Brave Minds Blossom Unpacked
In this post I want to delve into the naming process and why behind Brave Minds Blossom. So, here we go!
I chose the word brave because in order to face and make the decision to look after, and work on your mental health you first need to be brave enough to do so.
According to the World Health Organisation, Mental health is:
"a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community".
Just from this we can see our mental health encompasses a lot of things. It’s broad. It’s not just one thing. It is instead many. We can’t just get one thing right and say “Perfect, my mental health is good now” when other aspects are struggling and lacking. To look after and intentionally work on your mental health requires you to build the courage to purposefully look at, explore, and unpack your mind and create the changes in things such as thought patterns and habits.
Brave can be defined as "to endure or face unpleasant conditions or behaviours without showing fear, showing courage."
Facing our mental health and looking at our current mind-sets, thought patterns, habits and responses can often be quite confronting. Overwhelming. Unpleasant. It’s really taking a plunge into the unknown, not quite knowing what you may discover. Exploring your mind with a professional or asking God to highlight aspects you need to work on requires not a brief glance at the surface. But rather, it requires looking beneath the outer surface level and figuring out what triggers and drives your behaviours, your thoughts, your feelings. It’s no easy feat when you have no clue what you may find. Your mental health requires you to be BRAVE.
Next, we have minds. I chose the word minds because this blog website is going to focus on our minds. Mental health is based on and encompasses all aspects of your mind. The more you intentionally focus and work on creating a healthy mind, in strengthening your mental health, it helps enable you to live life to the full uninhibited from past mistakes, hurts, trauma, and experiences.
I’m a lover of the mind. I love exploring into each unique individual’s mind and seeing how we are all different. Big part of the reason why I studied counselling and psychology.The last word to complete this name was blossom. This one was the easiest addition to the name and also the most challenging because I wanted to make sure I chose the right word to tie my heart behind this whole blog site together.
I chose blossom because whenever I think of the growth and flourishing that takes place in our mind, I always think of a flower blossoming and blooming.
Blossom is defined as "to produce flowers or masses of flower and often represents a new beginning and growth."
Biblically, flowers also symbolize beauty and positivity.
Flowers take time to blossom and bloom just as creating a healthy mind takes time. It is a journey filled with not all steps forward but rather often one step forward, two steps back. Once you take the step to unpack your mind and learn, unlearn, relearn; you discover all the beauty underneath and begin to grow and blossom into a new season of your life.
So, I want to explore and unpack this analogy and my thoughts a bit more.
Let’s take a flower.
You almost have to take on the role as a gardener. You need to gather all your possible tools you may need; gloves, shovel, watering can, fertilizer, secateurs, etc. Before you do anything you need to put your gloves on. Let's say the gloves are your bravery. Then, before you plant the seed of a flower, you must first fill the garden bed with adequate soil. You'll need your shovel and some fertilizer. The seeds then get planted. You consistently water and look after them, with your watering can, whilst you step back and patiently wait for the stems of the flower to begin to grow. As the stems and vines begin to grow, you continue to water and tend to it and patiently wait for the bud of the flower to bloom and blossom into its beautiful open flower creation. You might need your secateurs...to cut off any sick leaves as it blooms.
This process takes a lot of work. A lot of commitment. A lot of patience. It’s not a quick overnight process. Some stems may even wilt and die and you have to then re-start the whole process again. Maybe it was starting to look healthy but then something got to it or ate it, and the flower began to die.
Suddenly, you’re several steps behind in the process than what you thought. That’s frustrating. That’s upsetting. It’s a bit of a pain. But if you really want those beautiful flowers to bloom and be flourishing in your garden…then what do you do? You start again. You try again. You don’t give up. You begin to re-plant new seeds. You water and tend to the soil and then to the seeds. You start again. You try again.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no gardener so don't quote me on this gardening process haha.Now, let’s look at our minds. They too have to be carefully and patiently looked after.
You have to first pick up tools you may need. You'll need your gloves of bravery. You'll need your shovel to help dig out old soil and scoop in fresh soil...maybe that comes in the form of a professional to help you talk and sort through what's what. You'll need your watering can, your fertilizer, your secateurs...all to help you feed and prune your mind...maybe that's in the form of family and friends and God who can speak love, encouragement, and truth into you but also challenge you when necessary.
Our minds, like a flower, need to have a good foundation. A foundation built on understanding yourself and your abilities, creating a pattern of positive thoughts, and healthy responses to circumstances. The foundation is the soil in the garden bed. As you sort through your foundation, add to it, take away, unlearn, relearn, it starts to take shape. It might take a little while to find a good watering process, to find a good fertilizer that suits you. But, as the foundation gets built, as beautiful healthy thoughts and behaviours start to sprout, as the old gets replaced with the new, you discover more and you delve in further; the roots and stems begin to take form. Flower buds might even begin to grow.
This foundation time takes time though. Takes patience. It’s not a quick process. There’s no easy fix. And just as flowers can get sick, can wilt, can die at times, certain words or actions or behaviours can trigger past traumas or knock us back a step in our journey. We may fall, get a bit dirty, but it’s what we do that matters. Do you get back up? And continue on? Move on forward and try again? Ii think it’s important to keep trying because if we don’t, our mind doesn’t get tended to. It doesn’t get cared for. We are responsible for our own mind. No one else. So, we must continue to try again and keep on caring and tending to it. It doesn't matter if it takes you a few days. Or a few months. Heck even a few years. The point is you do try again.
In the bible, Jesus spoke to his disciples using a gardening metaphor once, describing the importance of growing spiritually and drawing near to him so he can help strengthen us. God intentionally prunes us so that we may bear good fruit that is healthy and edible. It may not always feel great, but he does it with love and with the intention of growing us into healthier and stronger versions of ourselves who can bear good fruit to all. Just as God prunes us, we must also remember to prune our minds, so that we can increase their health and strength allowing us to bear good fruit (i.e., thoughts, responses, etc.) to ourselves and all around us.
I think one of our biggest hurdles in life is that society today typically is all about telling us, showing us, making us believe that everything has to happen now. It’s got to be done quickly. There’s a quick fix for everything.
But that’s not true.
Not everything has a quick fix. In fact, most things do not. Most things require some careful thought, some hard work, some dedication and patience and commitment, some guidance, some love. I think often the best things require these things. I always find when I work hard on something and do my very best and I see growth, a goal reached, a step forward, a difference from the previous week...I often find that’s so much more rewarding than simply getting handed something or receiving praise or getting promoted, knowing I haven’t put any effort into it. Anyone else relate?
The constant persistence and push for people to get things done straight away doesn’t help when something we need to carefully tend to takes time and isn’t an overnight fix.
The questioning doesn’t help when you’re trying your best to focus on understanding yourself and creating healthy patterns and responses.
Your mental health isn’t an overnight fix.
Your mental health is a lifelong journey.
It’s not always going to feel super healthy like a freshly bloomed flower. It’s sometimes going to look a little wilted, feel a little low. That’s okay. That’s normal. I think as long as you’re aware. As long as you’re aware of yourself. You begin to hold a deeper understanding into yourself, how you react and respond to circumstances, to people, how you feel in certain situations, with certain people, you develop a self-awareness into who you are…you develop better insight into your mental health. You can start to create healthy habits, goals, patterns on building a lifestyle that suits your unique self, that suits your life, that suits what you need to thrive.
So then, it’s no easy path. It takes a lot to look after yourself. To look after your mental health. Something that impacts every aspect of your life. It takes bravery. I know from personal experience the time and effort it takes. The blossoming and growing doesn’t happen overnight. There isn’t an easy fix.
That's why I created this branch for blog posts. To share my thoughts, my personal experiences, to allow space for others to share also, for discussions to be had, to learn from one another. To create a space, a community, to learn and journey together.
So, there you have it. That’s me giving you a bit of a behind the scenes look into how I came up with the name Brave Minds Blossom.
I’m excited you’re here. I’m excited you’re reading this. I’m excited you’ve found Brave Minds Blossom.