We are made able to forget for a reason.
We don’t usually want to retain everything.
From a good moment, we want to retain the memory.
From a bad moment, we want to retain the lesson.
Our brains have memory selection processes that are always in action 🔄
You don’t see a physically drained person that’s unable to proceed with life for weeks or months. A physically drained person would need a max of one day to return back to baseline levels of physical health – We can’t say the same about a mentally drained person.
It’s drastic that only a few people are aware of this fact. It’s not only critical that we highlight the importance of mental health for our own wellbeing but also for that of those we love & care about. We can’t sympathize with them if we don’t put foremost the fact that anyone could be suffering in silence. It could have no pre-requisites, no signs, and no symptoms.
Many times, a good therapist work is to help get a person through stuff that already happened, not away from it. A good therapist understands that the fear of a bad moment is the prison of the patient, and helps them break free by acknowledging the lessons they get away with, rather than feeling imprisoned for the rest of their lives.
The relationship we form with our thoughts sets the basis for the quality of our days. The narrative we tell ourselves about events & moments, good & bad, are what will ultimately make the story of us.
A decline in mental health is a slow paralysis to all life functions, it’s a call to stop, lay back, and re-assess. We can’t perform if we don’t understand ourselves to the minute detail. You can’t work out your body 4 times per week and fail to realize the need to work out your mind as well.
The lack of a definitive framework of “Working out for the mind” is what makes it easier to dismiss it rather than interfere. We don’t usually have coaches everywhere that scream they could help us be better with our thoughts, and even when they do exist, patients do it in the dark, because it’s easily tabooed.
If AI can capture everything for us, tell us what to do, and help us navigate through our inner selves, well that’s STILL NOT ENOUGH. We forget things for a reason, and no AI can take this into account. We are selective of the narratives & stories we want to keep, and even this selection is personal for everyone, and can not be generalized. AI doesn’t have these selection processes baked in. So AI can not be my therapist, only me could be. The depth & understanding I have about myself is the only tool a personalized AI could use to help me.
There’s a growing body of research that suggests gratitude journaling can help boost mental health, but the thing about cultivating gratitude is it doesn’t only come from reliving happy times. It comes from sitting with your worst moments and practicing how to reframe that ugliness into a set of lessons, which as mentioned is the basis of the job of a good therapist.
If I go on and only reflect on my happiest moments in life, this still can not get me anywhere, it’s only partial & incomplete. There should be a framework that help us navigate both types of memories, each with its own tools – Tools that embrace our human part, not suppress it.
Research advancement in mental health is extremely slower than that in physical health, the same way that software is extremely slower than hardware. I hope at some point in the future, both can intersect & cope, together.
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