Mental health isn’t personal; it’s relational

“Mental health is not solely individual, it is very much social. It is relational.” — Doc Ayomide

May is Mental health awareness month, and the theme for this year is LET’S CONNECT. Our first two episodes and interviews this month thus far have been about mental health and connections, and today, we decided to focus on it more. Ayomide found moving abroad that things you take for granted in a home culture are often not on the radar in the new culture, and vice versa. And he describes finding the clash of cultures, including the resulting frictions, fascinating. He also discussed how the desire to go off on your own and find yourself could be misleading because there is really no way to find yourself apart from in relationships with others. We need people to help us create balance, give us fresh perspectives, and call out gifts we take for granted.

Ayomide went on to introduce a way to think about “shalom /שָׁלוֹם/,” the ancient Hebrew idea of peace, harmony, wholeness, and completeness, which he framed by saying, “Mental health is not solely individual, it is very much social. It is relational.” Contrary to how modern thought frames it, peace, in the sense of shalom, is not simply an emotional state of being. It’s a state of being in the right relationship with everything —…