Mental Health is To Know Thyself
The Matrix is one of my favorite movies, because of its depth and how it changed the way I saw the world. There is a scene that echoes in my mind constantly.
Temet Nosce
When I was in high school, my dad told me the most important thing about this experience was to get to know myself. To learn about who I am. To emerge from the years of exploration and self-understanding to come through with a clearer perspective on myself. I approached it like there was an answer key in the back of a textbook. I approached a lot of things like that, and I imagine many of us do the same. We assume there’s a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answer. We wait for fate to determine what we’re made of. I tested my knowledge, seeking answers in the people I crushed on, the friends that I made, the activities that I filled my schedule doing. Maybe, if I looked hard enough, this full schedule and multitude of experiences would tell me who I was. I’d discover the right answer and then I could go about my life.
In the scene, the Oracle tells Neo: “Being the One is like falling in love. No one can tell you you’re in love, you just know it.” But along the way of falling in love, you have to spend time with a person, connect with them somehow, develop trust and a sense of togetherness. It might click in a moment of realization. Or after a while, it subtly emerges into being until you don’t have any doubt.
The power of the scene is held in so many facets, but one that stands out to me is this: like me in high school, searching for ‘the answer’ to who I was, Neo goes to the Oracle expecting to be told “yes” or “no” when it comes to being “the One”. And she tells him, “you have the gift, but you’re waiting for something.” The acknowledgment is enough to clarify what is important to Neo in that moment. It helps him clarify what his choices are, even though he believes he’s not the One. And in the end, he chooses to stop waiting for someone else to come and tell him, dictate to him, determine him. He chooses freely who he is and this is what allows him to be the One.
This is how I see my work with my clients.
This is how I see mental health as a whole.
What I love most about my work is getting to walk alongside people as they get to know themselves. Truly, honestly, seeing themselves for who they are and learning how to love this person. How to choose based on their own values, their own beliefs, their own self.
When I look out at the world, with all the devastation and emptiness in our leadership in our country and in others, I believe that so much of what has happened is due to so many of us, not truly knowing themselves. When we are blind to our own insecurities, when we lack empathy for others, when we don’t recognize how connected we are in this world to each other and to the earth and environment; we see fascism, dictators, power grabs, white supremacy, colonization - all in attempt to control and villainize others while seeing ourselves as the hero.
It may seem so small to overcome your own difficulties, learn to love yourself, and become a healthier version of you.
It may feel awkward to name things that are hard to say out loud, feeling ashamed of how it sounds, and connected to the things you wish you never had to admit.
It may be a tiny drop in the ocean of our vast human existence to be healing your heart among all the things going on in the world.
By doing this, it clarifies our choices. It allows us to be more fully who we are. It allows us to see “the gift” within us and we can then use it to play our part in how to heal this world.
If you’re on this journey of healing and understanding yourself, grappling with difficult questions about your own feelings, your thoughts, and your values: please take heart. I’ve seen so many people become their version of “the One” because of this. I’ve walked my own path of becoming “the One” in my own life and continue to walk it to this day. Knowing thyself is the path for not only our individual healing and liberation, but that of our communities, our country, our world.
