Grounding

So often it seems to be the mad ones stirring things up, getting things done, causing a ruckus, making their marks, and influencing the world around them. But then so often it's also the mad ones dragging down their friends, burning out, crashing hard, and wandering aimlessly through life. So often we're the ones in touch with other dimensions but locking ourselves in our rooms for weeks on end. So often we're secretly full of intense feelings about the world but we don't know how to interact with other people, and we end up feeling totally alienated, convinced we're not like anyone else. Too often we make it really hard for other people to be around us and we burn endless bridges just trying to figure out how to keep it all together. We can inspire and appall people in the same breath, add color to a gray room or make everyone cry. We can have access to all kinds of visions and power, both good and bad, but we've got to be careful. If we learn how to use what we've got we can change people's lives, but there's also potential for causing so much confusion and suffering.

The Importance of Grounding

If we can admit that we've got patterns in our minds and actions that really disrupt our lives, we can start trying to understand how they arise and figure out ways to work with them. Some people's patterns fall into traditional psychiatric categories like "schizophrenia" and "post-traumatic stress disorder," and they find these concepts really useful to understand their lives. Other people feel like labels get in the way of healing and choose not to use them. Whether or not we identify with any particular paradigm, the important point is to admit that some kind of turbulence or sensitivity inside us is having a big effect on how we perceive and engage with the world, and we want to find healthier ways to handle it. Once you've achieved sufficient grounding you can explore some of the crazy stuff in your head and figure out what lessons it might be trying to teach you, but until you get grounded it's all too easy for that stuff to grab hold of you and take over your life.

There are all kinds of ways to ground yourself and connect with the world around you. Some people go for alternative treatments like acupuncture and yoga, others find psych drugs incredibly helpful, others find that really good nutrition and a stable daily routine make a huge difference, and many combine some of each. There is not one right way to deal with mental health struggles, and we all have to hang in there and keep trying to figure out what works for us. Self-care is an immense topic that we can't even pretend to cover thoroughly here, but we are going to suggest that keeping track of a few basics can make a big difference in your ability to function on a daily basis and be part of any group.

The Basics

It seems like a universal quality common to those of us who struggle with our mental health is sensitivity: we often react more strongly to triggers like stress, poor nutrition, trauma, lack of sleep, bad jobs, difficult schools, dysfunctional relationships, alcohol and drugs, trans-continental plane flights, caffeine, lack of exercise, cities, spiritual crises, overcast weather, our own expectations, and countless other variables, more stable folks might do. This doesn't mean we're bad, weak, or unable to hack it. It just means that we have different needs and our lives will get a lot easier if we accept our limitations and pay attention to these needs. Being healthy in really basic ways is so important to us.

It's good to have a checklist of things you need to do every day that you can look over when you're trying to figure out why your mind might be feeling out of control. Some simple but super important things to think about are getting enough good food, getting enough regular sleep, having some kind of routine, getting exercise, and taking whatever herbs, meds, or supplements you may have discovered help you.