The health we can talk about
Physical health is
the one language we all speak. A lower back that aches from years of hard
training. A shoulder that reminds you it is there every morning. A stomach that
stopped agreeing with certain foods somewhere along the way. Asthma. A bad
knee. We have lived lives, and our bodies keep the record.
And here is the
thing. We can point at all of it. We can name it, measure it, feel it. We know
the difference between really sick and mostly fine. We can tell a doctor, a
partner, a friend, and they understand. We can build a plan: rest it, stretch
it, treat it, give it time. Physical health is hard to live with sometimes, but
it is easy to talk about.
The
health we can't
Now try the same
exercise with mental health. Emotional health. Spiritual health. The words get
vague fast. We say them all the time, but ask someone what they actually mean
and most of us go quiet. There is no x-ray for a heavy mind. No blood test for
a tired spirit. No scale that tells you your emotional health dropped two
percent this winter.
That creates two
problems, and they feed each other. The first is that we cannot gauge
ourselves. Something is off, we can feel it, but we cannot pinpoint it the way
we can pinpoint a sore elbow. So it sits there, unnamed, and unnamed things
grow.
The second is that
other people fill the silence with judgment. Because there is no shared gauge,
people rate each other’s healing by guesswork. He should be over that by now.
She seems fine to me. We would never do that with a broken leg, but we do it with
a broken season of someone’s life.
Borrow
the body's language
So here is the
simplest tool I know. Take the language we already have for the body and lend
it to the parts of us we cannot see.
A heavy mind is an
injury, not a weakness. Grief is a wound, and wounds take the time they take.
Anxiety is an old strain that flares up under load, the same way a bad back
flares up when you lift wrong. You would not be ashamed of a torn shoulder, would
you?. You would name it, rest it, work it carefully, and ask for help with the
things it will not let you carry for a while.
And remember what the
body teaches about strength. The strongest people I know train hard and still
have a lower back that barks at them (yes its ok to stop doing squats in your
50s).. Strong and hurt live in the same body all the time. It is no different
above the shoulders. You can be capable, successful, carrying a family and a
company, and still be injured somewhere nobody can see. One does not cancel the
other.
Nobody
ranks another person's knee rehab
This is where the
judgment has to stop. Picture telling someone their knee should be further
along by now, like it is a character flaw. You would never. Bodies heal on
their own schedule, and we respect that without thinking about it.
Healing is the same
everywhere else. Trust moves at its own pace, and so does healing. You cannot
rush either one, and you cannot read or call plays on someone’s progress from
the sidelines. The person who looks stuck might be doing the hardest rehab of
their life where you cannot see it.
So the rule I try to
hold is simple. I can walk beside someone in their healing. I cannot grade it.
Where they are, is where they are, and my job is to respect it, not to rank it
or especially judge it.
One
health, four parts
As I have experienced,
health was never four separate files. Mind, body, heart and spirit are one
person. When one part is out of balance, the others pick up the load, and
eventually the body tattles on all of them. The sleep that will not come. The
chest that stays tight. The energy that is just gone. Often the body is not the
problem. It is the messenger.
So tend the parts you
cannot see the way you tend the parts you can. Name what hurts in plain words,
even just to yourself. Do the small daily work, the way you would rehab a
shoulder, not all at once but every day. Stay close to your people, because nobody
heals alone and we were never meant to. And get back to the things that fill
your spirit, whatever that is for you. For me it’s salt water, fitness and
riding something with two wheels an engine….
A
simple gauge
If all of this is too
much, keep one thing. Ask your mind, your heart and your spirit the same
questions you would ask your body.
Where does it hurt?
How long has it been hurting? What makes it worse, and what gives it relief?
Who can help me with this?
That is the whole
tool. No diagnosis required, no perfect words. If you can gauge a sore
shoulder, you can gauge a heavy heart. And if someone shares theirs with you,
receive it the way you would receive news of an injury. With care, without
judgment, and without a timeline that was never yours to set.
