If you want to hear a story about how  recovery from mental illness should work, look no further than Paris Williams.

During the May 15, 2013 episode of Mental Health Exposed, Paris tells his personal story of mental illness, recovery and a new paradigm in mental health.

Not many people on this earth have experienced psychosis, recovered, then gotten a doctorate in psychology and written books.

Paris is uniquely qualified to lead us into a new way to conceptualizing mental illness and recovering without the stigma, drugs, abusive “therapy” and lack of hope that so many experience as a direct result of modern mental health practices.

Download the May 15, 2013 episode of Mental Health Exposed and begin to understand the possibilities for true healing.

Myths of modern mental health

As a prelude to his research outlined in his book, Rethinking Madness, Paris reviews with me the common myths associated with mental illness.

Here they are:

Myth #1: Schizophrenia is a brain Disease
Myth #2: “Schizophrenia” is a valid construct
Myth #3: People cannot fully recover from schizophrenia
Myth #4: Mainstream psychiatric treatment greatly increases beneficial outcomes

Paris is living proof that the above are indeed myths. Don’t miss this episode of Mental Health Exposed.

A call to mental health practitioners

It is indeed time for a new paradigm in mental health: one in which we, above all, stop overreacting to the idiosyncrasies or even crises of the mind and begin to simply search for healing opportunities. In my opinion, every “disorder” of the mind is a healing opportunity that needs to be explored, not “fixed.”

We don’t need to be fixed because we were never broken to begin with. Most of us have been hurt, betrayed, traumatized or deprived of what we need, but NONE of this has broken us. We need to be patient and curious – as hard as that may seem – so that we can learn the deeper mysteries of the mind and bring about healing.

The existing mental health system simply does not allow for this possibility. Labeling people with disorders and drugging them does not …

Even though so much research is dedicated to promoting chemical imbalances as the cause of depression, some research efforts still support the logical link between your actual life and your mood.

Analyzing data from nearly 5000 participants, with a follow up at 10 years, researchers have scientifically established what most people know intuitively. If your relationships are bad, your mood is likely to follow.

New information coming out of the University of Michigan makes the link. “Our study shows that the quality of social relationships is a significant risk factor for major depression,” says psychiatrist Alan Teo, MD, of the University of Michigan. “This is the first time that a study has identified this link in the general population.”

Relationship strain, feelings of isolation in relationships, a lack of support and other issues among spouses, families and friends contribute to depression. It isn’t the quantity of relationships that is important, according to the research, but the quality.
The quality of your relationships is a determining factor in your mental health
“The magnitude of these results is similar to the well-established relationship between biological risk factors and cardiovascular disease,” Teo says. “What that means is that if we can teach people how to improve the quality of their relationships, we may be able to prevent or reduce the devastating effects of clinical depression.”

What can you do to improve the quality of your relationships and increase your mood? Here are some ideas:

Forget your mood and focus on your relationships

Which are the most important relationships in your life? What is wonderful about them? What is missing? What steps can you take to improve them, beyond passively wishing that other people will magically change?

Learn real relationship skills

Do you know how to take another person’s perspective? Do you understand how to look at a relationship from a neutral perspective? Do you know your preferred way to receive love? Do you know your partner’s? Do you know how to mediate a conflict when you are in the midst of one?

Most of us do not have great intuition about these things. Most often, we …

It is a sad fact that most people need to heal their mind before they can be happy, but it is a fact nonetheless.

An unhealed mind cannot be happy. In fact, an unhealed mind is hell-bent on misery.

Noticing the following signs of an unhealed mind is a positive step toward change.

Do the following signs apply to you? If you can see them in your life, then you already have a leg up! Be warned: I speak boldly about these issues. I can speak freely because I am not afraid to admit that they also apply to me.
Five signs of an unhealed mind

1. Mental and emotional misery

You experience mental commotion, self-criticism, runaway thoughts, bad habits, anxiety, depression, self-loathing and more. Your mind and emotions seem to operate on autopilot, out of your conscious control. Depending on your level of neurosis, your mind can feel like a psychic torture machine created just to make you miserable.

2. You experience your suffering passively

You do not see yourself as the source of all the suffering. Or, if you do see yourself as the source, you do not have the power or self-control to do anything about it. You remain a helpless victim – as if something were being done to you, rather than by you.

3. You are blind to the cause of your suffering

You seem to attribute your suffering to almost everything but the actual cause, which has never occurred to you and would shock and anger you if someone put it to you straight.

Worse, you may be convinced that your suffering is caused by people or circumstances that could never cause it. You may blame your spouse, your parents, your boss, your kids or your neighbor. You may blame “life” or God or your lack of education or opportunity. You may blame yourself; your inadequacy or inferiority. None of these  is capable of causing the kind of suffering your experience within yourself, yet these are the common “causes” people find.

4. You resist solutions

When real solutions present themselves, you turn them away or even allow them to upset …

The calm of the present moment is always available and getting to it is deceptively simple.

In fact, it is more complicated to escape the present moment than to be in it.

The problem is, we are naturally complicated!

We learn early in life to avoid the simplicity of the moment and live inside an entangled mind-mess.

So, back to basics!

We connect to the present moment through our five senses. In this article, we’ll review simple ways to use three of your senses to sweep away the mind-mess and just be present. No drama. Just present.

The trick is to avoid making meaning. When you make meaning, you must go inside your mind. It is so easy at that point to make meaning that is emotionally upsetting.

All of us need a break from the internal commotion.
Accessing the External Present by Seeing, Hearing and Feeling
For me, the external present is the break I need. It is so calm and mundane – no mind chatter, no worry about the future, no regret, no problem. We cannot spend all of our time aware of the immediate now, but spending some time here every day is extraordinarily calming.

The key to getting really calm is to pay attention to the consistent and mundane. We can do it by listening, feeling and seeing in particular ways. Here are some examples. Do not just read….do!

Listen: Choose white noise and tune in fully. The sound of a fan. The hum of the refrigerator. The sound of running water, such as when you are in the shower. Mundane, consistent white noise is what you want.

Tune in, just listen and do not try to relax – just tune in to the sound. After a few seconds, you will feel yourself “settle.” Research has proven that this settling is related to your brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN). It switches off when engaged in this kind of conscious task. The DMN is the brain’s autopilot – which is commonly called the “inner commotion machine.”

Feel: Feel textures and temperatures in your immediate environment. The feel of the texture of your …

I come from a long line of tough guys who were too stubborn to make the changes that would allow them to live a longer, healthier life. Smoking, overeating, alcoholism and sedentary living gave way to cancer, diabetes, heart attacks and strokes.

By the time my grandfather was 74, he lived with oxygen tubes taped to his face, but still made space for a few cigarettes every day. The man simply had no give in him. He loved smoking more than he loved the possibility of living 10-20 years longer.

One by one, they fell. I can count at least 12 men in my family, including my father, who died a painful, willful, stubborn death caused by a consciously negligent lifestyle.

Interestingly, they were married to women who participated in their demise.

In each case, the wives complied with their husbands’ demands for cigarettes, booze and piles of food, even after being warned by doctors about the dangers of continuing on the current path. Dutifully, they bought the smokes, brought home the booze and prepared the bowls of ice cream. These men never had to get out of the easy chair to fetch their own poison.

People in my family didn’t talk about interpersonal stuff, so I will never know what really went on in everyone’s mind, but as a counselor (I am the oddball in the family) I have witnessed a similar dynamic dozens of times: Impossibly stubborn and rigid men who insist upon living in unhealthy ways on the one side, and women caretakers who indulge them on the other.

The dynamic changes, however, when a caretaker gets fed up and stops indulging the counterpart.

It’s tough. As soon as a devoted caretaker refuses to fetch the beer, bake the cake, buy the cigarettes or sit around and watch TV all night, the relationship becomes strained. Seriously strained. Moreover, some caretakers are 100% financially dependent upon a stubbornly unhealthy soul and simply do not have the courage to rock the boat.

When it comes down to it, if the relationship is already lacking commitment and emotional connection, rocking the …

We tend inflict so much suffering upon ourselves through negative self talk. It’s really amazing when you think about it. So much suffering due to words running through our minds…

In this post I’d like to share my top 10 self-damaging things we tend to say to ourselves. I have my own experience with negative self talk, believe me!

One tool for overcoming negative self-talk is to call it what it is. I’ll say more about that in a minute. Here is my list of the top ten things to avoid saying to yourself.

1. I’m not worth it.

This is a direct assault on your self-esteem and it is simply not true! Telling yourself you are not “worth it” only perpetuates negative beliefs you may have picked up early in life.

2. There’s no use.

Telling yourself there is no use steals your personal power and leaves you with no motivation.

3. I can’t do it.

Again, very disempowering. There are times when you truly cannot do something, however, most of the time this one is delivered as more of a self-attack than a statement of fact.

4. I’ll never follow through.

This is a set up for failure before you really get started. We all know that success comes one day at a time. Telling yourself you will fail before you get started is shooting yourself in the foot.

5. People won’t like me.

A set up for rejection. When you enter a new situation telling yourself that people won’t like you, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy!

6. Others are better than I am.

We all tend to compare ourselves to others. Sometimes we exercise prejudice against ourselves, though. Telling yourself that others are better than you is an assault on your self-worth.

7. I am not enough.

A huge one for people who feel inadequate to meet the demands of life. A sense of personal inadequacy is very discouraging – don’t reinforce it!

8. I must be perfect.

The way to guarantee failure is to criticize yourself whenever you are imperfect, which is all the time. We are perfectly imperfect!

9. My opinion doesn’t matter.

More low self-esteem …

One the March 20, 2013 episode of Mental Health Exposed, I had the privilege of speaking with Christiane Northrup, MD about repressed emotions and physical health, as well as a host of other issues.

If you haven’t heard of Dr. Northrup, she is an internationally known powerhouse of a medical doctor who favors alternative means of healing.

If you are interested in the connection between physical, mental and emotional health, then listen to the March 20, 2013 episode! It’s 100% free to download or listen to in iTunes.
Do Repressed Emotions Lead to Heart Disease?
I subscribe to DrNorthrup.com. When I received an email recently entitled, Hidden Emotions Hurt the Heart, I knew it was time to invite Dr. Northrup on the show.

Dr. Northrup stated recently on her website:

One of my friends was asking me for advice for her sister, who has hypertension (high blood pressure). I didn’t suggest a statin or a blood pressure lowering medication, as the first choice. I explained that, while there are factors like high blood pressure or a stressful lifestyle, which contribute to hypertension, sometimes the root cause is deep emotional tension from the past.

Little did I know that our discussion would explode into a sweeping assessment of mental, physical and spiritual health, with Dr. Northrup boldly defying her publisher’s wishes for her to be conservative in her public opinions!

Dr. Northrup also discusses her firm spiritual beliefs as well as the energetic imprint process, developed by Peter Calhoun. This process is so intriguing that I have agreed to do future show with Dr. Northrup and Peter Calhoun so that Peter can do the imprint process with me on the air.

The energetic imprint process is intended to clear past trauma so that you are free to live in the present without the stress of recycled past emotions.

Join us on the March 20, 2013 episode of Mental Health Exposed.

If you like my articles on PsychCentral, then like my Facebook Page, too!

This week’s episode of Mental Health Exposed is a free LifeForce Yoga class with author and instructor Amy Weintraub.

Join my wife, Hope, therapist Sherry Rubin and me as we follow Amy’s step-by-step instructions in light movement yoga and breath work. If you download the April 24, 2013 episode, you can follow right along with us and do the exercises.

Since it’s a download, you can also stop the recording when you want to take more time with a particular exercise, or go back to get a set of instructions again. It’s an ideal setting to learn! Of course, you can use this episode day in and day out as well.
Warning: These Lifeforce Yoga techniques will dramatically impact your mood for the better!
So, if you are bent on having a bad day and feeling glum, don’t participate in this class, as it will ruin your chances of being miserable.

Seriously, these simple methods alter your mental and physical state in a profound way. You don’t even have to think about it. Just do it and your mind and mood will begin to shift. I began this class with a very heavy heart – stressed about a personal issue. I remember thinking to myself, “This isn’t a good day to be doing this. Nothing will remove the stone in my chest right now.” I was wrong. This stuff really works.

Anyone can do it. Download the April 24, 2013 episode and give it a chance to work for you.
Future free classes on Mental Health Exposed: your feedback needed
Hope and I are considering offering more free classes on Mental Health Exposed. We may invite a variety of guest teachers to make presentations to small, online groups that we organize. Topics would vary.

Were curious if YOU think this is a good idea. Would you participate if you were interested in the topic? To let us know your opinion, go to the MHE archive page and send us an email. Thanks for your thoughts!

Also, please like our Facebook Page to keep up with …