In the pursuit of mental health, the most recent post featuring Dr. Christopher Walling outlined the importance of getting into therapy: “There really isn’t an alternative to that #1 thing that people need to do in order to get access to really good mental healthcare–which is find a good therapist.”
However, there is more that you can do on your own (and with groups) to support your mental health. The final installment of my interview with Dr. Walling will feature ways that you can personally, and in community, make choices to enhance mental health in yourself and those around you.
The 1, 2, 3’s of Mental Health
Ariel Kiley [AK]: Beyond working with a solid therapist, which is #1, what else can we do, as individuals, for our “mental hygiene? What’s #2?”
Dr. Christopher Walling [CW]: #2 is anything that supports greater self-regulation.
When I say “self-regulation” I mean mindfulness exercises, yoga, massage therapy, exercise, eating well, so-called “lifestyle medicine”… all of these things in some way are supporting a greater capacity to regulate one’s own state. They improve your distress tolerance, improve your performance and as a result are all yummy good things that everyone’s looking for in their lives.
But that’s not enough.
We don’t just self-regulate so that we can live on a mountain by ourselves. There’s a rule I use in my individual work as well as my work with couples, which is, we self-regulate in order to co-regulate. Meaning, beyond finding a therapist [#1] and learning lifestyle interventions to support your self-regulation [#2], step three is all about finding meaningful relationships so that self-regulation supports greater co-regulation.
When we look at the literature on longevity (and I’m also chair of education and outreach for the Alzheimer’s Research & Prevention Foundation, so longevity literature is one of my pet hobbies), the one common factor that often determines lifespan, across all causes of mortality, is the quality of our relationships. So really, what I’m listing as number three, is number one: Improve your relationships.
AK: When you refer to relationships, do you mean all kinds–from family to friends, mentors, kids, it doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship?
CW: Totally. I mean anything that falls under the domain of a relational exchange between two beings. It could be your relationship with your barista. It could be your relationship with your bus driver. That’s a relationship. Even though it’s transactional, it’s still a relationship.
How Community Relates to Mental Health
AK: Are the different ways people create community also part of mental health in addition to one-on-one relationships?
CW: Yes, when I’m talking about relationships I’m talking about group relationships as much as one-to-one relationships. Group dynamics are no different than a two-person psychology, they’re just a multi-person psychology.
Groups tend to have their own kind of group unconscious, group norms, group identity, group conflict. In some ways, they can tend to replicate the same dynamics we see, for example, in family systems. Oftentimes what people will end up doing is they’ll be reticent to engage in community or group dynamics for fear that there will be some repetition compulsion to their family system dynamic.
This might have a lot to do with why I say #1 is find a good therapist because they’re going to help you navigate some of those unconscious dynamics so that you have a right-sizing of what group dynamics are about.
Someone like myself who is very service oriented–I sit on all these boards, I’m constantly involved in some kind of service project–I can be so focused on the group sometimes that I need to go back to principle #2: What am I doing for my own self-regulation?
But I want to encourage people to disrupt this overused idea of self-care. Self-care is insufficient. If I’m only taking care of myself, then I’m essentially trying to fill my cup up when there’s a hole in it. We need others in order to take better care of ourselves. We were not designed to take care of only ourselves.
Exploring the Space Between Stimulus and Response
AK: As people remove whatever negative thing is self-soothing for them; addiction, alcohol, workaholic tendencies, excessive shopping, etc. and want to replace those with more positive self-care choices… this might be a weird question… but do we want to spend time in that gap between the negative and positive? Before we do the thing that will help comfort or regulate us?
CW: Totally. This is why it’s basic design to the stages that when we’re treating a particular trauma or recovering from a particular addiction, phase one is about bottom up stabilization. Which is to support a greater sense of capacity building.
So that you can go into stage two, [which is] top down decision-making and identifying new resources.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. That’s a space you want to spend some time in. There’s this notion that I often bring to my patients which is, what is at the heart of what impedes healing?
Sometimes you need someone to be there with you in that space. It’s like that Lady Gaga quote: “If you’re gonna go deep into your head you should take someone with you.”
That space is critical, because that’s where we’re in uncertainty. That’s when we’re dealing with paradoxical aspects of our own nature and our lives. Which are really impossible quandaries that we are meant to solve collectively and relationally and we are not meant to figure out on our own.
You’ll notice there’s a big throughline that I’ve got through a lot of your questions, which is connection.
That substitution principle–it’s brilliant. You must replace self-defeating unhealthy habits with healthier ones. But that’s got a very external orientation to it, [assuming] that all my problems need to be fixed. That reduces our identity to being a human doing; only being behaviorally focused.
In that space between the stimulus and the response, that’s where your sense of self emerges. Which is that mind we talked about at the beginning of this conversation. That flexible, adaptive, coherent, energizing, stable being comes into play. So I hope that answers your question.
AK: Yeah I love that. Also, a lot of times when people are in that space, that gap between the negative behavior and making the new “positive” choice, that’s when you get an influx of other people’s ideas and opinions of what you “should” do. But it’s actually a really fertile moment for you to find out “what is it that serves MY nature?” Which might be different than what a self-help guru says…
CW: Totally. Because there are emergent properties that are innately within you that will inherently, once they are given permission to show up and integrate, help you self-organize a sensibility of your own mind far differently than what you’ve ever known before.
This is the nature of what trauma recovery creates. This is the nature of what sobriety long-term creates. It creates this dynamism that is emboldened and impassioned and alive and filled with life force. But it’s contained and embodied and stable and organized… and that is like, man, that’s the yummy place.
That’s where creativity happens. Flow happens. Beautiful things occur. Where being human really comes into BEING and we get to experience and expand upon that. That’s joy. That’s what life’s all about.
AK: When the organism then finds its own way, that’s what people often call “grace.” They didn’t have the answer, they didn’t read or think up the answer, but they paused long enough for grace to show up. There is a breathtaking quality to those moments when they happen.
CW: That is where I hope to land. When people come to me and say, “Alright Dr. Walling, I need some advice…” I will often say, “Well, you’re in the wrong place.” That’s how you know that you’re dealing with a decent therapist–they interrupt your propensity to think that you don’t somehow have within you your own self-healing, self-corrective mechanisms.
[The self-healing, self-corrective mechanisms] are there. They are hardwired into your biology. We are the product of millions of years of evolutionary adaptive potentiation. That has a deep intrinsic intelligence to it.
This is the reason that we rely upon the body so much in body psychotherapy. Because it is the representation of the dynamic unconscious that Freud wrote about. The body IS the unconscious. And within it has access to so much wisdom that we can only put our pinky toe of our conscious mind into.
AK: Yeah the court reporter just can’t keep up!
CW: No! It’s not designed to. That cortex is so new–that cortex is a baby evolutionarily speaking. It has just shown up on the scene in really recent years, evolutionarily speaking. So we can’t expect the baby to know how to navigate this car that has nuclear power to it.
AK: You could put it in the passenger seat and give it one of those fake steering wheels and be like, “you’re driving! You’re doing a great job!”
CW: That’s right!
AK: Dr. Chris this so amazing, thank you so much.
Related Article: How to Approach and Support Mental Health When You Aren’t a Therapist (Pt. 2)
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I appreciated the reminder that self-regulation is to help us with co-regulation in our relationships. We are here to be with others. That liminal space between is so important. Going within, finding grace. It takes time and a long pause. I find myself to be quick to want the solution, resolution and move on. It’s in these spaces our innate wisdom and healing direction comes through. Thank you
“Between a stimulus and a response there is space” – this statement is so true in so many different aspects! We often live in a state of doing, doing, doing and we lose that space…and then of course we take on activities such as yoga or meditation that remind us of that space. There is so much knowledge and intuition in that space – its that quiet that might bring back that internal wise voice that we all have within. For this week, my sankalpah has been about finding that space to come back to myself, to remind myself of who are the people that I want to be surrounded with, and what are the choices that best serve my life. Dr. Chris’ answers were so beautifully said.
On my journey to living a mentally healthier life, I started (like most) focusing on my physical health. This aspect of my life improved, but I kept wavering and falling off track, only to find another method, another way, to stay consistent. I was miserable and through yoga, started to learn tools to reduce my stress and anxiety. However it wasn’t until I started seeing a therapist. To dig deeper into other life issues that I really became aware of my thinking (my mental well-being) and how it was affecting my life. I never stopped to ask why these failures were happening, never reflected on what I was, thinking, how I was feeling, and what actions I was taking. I only knew the results I wasn’t getting. I was unaware, living on autopilot, being chauffeured around by my negative self-talk, limiting beliefs, and unconscious mind.
I used to switch to a new way of doing things (a new model) without processing what went wrong in the first place. Being in the middle of the old “model” and the new “model” is a space where you can learn so much about yourself…and grow so much more from it. At least in my experience!
I am truly grateful for my therapist and her ability to show me I had the skills and tools all along and I am grateful for those people who I am able to co-regulate with!
” [assuming] that all my problems need to be fixed. That reduces our identity to being a human … ” I love this, and all the rest of that article. Thank you
Giving emergent properties within ourselves the permission to show up and integrate is scary because it involves diving in the unknow and challenging our sense of control and safety. Yet, “the body IS the unconscious.” I did have the courage to dive in. I’m really hoping the unconscious will lay to the surface. I want a peek!
When we have meaningful relationships with others, true health, growth and healing will come. Thanks for sharing!
This is such an important post, as technology (cell phones, social media, etc) seems to be creating a greater gap between actually interacting and connecting with people. I fully agree that improving relationships is essential. I never thought of it as part of mental health and self care but it completely makes sense. A positive interaction with someone always puts a smile on my face and makes me feel better in general. Thank you for sharing this perspective.
So many times we focus in ourselves, we try to have a perfect diet, do our yoga and meditation practice, self care techniques, but we forget about connecting with others and I think that having a healthy social life feeds our spirit like meditation. Its very important part of a balanced life !
Self – regulation has become more recognize now a days, society and people around the world just started to put more attention to it, but sometimes by thinking or trying to apply self- reguation we forget about our environment and by environment I mean our relationships, we forget to nourish our relationships, the ones with our family, friends, co-workers, etc. more importantly with friends, this should be as important as taking care of yourself, because as Dr. Christopher Walling says: “we self-regulate in order to co-regulate.” Of course, it is important to take care of yourself and be aware of your own needs so your cup can be full in order to give to others, but you can’t fill your cup without having one, the cup being your surroundings, your family, job, friends, etc. There must be a balance on everything and everyone.
Good mental health is key for happy life, it also affects our physical being significantly. Besides doing consistent work with personal therapist, knowing self soothing, stay active, seeking support from community’s by joining community activities, all the things we can do to help ourselves to stay healthy inside and out.
For a long time I shied away from being “that” yoga teacher. The one who asks people to sit in lotus position until they’re floating three feet above the ground with the blinding light of a thousand suns shining forth from their navel. I was all about the sweat.
But one day at the end of a class, I invited my students to introduce themselves to someone else in the room who they didn’t know. I watched two students who’d been in the same room, for the same hour, in the same class, every Tuesday for MONTHS walk across the room and introduce themselves. And my heart broke. I realized that I had an opportunity to build community, to build relationships.
For the record, I still don’t think of myself as “that” yoga teacher. And I still love to sweat. But now I’m willing to acknowledge the living, breathing community around me as I do it – and to encourage others to do the same.
I like the way this circled between the self-regulating and co-regulating. At times relationships can become strained when self-care has been neglected, signalling maybe that is where you need to invest. On the other hand, finding your ‘tribe’ and building interpersonal relationships where you are comfortably authentic and accepted, really can facilitate finding that solution within yourself and moving into a greater space, together.
I love the term- Lifestyle Medicine. The ways that we are looking at self-regulation with more compassion is so important. Building relationships in the community is key- when we build each other up we make this world a better place. Finding a way to find the space between stimulus and response and just hanging out there- certainly is a challenge!
I want to encourage people to disrupt this overused idea of self-care. Self-care is insufficient. If I’m only taking care of myself, then I’m essentially trying to fill my cup up when there’s a hole in it. We need others in order to take better care of ourselves. We were not designed to take care of only ourselves.
Mindfulness exercises, yoga, massage therapy, exercise, eating well, so-called “lifestyle medicine”… all of these things in some way are supporting a greater capacity to regulate one’s own state. They improve your distress tolerance, improve your performance and as a result are all yummy good things that everyone’s looking for in their lives.
I think relationships are essential in our lives. They are directly related to our personality, our emotions and therefore our mind. Nobody wants to be alone. Sharing experiences with others and people who love us, its a bit of the foundation of life from my point of view. I also believe a lot in the benefits of yoga, meditation and breathing to help with health.
Yoga teachers have an important role in creating and sustaining mental wellness. The ability to control the breath has direct impact on how people feel. To slow down the mind and to pause opens opportunity to decide how to respond to the present moment.
On the other hand, I think it is sad that Dr. Walling considers therapy essential for every individual. No one can be healthy when the culture is sick. Limited acceptable emotional expression, segregation from Nature and our more than human kin, and aggressive conformatism are signs of a collective unwellness. Greater action is needed than yoga or therapy to create biodynamic and interdependent health.
A professional such as a therapist to help you connect to your inner workings is a wonderful start on better Mental health care, also a elder or Medicine person to offer a greater range into self regulation…my opinion. I love the 1,2 and 3s of this post as it offers an effective way to embody and take control of your physical self to dive in deeper within all your layers. I’ve really enjoyed reading this blog scripts.
Thank you.
Blessings
Melaina Landriault
So many students have told me over the years that yoga is their “therapy.” While I don’t think yoga should be a substitute for one on one sessions with a licensed therapist, there is something therapeutic about moving and breathing intentionally with a group of people. There is sense of community, support, and non-judgement I hope all yoga teachers can help facilitate.
Mindfulness exercise is more and more being accepted and recommended by healthcare professionals as an alternative to relying so heavily on prescription drugs because they have finally accepted that many of our physical ailments stem from psychological distress producing psychosomatic episodes. Joining a gym, yoga studio or working out with a friend helps a great deal in developing relationships that get us out of our heads.