Is It Time for a Mental or Emotional Checkup?

Taking care of your health is important for so many reasons.  When you’re healthy, you have more energy, you feel better, you can do the things that you love and you enjoy life even more.  However, your health is not just your physical health.  It’s also your mental and emotional health.   When was your last checkup for your mental and emotional health?

When we say we are healthy, most of us are referring to our physical health.  We will take the time each year to go to an annual exam of some sort with our regular doctor.  We’ll go to the dentist to get a cleaning so that our teeth are in good shape.  Most of us are pretty good at getting these checkups once or twice a year.

What about your mental and emotional health?  Few of us take the time to do this sort of checkup and I’m not sure why.   I know that it’s not something that I was taught growing up.  I also know that our society tends to look down on anyone who has mental or emotional concerns.  But…your mental and emotional health are vital to your success in life!

For many of us, we’ve been taught that if you can’t deal with an event that causes mental or emotional upheaval in your life, then something is ‘wrong’ with you.  This is so NOT true.

When you’ve not been given the essentials on how to handle major events that cause mental or emotional upheaval, then how can you be expected to handle them on your own.  Again, these are not skills that are taught to us in school and often not at home either.

Your mental and emotional health are just as important as your physical health.  When your emotions are going from one extreme to another & causing issues in your life, then you’re not living your best life.  When you don’t have the skills to process or deal with your emotions, they will start to back up in your body and will eventually cause other illnesses or diseases.  Thus, when your emotions are bouncing around like that, it’s usually showing up as a physical symptom and a visit to your regular medical doctor is not likely to be able to fix the issue.

So, what is a person to do?  Well, one thing you can do is go for a checkup with a therapist of some type.  A check-in with a therapist can give you the support for any concerns that are coming up in your life right now or that are still hanging around from your past.

There are many different types of therapists available.  I won’t tell you that one type is better than another.  You have to find one that you can connect to and can work with in order to feel comfortable with them.  If you don’t have a good fit with your therapist, then maybe try a different type of therapy to see if it helps more.   Just don’t give up and let your mental/emotional health slide backwards even more.

Now, the therapy that I practice is a somatic type of therapy.  This practice brings the body into the discussion.  What’s happening in your life is usually showing up in your body in some way.  So, those emotions that are bouncing around all of the time are showing up in different parts of your body as well.  Sometimes, we simply need to bring some awareness to what is happening in order for you to process it, heal & move forward again.

Therapy is not a one time visit and then you move on.  Often you will come and receive a series of sessions and then you get to the root of whatever is happening in your life right now.  Then, life happens and it’s time for a checkup again.

There is no shame in needing support in order to get through life whether that support comes from a medical doctor, a chiropractor or a therapist of some type.  We all need support from time to time in some form or other.  So, I encourage you to get your annual checkups with your medical doctor.  Go see your chiropractor when you need to do so.  However, don’t neglect your mental and emotional health.  Schedule a checkup/checkin with your therapist and allow yourself that gift of support as well.  You’re worth it and you’ll feel so much better when you take care of you’re whole self & not just your physical self!

Schedule your emotional checkup today!