A few days ago, I met a very young millennial named Maj who now works for the company of a friend as a marketing executive. She helps the young company grow with her genius ideas.
Maj offered to help me market my book “Remember Who You Really Are” to young individuals, when I asked her what could be our deal, she brushed me off and said that she only wants to share with her generation the insights she got from the book. She shared that for a time, she had to endure depression. Thankfully, she did not resort to any anti-depressants and just wrestled with it inwardly. Maj told me that the book helped her a lot in her coping and she knows that it can also help young people her age who go through the same challenges.
While we were talking, it occurred to me that a huge chunk of today’s generation of our youth suffer depression and mental health is now a major concern. It’s so apparent with the rise of suicide rate in our country. Our society has sown a fertile ground for problems concerning the wellbeing of our youngsters, although adults are not necessarily free from these fetters. The media bombards us with the need for external validation; magazines convey the strong need to have. The TV hypes consumerist tendencies through fashion and body shaming, and many more. On the other hand, individuals feel disconnected inwardly. This makes the line, “No one understands me” a cliché. It appears to be so, but deep inside the feeling is so real, it almost cripples.
Aside from the media, our environment is also not helping us nourish our beings. A lot of people leave in a box-type home, with no connection to nature. We work in a box-type place that gives little breathing space for everyone. And then our food slows down our thinking. Plus, our psyche has become so distracted with the heap of cares that bombard us in a daily basis.
When before, adults would just brush off these depressive bouts as something that will pass, these times call for a different response. These challenges that are being faced the young is a call for awakening. I shared with Maj that these feelings are signals from the Higher Self that something is not right and that there are things that ought to change. The call of the Higher Self that comes through depression needs to be answered, otherwise the call will come back even stronger than before.
For us adults, there is a call for deeper introspection and no, it should not be dismissed as mere drama. It’s real. Mental health is a serious question and can be answered by introspection.. It is also good to note that we will be incapable of helping the younger generation solve this riddle of feelings if we treat it the way our authority before handled this problem. This challenge needs a new kind of thinking and effort to understand the human soul. As we can see, the concern of mental health has come about stronger than it used to be. It is telling us that it is not being addressed properly before. So now should be our time to do it better.
To me, mental health concern is just the tip of the iceberg. Something bigger needs more attention and thinking. We need to look through this phenomenon in order to understand it better as human beings ought to do.
Joan Mae Soco-Bantayan is a mother of two and a nurturer at Tuburan Institute. For questions, comments, and suggestions, please feel free to email her athello@joanmaesoco.com or visit Tuburan Institute at www.tuburaninstitute.org.
