I prepared some comments for my Provisors group for Mental Health Awareness month. As I prepared my remarks, I recalled watching Andy Rooney on 60 minutes and remember how I looked forward to his segment at the end of the show. He always struck a thoughtful tone. I attempted to channel Andy Rooney here and hope I did his memory justice.
#MentalHealth #MentalHealthMonth #LetsTalk #TogetherWeCan #climatechange
[Video Transcript]
This is Mental Health Awareness Month and I would like to share some comments I prepared for my Provisors group on this important subject…
Thanks.
Do you remember Andy Rooney on 60 minutes?
Sometimes I feel like him, except my segment goes at the beginning of the show and they put his at the end.
This is Mental Health Awareness month. And this subject is right in my wheelhouse. I have been studying mental health for a long time in relationship to my work with the Enneagram and more recently in my relationship with leaders who are working on the climate crisis.
We live in a system the pushes everything to its limits.
In Silicon Valley we push technology to its limits.
In some places we push the environment to its limits.
Other places it pushes the labor of people to their limits.
In fact, the tech that was developed right here now pushes our very attention and our ability to pay attention to its limits.
All this imposes extraordinary stress on us, and that stress itself is coming to its limits.
That’s why we are seeing a sharp rise in mental health issues, epidemics of substance abuse, epidemics of violence, gun violence and otherwise. For instance, we just saw a celebrity who many of us admire lash out on national Television!
Under these stresses each of us will respond in a distinct way. Some will respond will with anger, some with anxiety, some with depression. And we will likely be cycling through all of these at times.
The Enneagram shows how that happens by your Enneagram type
When we see someone responding two thirds of us will think, I would never do that. One third of us with think, I could see myself doing that.
And, since we are NOT addressing the root causes of these stressors, I expect this trend will continue to get worse.
So I urge you to take your own mental health seriously in order to face these challenges.
The Enneagram is a great tool for this. Knowing your Enneagram type will help you better recognize the signs of when you are reaching your limits and better help you manage your reactions during high stress situations.
Everyone in this room grew up in a time of limitless possibilities.
we developed our habits and expectations around limitlessness
The world has changed. We’ve exceeded its limits. However, our habits and expectations have not changed. We still are behaving as though the world were limitless.
As we come to grips with the need to change our behaviors, we will all be working through the grieving process and all the fraught emotions associated with this process—you already see this with the backlash to mask mandates.
Some of you may be dismissing my words. That’s okay. The first step in the grieving process is denial.
In any case, I urge all of you, please take your mental health seriously.
Please prepare yourself.
Please be kind to yourself.
Please be kind to others, especially those with less information and tools than yourself, as they work through this process.
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