatic turn from this bright eyed, bushy tailed child existence to, oh, man, the world is real, and it's scary, and what if I die? And at the time, I told myself that, that the things that were out of my control were too much to handle. So I started acting in abnormal ways.

And the fear that I had in that time was not the things that were actually out of my control. The fear, was that what that response meant about me, that because I responded in this way, that wasn't me. I was wrong. I was off. There was something not okay. And it wasn't until I got to a place where I had people around me and experiences that taught me that response was all I had. It wasn't like it was because there's something wrong. It wasn't because there was misfiring chemicals in my brain. It was because I was surviving what became a radical, changing point in my life.

And at that time, if I were to categorize the pain I experienced there as an indication of how I'm not good enough, there's something wrong with me. The battle of myself would have raged on for years. And so what's changed is not the fact that I never experience anxiety anymore. In fact, the same level of anxiety, the same experiences of anxiety come up frequently. But what changes is a belief that those things are within the spectrum of normal, that they don't have to step forward and take over control of my decision making, of the life that I want to be living, that they can exist there, and I can still be open to how it contributes to this journey of life that's so unknown and often scary.

And in that we unlock what is innate in all people, just human resiliency, our ability to work through even the most painful of circumstances and continue to live. There's a lot more on that. And as I go forward, I encourage you to join some of my live videos because I'm going to slowly start to transition my attention to you, at least in these initial steps, and to you in the sense of opening the door for you to give feedback as to what things do you think about the counseling world? What things do you maybe scare you about stepping into the office of a therapist or counselor?

And what questions do you have from the other side of that couch? From fellow human? I look forward to connecting with you in those spaces as well as these, and drop a comment below if something stood out to you today that really connected with you, or maybe a question right? You don't want to wait till the live, you want to just drop something here today. And I'm going to do my best to take those and put them in here somewhere as soon as I can. I can't tell you when, but as soon as I can. And I hope that through that I can step into.

What I'm really passionate about is making this field more human centered and process oriented, meaning, understanding of the fact that we all exist within human experience. Great to see you all. Have a wonderful week ahead and I'll tune in with you next week.