International Mental Health
Supporting Mental Wellbeing in the community
Together with the excellent crew at 'Your Living City' I am developing a series of articles about transitions and change from an international, professional and also personal perspective.
As I make the move back to Sweden from Holland, I share my hopes and fears, as well as the mental-health hacks that keep me sane. Eventually these topics will develop into shared experience workshops and talking circles. I hope the articles inspire you on your own journeys, be they on the inner or the outer plane.
If you are curious about by anything that I write, or if you have your own subjects you would like me to cover, then please feel free to contact me.
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The shadow as a guide to new inner frontiers
International nomads have much in common; a sense of adventure, courage, adaptability and even a touch of the romantic. We flock together because we find a sense of belonging in ‘otherness’. Having attempted to woe our new neighbours with muffins and homemade lasagna, we may give up and settle for the easy intimacy of the international crowd. An intimacy that can sometimes lead to a feeling of ‘us’ incomers, against ‘them’.
The great psychoanalyst Jung once said that everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. And this reflects a wonderful inner psychological dance. Unconsciously we strive for inner equilibrium and harmony. Our psyche constantly calls us out on ‘rescuing’ self-aspects that have disappeared into the shadows.