"Take Care of Y'alls Mentals"
A Quote from Marshawn Lynch, Thoughts on Mental Health, and Remembering my Dad
Note: Originally shared on LinkedIn during World Mental Health Day on October 10th, 2023, and updated here.
World Mental Health Day was recognized earlier this week on the day before my Dad’s birthday (October 11th). While I had been to therapy at different points of my journey prior to his death, it was early last year, two years after his passing where I realized that I needed help navigating the experience. As I write now, I see that I was seeking to process everything, all the good, the not-so, and the otherwise from wounds and trauma over the course of my life that the intensity of grief forced me to open up and focus on healing.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been seeking. As a very serious child, I wondered how I could be Indiana Jones, a Pirate, a Pro Wrestler, and most of all, help others.
As an adult, the seeking has depended on the season but the wanting to help and heal has never wavered. Interestingly enough, my first name, Jason, has Greek (meaning “healer”) and Hebrew (“the Lord is salvation”) origins. Healing, seeking, finding both through Faith, interesting sub-themes throughout the journey thus far…
Much earlier there was the “live my dream” season. As I cultivated my spiritual foundation, a combination of my studies and practices along with sitting on the metaphorical floor of many a hale of kūpuna, gleaning what I could, I realized the dream is this life.
My seeking then became answering the question:
What is awakening with a full mind and heart?
And not 24/7 super zenned and blissed out although sometimes tripping in isolation deep within the cave sounds appealing. But to have such an open mind and heart, bound with Spirit interweaved to fully be both the Human and Being, a Human + Being having a spiritual experience and spiritual being having these human encounters.
That realization turned the pages there as I sought and wanted to arrive. Where, exactly, too many stories to try and answer that but the funny a-ha is the fact that we’re already there…
Here + Now in the moment.
This ongoing meditation and the reflections brought within have come and gone like waves, sometimes gently dancing, other times crashing upon the shore. Time and time again, I am reminded of a great tree, where the deeper you dig, the further that the roots go on and on, far beyond anything we could imagine.
It was a pretty good place to be.
And then my Dad died.
Void, emptiness, the immensity of so much loss, that I was surprised to find laughter though the world look completely different. Queue up the pandemic as it stole the show, disrupting the grieving process though the grief doesn’t shelter in place. It just keeps on.
Fast forward a couple years and I found that I had awakened to arrive at a place in the dream that I once noted in a journal:
“I’m at ease with my unease, until I am not.”
And I realized that I needed help.
It was a profound moment for me because I feel deeply for those who feel lost, and more so, those who get lost. Like really lost and not got lost, had an adventure.
With all that’s unfolding in the vastness around us, we are all a moment from a cataclysmic turn that could be hard to comeback from.
To whoever might be reading this, if you feel like you need to get help, please seek it. We live in an awesome era to get the support needed to live a healthier, fuller life.
The scars that we all carry within are more often than not gonna be invisible 🫶🙏🤙
Be gentle with yourself, forgive, and when it comes to others, a good rule of thumb is to just be kind. You just never know, that dick move, careless words, [insert here] could set off the wrong kind of blace.
Resources:
https://www.aha.org/news/blog/2023-10-10-resources-world-mental-health-day-and-beyond
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help
https://schoolofkindness.org/science-of-kindness