Our Mental Immune System

Coming back into balance

One of my favorite concepts for understanding how we are built and our natural resilience, is the idea of a mental immune system.

The bodily immune system we're all familiar with - we know can get compromised. We become susceptible to infections; we get colds and fevers as the body works to restore health.

There is also a general understanding that when we’re sick, we slow down, we eat differently, we rest. We adjust our behavior while our bodies naturally come back into balance. It might not be enjoyable, but the body is always working to get back to well-being. That is part of its intelligence. 

What if we viewed our mental well-being in the same way? 

We have dips in our moods, waves of negative, fearful or insecure thinking. But if we leave them alone, and don’t think further into them, our minds will settle and those thoughts will naturally clear up. 

If we consider the conventional wisdom of "let me sleep on it," we can see this truth at play. With some distance and space, our concerns and burdens lift, and we’re met with fresh thinking and new perspectives.

What we’re all up against is remembering this truth when we’re suffering. When our minds are busy, it can be like a fog - it’s all we see. Our negative thinking can also feel very seductive, like it’s telling us something really important - that we have to do more, do better, or some other person needs to do more or better. 

But if we can treat these periods like we could a cold, we slow down, we take better care of ourselves, we adjust our behavior, we will see the this design unfold. Like a snow globe, if we stop shaking it, it comes to rest. And we do too.