There is a consensus that mental ill-health must be tackled. One of the solutions, which is repeatedly mentioned is to get adults into work and get the kids to school. But what if it is so to work and school rather contribute to mental illness?
Work and school can contribute to mental health – it gives me an experience of belonging, if I feel that what I do is important and meaningful, if I have the freedom to design it in such a way so that I can use my full potential and if it does not take more time and energy than I have space for rest, recreation, family, and friends.
can also contribute to mental ill – health- if I know me, if I experience what I do as useless, and if I am forced into structures that don’t work for me.
more and more people become burnt-out on a planet that is burnt out. We give our burnt-out brains diagnoses: depression, anxiety disorders, and this disease. But these diagnoses are just symptoms of a disease, and we don’t want to see – the disease called ”live over the assets”.
We must stop believing that work and economic growth is the solution. It gives neither people nor the planet earth the increased health. More speed on the wheels are not the right solution to get out of the life and world crises. It is a flyktbeteende. We are running and running without getting anywhere.
to slow down the pace. The road to mental health is to go out in the woods and begin to listen to the trees, the silence, myself and each other.
That put me on the floor in the living room and make myself available to my children and those I love. Together we find the longing, the fear and the anger that is in us, that can give us strength and courage to make other choices than the ones we previously made. Choice that provides a livstempo where we have time to breathe, with each other.
A living space, where differences are an asset and where we can get to learn and work on the basis of our conditions. A joy of life, where we can change the sedentary and skärmtittande against movement, play, and time in nature. A livstrygghet, where every one knows that there is someone who always has time for them.
realistic, realize what we humans and our earth can withstand, and adapt our lives and our choices after that. The most important thing we can do to achieve mental health is to improve the conditions for children and adults to not have to live beyond their means.
I would wish that you who read this, do three things: slow down the pace in any area of your life, listen to someone who is affected by mental illness and consider what it can teach you, and contact someone in decision making position – a manager or a politician – to bring about a change.
