On May 15, 2018, “6 Minutes Medicine,” an Internet medical forum publication, published an article titled “8 Facts About the Dark Side of Healthcare: Dealing with the Elephant in the Room.”
It was a plea from a head and neck surgeon at the Combined Annual Scientific Congress of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the New Zealand College of Anesthetists stating that “we know there’s an elephant in the room, but we really don’t.” I don’t know what to do with that elephant. The doctors are fighting and they are fighting in silence.”
He produced the most recent statistic on this subject based on a BeyondBlue survey of more than 12,000 physicians:
“1 in 5 have been diagnosed with or received treatment for depression.
1 in 4 have had suicidal thoughts.
And 1 in 50 have attempted suicide.
Women are at higher risk.
Specialty hotspots for suicide are general practice, emergency medicine, and anesthesia.
1 in 2 is emotionally exhausted.
1 in 6 or 7 are ineffective due to exhaustion.
Of those who experience burnout, 1 in 2 describe themselves as very cynical.”
I have been writing on the subject of mental health for some time, stating that it is simply a disorder of perception. It is only the degree that determines the point at which it becomes a clinical disorder of behavior and action. But the medical profession is not listening.
From the above statistics, it is clear that the medical profession also suffers from Perception Disorder like many of their patients. When it comes to mental health, they don’t want to look at themselves for fear of having to change course. However, unless they realize that we are hypnotic creatures and that our perceptions create physiological and biochemical effects on us, all our investigative work will turn out to be only a pursuit of the shadows and not of the substance.
We must acknowledge the fact that our hopes, fears, and desires affect our perception of reality. Our perceptions lead us to think in a particular way, thus affecting our thinking. Our thought process is hypnotic. It is made up of words and sentences. It influences our subconscious mind in a positive or negative way depending on the type of words we use; meanings or beliefs do not matter. Now our mental and physical health depends on our immune system which is directly under subconscious control. So it is the subconscious mind that is the elephant in the room and how we influence it is what we should address.
As I have said before, how you feel at any given moment depends on how you are stimulating your subconscious mind. When you are happy it means that you are positively stimulating it; when you are depressed and miserable it means that you are stimulating him negatively.
If we look around us, each one of us is an ego trigger and a time traveler. From the moment one is born, one is acquiring an identity. One is given a name and then everything we do becomes I, Me and Mine. This egocentric action leads to possessiveness which in turn leads to thinking in terms of “My house, my car, my wife, my husband, my children, etc.” One does not realize that when we go through life acquiring wealth, knowledge, power, etc. it is a process of self-isolation. This process leads to building a mental wall around us. One day, sooner or later, depending on one’s circumstances and conditioning, unless an individual realizes it, they will surely find themselves totally isolated, totally surrounded by this wall and totally alone.
This is the dark side that we refer to when our perceptions create a very bleak picture of reality where there is total despair and everything in life loses meaning. This, of course, is a distorted picture of reality that an individual acquires through self-centered thinking and a lack of self-awareness. Please understand that our thought process is a hypnotic process and we are constantly hypnotized. Under this hypnotic spell, the ego can convince itself to take extremely stupid actions.
If any of you find yourself in this precarious situation, my advice is not to take yourself too seriously. The wall you have built around yourself is of your own making. It’s in your mind. You can break it down and go further simply by noticing it in the first instance. Consciousness is the weapon you use to dehypnotize yourself. Once you can make that perception that it is a barrier created by yourself, it will melt away. It is a wall that you have built through ignorance. You are part of this universe and of timeless reality. As you clear your perceptions, you will realize that there is a whole world beyond the cocoon you have created. However, if you retreat into your shell, you will only be reinforcing that wall.
Verbalizing our feelings is a habit that we have acquired in our thought process. We use words and sentences to express our feelings and as a means of communication. Now these words can have a powerful hypnotic effect on the way we feel about a situation.
Please let me explain how words intensify or shape your feelings. Suppose you are very angry. You start to express your anger using words like “I hate that etc…”. You will find that if you continue to use negative words and language, you can become emotionally upset and prone to acting out in destructive ways. But if you didn’t verbalize your feelings and just tried to understand them and stay with them, you’ll find they don’t have a life of their own. The feelings will just melt away. Yes, it is the words that activate your feelings. Try to hold the feeling of anger without saying anything in your mind and see how long you can hold it. You will discover that without words your feelings have no substance.
Another habit of the ego is to keep analyzing the negative experience you have had. Well, friend, if you keep analyzing the situation, you will become even more miserable. This is because once you use words, it shapes your feelings and will further activate the thought process. You will go round and round in circles like a squirrel in a cage. So my advice is to stop analyzing. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, don’t ask yourself why, etc. You should say in your mind “If you don’t want to talk to me, I don’t have time for you either. Bye and good luck.” You will be surprised to find yourself instantly free of negative feelings.
Since we are all egocentric and time travelers, sooner or later we can expect the dark curtain to fall on any of us out of the blue. If you think you love someone and it’s causing you pain, clearly your perception is distorted because love never makes one miserable. Love always makes one happy. It is your selfishness and your ego that is making you miserable. Learn to understand what love is. When you; you love you are always a winner because when you love you never possess a person. However, if you possessed someone, it is not love. You will have a feeling of loss attached to it. Love and possession cannot coexist. That is the fundamental law of the mind. Please learn to understand what love is and how your ego tries to manipulate it. Love cannot be manipulated. Once you clear up your perceptions of love and possession, you will be surprised at how open and free you will feel.
Don’t depend on the world to make you happy. You have to make yourself happy. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and regretting it. Life is never made for regrets. All of life’s experiences, good and bad, are all good for you. They teach you a life lesson and should make you a better person. Learn from those experiences, make amends, and move on. Make the whole world your oyster, not just your little shell.
So my message to the medical profession and to all people who suffer from depression, anxiety, etc. It’s crystal clear. If you don’t want to become one of the statistics in a mental health survey like the one above, don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Be willing to change your perceptions and harmonize with your subconscious mind. Ignoring the facts will not make them go away.