Embrace curiosity about yourself and life, as it is the fundamental key that opens the door to self-understanding, growth, and all positive outcomes.
Frame your past, present, and future by constructing a life narrative to understand what has gone right and wrong, and to navigate the best path forward for mental health.
Properly understand and process traumatic experiences to prevent them from inhibiting your ability to take excellent care of yourself and move forward.
Conceptualize unresolved trauma or difficult experiences in the unconscious mind as a walled-off abscess that, while contained, still detracts from health and requires intentional ‘draining’ or processing.
If an issue feels too overwhelming to consciously address, it is precisely what needs to be examined, as it is likely already impacting your life at an unconscious level.
Identify and understand the unconscious forces or ‘phantoms’ that seem to be driving your life, as gaining this understanding is key to dispelling them and taking conscious control.
Resist the human tendency to believe you can achieve success in some areas but not others, as this self-limiting belief can prevent you from pursuing important life goals.
Actively seek to understand what is going on inside you and why, while also being curious about what you don’t yet know about yourself.
Make asking good questions about yourself a cornerstone of self-care to foster mental health and self-understanding.
Actively engage in practices like writing or talking, rather than just repetitive thinking, to bring different parts of your brain online and activate error correction mechanisms for new insights.
Impart knowledge to yourself, especially about concepts like trauma’s impact or self-shame, as your mind will then use this understanding to process and improve your well-being.
Avoid solely looking forward in life; balance action with reflection on your past and internal state to prevent ’tripping forward’ and ensure stable, effective progress.
Deliberately pause and question why you engage in automatic daily behaviors, as this self-inquiry can reveal unconscious motivations and open paths to change.
Become aware of and recognize maladaptive behavior patterns in your life, as this awareness is the first step towards actively changing them for the better.
Understand that temporary periods of reduced functionality, such as increased emotional upset or crying during self-inquiry, are a normal and necessary part of the healing process.
Engage in regular weekly therapy, considering it as important as physical exercise for improving overall health.
If experiencing thoughts of self-harm, hopelessness, or feeling unsafe, prioritize seeking professional clinical help before engaging in self-inquiry.
Utilize practices like therapy, specific forms of meditation, and journaling to examine the self and foster better self-care for mental health.
Use meditation apps like Waking Up to learn how to meditate and maintain a daily practice, which can improve mood, reduce anxiety, and enhance focus and memory.
Consider using online professional therapy platforms like BetterHelp to find a licensed therapist who can provide support and help you gain transformative insights.
Ensure foundational physical self-care by eating well, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep, and moving your body regularly.
Navigate out of situations that constantly cause fear and misery, such as abusive relationships, as a prerequisite for building true self-care and goodness.
Regularly assess how you are engaging with yourself and the world, questioning if your actions are generative or if you are doing things you genuinely don’t want to do, to identify areas for change.
Identify activities you love but are not doing, then critically re-evaluate if you truly cannot do them, as often the perceived barriers are not real.
Understand and actively process grief and loss, such as from the death of a person, to prevent prolonged misery and enable adaptive engagement with the world.
Write down or talk about your life narrative, either alone or with a trusted person, to gain self-understanding and identify patterns of change and impact of external events.
Use your life narrative to reflect on how you’ve changed over time, identifying periods where you coped better or felt differently, which can guide further self-inquiry.
Review old photos and talk to people from different stages of your life to anchor memories and reflect on past behaviors and feelings, fostering self-understanding.
Learn and practice cognitive behavioral tactics like thought redirection to consciously steer away from repetitive negative thoughts and reduce associated negative emotions.
When feeling overwhelmed or panicked, deliberately ground yourself by focusing on external sensory details (e.g., touching a table, observing objects) to shift internal salience and regain control.
Reflect on what methods best facilitate your conscious self-inquiry, whether it’s meditation, physical activity, or quiet contemplation, and then actively engage in those methods more often.
When facing difficult personal ‘roads’ or challenges, actively recruit support from trusted friends, clergy, therapists, or other reliable individuals to aid in your self-exploration and progress.
Surround yourself with people who embody the positive qualities you aspire to (e.g., diligence, cooperation), as your choice of companions reflects your self-worth and impacts your journey.
Aim to keep anger at low to moderate levels, as high levels lead to volatility and confusion, hindering effectiveness and well-being; lower levels can inform and guide positive action.
Listen to all four episodes of the mental health series to glean important, interwoven information and protocols for mental health.
Access zero-cost PDF diagrams from the show note captions to help navigate the material discussed in the episodes.