Key Elements of the Program

(Under Construction)

My journey to mental wellness is ongoing. Teachers, like Sara Castany, a former professor of mine at The University of Miami, has been nudging me for decades. It took decades, but I finally started putting them all together and fleshing them out into key meditations and concepts that I now integrate into my daily life.

I continue to learn and grow, every day, currently learning some fantastic information on meditation and neuroscience on the Joyous Website. In the below, I try to explain the things that help me, and can help you, whatever illness you are trying to navigate.

Grounding

This is actually a start of a mediation Sara taught me 30 years ago. I now do it at the beginning of every meditation. The concept is pretty simple. I imagine roots growing out of my fingertips and toes and diving down into the earth like an ancient Oak Tree.

When I was first taught it, a part of it was so you don’t have an out of body experience. For me, it has become much more. Grounded in the earth, I am safe and secure. I allow the earth and Universe to take my weight and worries as journey through a guided meditation.

Grounding calms me and relaxes me. The outside world does not exist. I am currently learning that it is a process that is bringing me to my true, stable self, called the Wise Mind in ancient teachings.

The Mental Health Pyramid

This is based upon a production pyramid I was discussing with another business owner in Chicago in 2019. A simple Google search will display hundreds. We were discussing one in particular that Lance had come across a long time ago and integrated it into his entire life, including his religious teachings.

The Production Triangle is a simple idea. The three sides are production, finances and advertising. A healthy approach is to approach each side equally. If you don’t, it becomes unhealthy and “flatlines.” Think about removing one side of the triangle. The business will not always fail, but it is operating in an unhealthy manor that will increase stress, burnout and its ability to reach its potential.

I took this idea back to my hotel with me and started thinking about it in regards to mental health. That’s when the mental triangle formed.

At the center of the triangle is a circle, Self-Actualization. The two sides are psychiatry (meds) and psychology (therapy). The base is self-help.

I’ve seen so many instances of mental health help failing because it flatlines, and we just maintain, because all of the sides are not being met with equal importance.

Self-help is the base, holding the other two sides up naturally, but it needs to be more than just making the weekly and/or monthly visits. It means to work the program, especially when you are feeling good.

Self-help can include many things. I personally now use meditation, yoga, and exercise. I have heard and experienced many things, and all have a scientific basis, backed by research, that can help our mental well-being.

Other types of self-help (this list will be expanding) are:

Nutrition (eating well)

Volunteering

Going to the Gym

Etc.

The Net

The Net is, to me, a powerful concept that I learned in 2020. I ran into a teacher during my cross-country trip, Sara Baziotis.

The net is a counter to depression’s illusion of being alone. Loneliness would crush me and I would fall into an abyss where I would seek out very unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Think of the night sky, all those points of light. For me, many of those points of light have names, people who love and care about me, past present and future. I can fill a book with names. Some lights are brighter than others, but they all shine. Recently, I began adding “unknowns” to the list which increases the number of lights–those people, like me, who make it a part of their meditation to send out good thoughts to everybody who needs it, caring without knowing.

All those points of light are connected, the connections, like strands, that form the net. Think six degrees of separation or the Kevin Bacon game. I, of course, am the common thread throughout.

This net covers the abyss. Yes, I can feel depressed, but I can never feel alone, I cannot drop down into that despair.

I am not alone. You are not alone.