What does it mean to be mentally well?
That's what I'm talking about today.
I'm Dr. Tracey Marks, a psychiatrist,
and I make mental health education videos.
Generally, when we think about mental health,
we think about whether or not someone has a disorder
like depression or anxiety.
Unfortunately, modern medicine
hangs on to this conceptualization
by looking for and treating pathology primarily.
As a psychiatrist,
people come to me because they're having a problem
and they usually want me to prescribe them something
that takes the problem away.
Or if they see me for therapy,
they want me to teach them or help them understand problems
and tell them how to make the problems go away.
That's the standard way
of looking at mental health problems
and the role of clinicians.
But there's more to mental health than illness.
The other side of the coin is wellness.
Mental wellness is not the absence of an illness.
It can coexist with an illness.
Mental wellness is the state
of creating balance in various areas of your life
in a way that allows you to have
the best possible experience.
And that sounds fluffy.
What does that actually mean?
Different people have formulated ways
to measure mental wellness.
Some researchers have even developed scales to measure it.
Some examples of indicators of mental wellness
are feeling relaxed more often than not.
Feeling optimistic about your future.
Feeling useful, like you have a purpose.
Being interested in other people.
Having leftover energy at the end of the day.
Feeling generally good about yourself.
You may be mad at yourself
about something you did or didn't do,
but that self-judgment is temporary
and underneath it, you still think well of yourself.
Another sign of mental wellness
is being able to feel close to other people.
Feeling confident in making decisions
and managing your problems.
Feeling loved.
Some people can be surrounded by love and support
but still feel empty and unloved.
And then another sign is being interested in new things.
You may feel some of these things sometimes,
but then struggle with other aspects of it
even if you don't have a mental disorder.
It takes work to feel well and thrive,
but I believe you can achieve wellness
through intentional efforts in four areas.
And these are the basic tenets of mental wellness
that focus on the individual:
sleep, diet, exercise, and mental fortitude.
Mental fortitude is like resilience,
your ability to be flexible, accepting, and adaptive
in stressful situations.
Difficult situations stress you, but they don't destroy you.
I've been creating mental health educational content
on YouTube since 2018,
and while I've thoroughly enjoyed
helping you understand mental health disorders
and their treatments,
the one-off videos leave me feeling
like there's still something missing.
I want you to go beyond understanding what and why
and get to how.
How to work toward achieving wellness.
And to this end, I've created the Mental Wellness Space.
It's a membership community
that's focused on education and support.
You will learn from my professional and personal experience
and community members' lived experiences.
Because it's on a platform off of social media,
there's no ads or algorithm
dictating what you see or don't see.
What will this community offer
to help you with mental wellness?
Here's what you get.
Twice monthly live Q&As by Zoom
and this is where you can ask me anything.
Now, of course, I can't diagnose you or treat you,
but I can give you my opinion about a treatment
similar to if we were out having coffee
and you ask me the same kind of question.
And because these are by Zoom,
we can talk back and forth.
And that's not all.
Even though I think these sessions will be super valuable
to have your questions answered,
I see them as extra
because they are not the focus of the community.
The real stuff comes with the next offering,
which are monthly wellness themes
and weekly challenges around the theme.
For example, the month of March is self-awareness.
April will be self-defeating thoughts
and May is clean eating.
There will also be monthly live workshops
on a clinical topic,
and these will be live but with a chat stream
where you can comment or ask questions.
These will be more lecture style
where I explain a disorder and how we treat it.
The March workshop will be on bipolar disorder,
April, generalized anxiety,
and May will be major depression.
I already have the whole year planned out, by the way.
The next offering is a journal club
where you'll get self-guided affirmation
and reflection exercises each week.
If you watch my videos sequentially,
last week I talked about alexithymia,
which is the inability to recognize your emotions
or others' emotions.
I said that one way to help you identify your emotions
was to read books, to get ideas about how people feel.
Well, these affirmation exercises
are designed to give you a script
to help you better express your thoughts and feelings
and then also reflect on them.
The last offering is a free guide section.
I've periodically given away
informational guides and worksheets
to supplement some of my YouTube videos.
You can download them from my website
if you're not on my email list,
and they're still there
and I'm not going to take them off of the site.
But to get all of them or most of them,
you would have to search around the site
like a scavenger hunt.
The only way you would have all of them
is if you joined my email list
from the very beginning five years ago.
12 of the downloads have been preloaded on the site
for you to just download, and there will be more to come.
Even though I'll be providing educational information,
the best part of the community
is having a safe place to share experiences
and learn from each other.
That's the real value here.
So who is this for?
This community is for you
if you feel isolated
when it comes to talking about your mental health,
you forgot to ask your provider something
at your last appointment
and it's too much of a hassle
to get back in touch with them in between appointments.
You want to know more about how to feel well
and learn things that don't focus just on medications.
You want to learn more about your condition
or the condition of someone you care about.
You want to connect with others
you know will understand what you're dealing with.
Or you want to be able to get tips from other people
about how they manage certain situations.
Sound good?
I know I'm excited.
The cost of the community membership is 19.99 a month
or 199 a year.
This will be the founder's pricing.
At some point in the future it will increase some,
so be an early adopter and lock in the founder's price.
The fun officially begins on March 1st,
but I'm opening the doors today for early entry.
If you sign up before March 1st,
you get free access for two weeks.
This will give you a chance
to set up your profile, look around,
and even interact with other early birds.
Then you'll be ready to go on March 1st.
If you're watching this video after March 1st, no worries.
You can come on and join us.
The only thing that you would've missed
is the free two weeks
that was only for people who joined before the launch.
In case you're wondering,
there is not a free version of this community.
I plan to continue making
free educational content on YouTube,
and I currently have over 200 long form videos available.
Many of them touch on the topics
that will be covered in the community.
But if you want a more premium experience
and don't want to have to search around looking for things,
come join the community and level up your experience.
Just go to mentalwellnessspace.com.
I hope to see you there.
Thanks for watching. See you next time.