Rosenna Bakari

When you have a healthy mind, you remain undisturbed for longer periods. Not every discomfort needs to be addressed. You can sit in discomfort without feeling an emotional crisis.

You know the difference between unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and unsafe, and respond accordingly.

You won’t confront everything unfamiliar to make yourself comfortable. Neither will you respond to discomfort as if it is unsafe.

Mental muscle allows you to carry messages of hope, not pride.

You become better at avoiding unsafe things because you are not looking for diversions. An example would be traveling to a high-conflict country on a budget to escape your pain.

When disturbances do occur, disequilibrium is quickly restored. You don’t cling to pain. You allow it to move through you with relevant processes.

You can miss people, places, and things without mourning them forever. Conflicts don’t turn into wars. You permit yourself to experience peace that is unconnected to circumstances.

Most importantly, no matter how frequently you are disturbed or how long the disturbance lasts, you experience growth and an appreciation for life.

Resolutions are not met with grief and regret. You don’t wear pain as a badge of honor. Mental muscle allows you to carry messages of hope, not pride.

Mental Pull-ups

There may be moments that trigger remembrances of pain, grief, or regret, but the pain feels more like being pinched than being hit with a hammer.

A pinch wakes us back up, though it can leave a temporary bruise. A hammer leaves brain damage, and you live in survival mode for the rest of your life.

Developing a solid emotional life is similar to training in martial arts. It requires total conditioning. My friend, Lizz, tells the story about me helping her rearrange her house. I moved several items for her.

When we got to the large television, Lizz stated she would leave that item for her husband. I picked up the television and asked her in which upstairs room she wanted me to place it.

I don’t do pull-ups to train for a pull-up competition. I do them to be physically independent and helpful to others.

She was amazed that I carried the heavy item upstairs without assistance. I was confident because it weighed less than what I lifted in the gym. But she had never seen my petite body in the gym doing pull-ups.

This week on my walk, I stopped to help a strange man push his stalled car into a parking lot. I could see his ego hesitate for a half-second before accepting my help. His fatigue got the best of him, and he acquiesced.

I don’t do pull-ups to train for a pull-up competition. I do them to be physically independent and helpful to others.

Sculpting Your Umbrella

I have read book after book and meditated day after day for insight. I’ve shed tear after tear and written poem after poem to process emotions. I have let people leave my life with grace and walked away from others to heal.

I’ve had three therapists and two types of therapy. I have a small collection of crystals and oils and occasionally check my horoscope. I am highly invested in my mental fitness, so I do the common and uncommon things to develop mental muscle.

I’m not suggesting you need to do all that I mentioned. You have your own path to create and follow. Your work is to find your healing path to mental fitness so that you can develop emotional independence and serve others.

Learning to love everyone is a much better shield than finding someone special to love.

Religion may assist you in looking strong, but it is not mental fitness. You must develop your inner life to train for mental push-ups.

The same can be said for wealth. How many of the rich and famous must fall before we understand the fallacy of wealth and happiness?

Intimate love does not develop your mind either. It often ends up being the demise of emotional intelligence. Learning to love everyone is a much better shield than finding someone special to love.

The point is that nothing outside of you will lead to fewer disturbances, a shorter duration of discomfort, and healthier outcomes after disturbances. Getting mentally fit is mind work, like being physically fit is the bodywork.

Love is Strength

Living from a place of love and acceptance is the pull-up of mental wellness. Few people put mental pull-ups into their living routine. Some people mimic it with the assistance of scripts from family or culture. But they’ve never tried to do “real love.”

Real love comes without fitting people into your box of expectations. Love is who you are, not what you do with someone. “I love you” shouldn’t mean you can’t live without someone. It means, “I see my reflection in you.”

You should see your reflection everywhere, like walking downtown and passing all the glass storefronts. In every store window, you see your reflection. Something would be wrong if your reflection appeared only in your favorite store window.

You don’t enter every store but see your reflection in every window. When you see yourself in others, you will be kinder in the world, and the world will reflect kindness to you, even in difficult times.

Re-Minding Yourself

Being mentally fit requires you to have a healthy relationship with your mind, the same way being physically fit does with your body. Each mind is as different as each body. So, the work is yours to figure out.

There is something you must release in your life and habits you must change. Change requires you to implement a process of self-evaluation. Learn to be truthful with yourself instead of defending patterns that yield results you don’t like.

Some people say, “keep it real.” I say, “keep it healed.” Your ability to bounce back from current challenges depends on how much weight you carry from past challenges. You must address the pain you have hidden from yourself.

You become easily annoyed, disturbed, or triggered because disturbed is your unhealed state. Anything that scratches the surface triggers your unhealed pain.

Becoming mentally fit changes your underlying state and protects you from the storms of life. The rainy days are just rainy days. They don’t throw off your game.