211 | What Mental Health Myths Are Impacting Your Trauma Healing and Resilience Building (May is Mental Health Awareness Month)

Is everything you’ve been told about mental health during trauma recovery actually helping—or quietly holding you back?

In this eye-opening episode, Michael reveals seven rarely discussed truths about mental health that directly impact your resilience, mindfulness, and trauma healing journey. Forget the quick-fix advice and discover what really helps survivors build lasting strength from the inside out.

Takeaways:

• Learn why real resilience requires systems, not just motivation
• Discover how mindfulness transforms your relationship with mental and physical healing
• Understand why embracing the full range of emotions—not just happiness—fuels trauma recovery

Take a full breath in and a releasing breathe out and uncover the mental health truths that will strengthen your resilience, deepen your mindfulness, and guide your trauma healing journey with honesty and compassion.

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With Whole Again: A Fresh Approach to Healing, Growth & Resilience after Physical Trauma through Kintsugi Mindfulness listeners explore resilience through personal stories of trauma, scars, and injury while learning to overcome PTSD, imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism with self-compassion, self-love, and self-worth. Through insightful discussions on stress management, mindfulness practices, and digital wellness, the show offers practical tools like breathwork, micro-dose meditation, grounding techniques, visualization, and daily affirmations for anxiety relief and stress relief. Inspired by the art of kintsugi, the podcast embraces healing as a process of transformation, encouraging a shift in perspective from worry and being overwhelmed to gratitude and personal growth. By exploring the mind-body connection, micro-dosing strategies for emotional well-being, and holistic approaches to self-care, this podcast empowers listeners to cultivate emotional resilience and live with greater balance and intention.

Transcript:

 In this episode, you’ll discover seven truths about mental health that we don’t talk about, but really should.

Hey there, it’s Michael. Welcome to Whole again. A show about helping survivors of physical injury and trauma reclaim their strength and resilience through the wisdom of kazuki. Today, you’ll discover seven truths about mental health that we don’t talk about, but probably should. Because they impact your physical health and recovery.

But before we get there, I wanna take a moment to thank you for being here. And thank you for being a fellow survivor. Always remember that you’ve got this and I’ve got you.

Alright. Let’s dive in. As this episode is being released, we sit at the cusp of two essential months for us here at Whole Again, and Pause, breathe, reflect. April was stress Awareness month and May is Mental health Awareness month. And the thing is, our mental health impacts our physical health. There are many people out there that claim that the mind and body are connected, and that’s not entirely true.

Actually, it’s part of one ecosystem. So what happens in one part of the body impacts another part of the body. And our mental and physical health together impacts our recovery as well as our social wellbeing and our spiritual health. So it’s important to talk about our mental health as we think about our physical recovery.

Today I wanna share some real truths with you around our mental health that I discovered through my recovery and study that we don’t talk about all that much, but I believe we should. There’s a lot of advice out there. The internet is filled with different recommendations and it can feel overwhelming.

Some of it can help a few people, but a lot of it doesn’t really help many people. I. Some of it is just simply a placebo. It might work for a while, but it doesn’t work over the long haul. So today we’ll dive into the nitty gritty that will make an impact for you over the long haul. So if you wanna burn a whole bunch of sage as you listen to this, knock yourself out.

But I don’t think it’s gonna have a lasting impact on your overall mental and physical health. Although I’m a fan, but today is about getting real and really making a difference so you can step into the person you are becoming. Let’s start here. It’s not about motivation. People call me a motivational speaker, and that is so wrong.

I learned this early in my recovery. Some days I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t wanna do it. I didn’t feel motivated, so stop looking for motivation instead, build a system. When I was in the hospital, I built a system based on small steps that I could do each and every day over time. For example, a few minutes to pause, breathe, reflect almost like a timeout in sports when things got to be a little overwhelming or what I do even to this day, a five minute routine with lightweights that I know I can do every day.

It doesn’t seem like much, but over time that compounding impact makes a huge difference, which by the way, helps with my internal motivation. Here’s number two. Make sure you get proper sleep. Proper rest. I’m not gonna tell you that you need to get eight hours. You know you better than I do, but we need quality sleep.

This is how the body recovers and builds and gets stronger. So if we shortchange our sleep, we are shortchanging our mental health and physical recovery. So make sure when you’re working work hard, but when it’s time to recover and rest. Recover harder. Here’s number three. Check in with your sense of wa.

Wa, which means harmony. So look at your space around you. Declutter, organize, be that person. A busy space around you means a busy mind, and that clouds everything. Things feel outta sorts, which then impacts our physical health and that feels outta sorts and one impacts the other until we feel overall outta sorts.

So check in and get your sense of WA or balance. Correct. Now let’s get to number four. Understand who is in Peloton. If you don’t know, a Peloton is a group of cyclists in a bike race, and I use it as a metaphor for your squad, and it should be a collection of people who bring out the best in you. So if you have people in real life that suck the energy out of your vibe, let them go.

And if you happen to be following people on social media that do the same, unfollow them. No one has a right to be in your Peloton unless they’re doing something to help bring out the best in you, the best of your mental health, as well as your physical health. So make sure that your Peloton is as strong as it needs to be.

Okay? Here’s number five. Don’t put another rock in your backpack. I learned this the hard way before my accident. I didn’t know how to deal. With my stress and pain. So I would pick up a rock and put it in my backpack, and over time that backpack got super heavy. Here’s the thing I learned. Avoidance doesn’t build strength and resilience.

It only builds pressure. So find a release valve that works for you. It could be journaling, it could be talking to a friend or a therapist. It could be being in nature or movement. Any of those things could work, and they can have a tremendous impact on your mental health as well as your physical health and recovery.

But whatever you do, I really want you not to put another rock in your backpack. I don’t want you to carry any more burden than you’re already carrying that may be impacting your recovery. Here’s number six. Slow is fast, meaning. Sometimes recovery, especially when we get older, is slow. This is not a race.

It’s not some type of comparison. We don’t have to compare the severity of our injuries to someone else, and we don’t have to compare the speed or pace of our recovery to someone else’s. We’re all different. We’re all going to recover at our own rate. I’m still seeing. Moments of recovery from an accident that took place over 20 years ago.

So use the mantra, slow is fast. Simply do what’s good for you mentally and physically, and try not to compare your situation to anyone else’s. Okay, here’s lucky number seven. Change the conversation you’re having with yourself. One of the biggest culprits in our mental health is how we speak to ourselves.

It’s the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, and we can be quite harsh. We beat ourselves up and we wouldn’t talk to a friend that way. So give yourself some grace. Talk to yourself with kindness and compassion. I know that will change how you look at yourself, your mental health and your physical recovery.

And since I’m generous, but actually I counted wrong, I’m gonna give you number eight in the spirit of eight is enough. You’re not supposed to be happy all the time. The people pedaling this happiness all the time stuff, they’re doing a disservice to the general population. This is not about being happy in every moment.

Some days are really difficult. They’re muddy, and other days are going to be fantastic. Our health isn’t linear, nor is our recovery. There’ll be ups and downs and twists and turns. It’s all part of it. And the people who can get this right are open to all of it. Much like Rumi and his poem, the Guest House.

He opens the door laughing and invites all the visitors in. So try to let that notion that we always have to be happy, be, and instead see how you can embrace all of what comes your way. If any of these eight resonated with you, I’ll invite you to take a moment and check in on your mental health and ask yourself, what do I need right now?

And how can I provide it to myself? And as always, thank you for being here, and thank you for being a fellow survivor.

In this episode, you discovered a real truths about mental health that make a meaningful and deep difference, and they also impact your physical and recovery. I hope you always remember that you’ve got this and I’ve got you together. We’ll put a beautiful ripple. Into the world,

and if you wish to learn more about creating beautiful ripples and how to prevent a bad moment from turning into a bad day, please visit my website, Michael O’Brien schiff.com and sign up for my newsletter called The Ripple Effect. And join us each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday here at Whole Again, and discover how you can heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience.

Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You’ve got this and we’ve got you.