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A Pause In life

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The comma; a small, but mighty powerful bit of punctuation within the English language. Tiny in reality, but it can produce gigantic waves of emotion, reassurance and stability should it be used in the correct way.

For those of us who choose to use this mark, metaphorically, it represents a pause in life – a moment to just relax, reflect, breathe, then continue. The comma serves as an symbol of great resilience, often signifying that while one chapter may have ended or faced challenges, there is always more to come, it’s never the end, like a full stop would be.

“Mental health is never a full stop, it’s always a comma.”

Mental health is never a full stop, it’s always a comma. Let’s digest this:

A full stop means when something is brought to an ending, and in relation to mental health, this would be when a person succumbs to their dark clouds. We never want to associate these two together, yes, it happens, sadly, but we must try to see light at the end of the tunnel and focus all our attention on the power of the comma.

The might comma signifies there is more to come, nothing is or has come to an end and life is presenting us the next step, the next move in our lives. When we see a comma, especially when we are reading, our brains pause, because it’s the next part in the sentence, chapter or story.

There will be hundreds, thousands, potentially even tens of thousands of times, where in a person’s life, especially ones who struggles and deals with mental health issues, where they’ll want that definitive full stop. Complete cessation. The mighty comma won’t even be a contemplation as the next potential element of punctuation, i.e. continuing life.

“… the fallen.”

What we have to try and get to grips with, and really understand, is that everything has a solution, no matter how dark those clouds get when they start to loom over our heads. No matter how low we feel, whether it’s for hours, days, weeks, or months, things will get better. Some people are very quick to act, sadly, and those are the ones we have already lost; the fallen.

For the rest of us, we must, in solidarity, continue fighting, writing and making things just that little but easier for ourselves.

The First Hurdle

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Our minds will install a mental barrier, between the end of the sentence and the potential next, this barrier, is called the full stop, the definitive ending. Once we realise this barrier can be lifted and subsequently replaced (with the mighty comma), we can learn to train our minds to fight through the dark times when we are heading towards that full stop, try to transform it into a comma, where life can then start to change.

Mental health is never easy to deal with, especially when it occurs for the first time, it’s as if the body goes into shock, when it feels something so powerful and particularly for the first time, especially as an adult, you start to think “what the hell is this feeling?!”

The first hurdle is always the hardest to jump, and it all comes down to the power of consistency. Everything we do in life is related to this, especially things where we want to improve our lives and better ourselves.

“… what the hell is this feeling?!”

Let’s take an example, if we want to improve speaking Spanish, it doesn’t just happen over night, or even a week, month, year, not for most people anyway, it literally takes years. Consistently listening, writing, reading, following, watching and learning is the only real way for the brain to absorb this, one word after another. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

This works the same when we want to ‘condition’ our brain to behave in a certain way, we have to let it experience things for the first time (sometimes they are inadvertent and certainly unavoidable), but once it’s happened, that’s step 1, from there, it can learn to deal with this type of emotion and prepare for the next time.