Did you know that much of what society calls mental illness is actually the normal reaction of healthy people to unfortunate or toxic situations?
Some behavioral disorders stem from true mental illness, but what most of us struggle with are just the demands of living. If we are overly criticized, we may develop low self-esteem; if we receive a diagnosis of a serious disease, we may become anxious; someone we love dies, and we grieve. Most of our emotional reactions are sane, normal, and typical of what anyone else might feel under the same circumstances.
Today's Recipe for Healing is this: avoid labeling emotional behavior - yours or anyone else's - as "craziness," or mental illness. Recognize and accept that most personal problems stem from normal needs for being loved, feeling safe, making sense out of disappointment or disaster, and having reasons to hope.
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