Why Your Emotional Health Deserves Attention

My message, my purpose, this idea I sometimes fail to articulate, is that emotional health is foundational to a happy, healthy, and meaningful life. Perhaps what I had failed to get across when speaking about the importance of emotional health was the tieing in of mental health. I think people understand the words mental health more than the words emotional health. I didn’t speak in terms of mental health because, to me, mental health issues begin as emotional issues.

Let me be very clear about one thing. I am not a mental health professional. I have never studied psychiatry or formal psychology. My training is in alternative healing modalities such as hypnotherapy, transformational life coaching, and spiritual psychology, all of which are flavored by traditional psychology.

I have personal experience with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and addiction, and in my opinion, speaking just for myself and what has worked for me, I have been able to move through these issues with the assistance of the modalities I mentioned before. This is why this subject matter is so dear to me. I am not ‘healed’. I am ‘healing’. My experiences have shaped who I am today. The knowledge I have today due to my experiences provides me a different perspective on the world and the people in it. I wholeheartedly believe that so many of the ills plaguing our world can be resolved with more focus on a person’s emotional health.

Too often, we focus just on physical health or what we can see that needs fixing. A holistic view of a person’s well-being takes into account their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. While my main focus is on the emotional well-being of individuals, that one aspect affects all other aspects of what it means to be a happy, healthy individual.

When I took the time to focus on my emotional health, I emerged a better person, a better employee, a better friend, a better daughter, a better sister and a better partner.