Be: A Poem About Self Care and Mental Health
I hope that you enjoy reading these three poems Prey, Bar Cruiser and Tornado about love's less attractive scenarios.
Mental health starts with self care.
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Be: A Poem About Self Care and Mental Health
Once, I was given a clear instruction
To have fun on purpose each day
No excuses, no exceptions
Happiness and peace lay this way
In the midst of depression I was not sure
You can't be happy and sad at one time
No vacuum in the mind, a positive cure
With Garfield cartoons I began, they chimed
It works, it really does, to pleasure seek
To wander away from this planet of woes
To a private world you can, must retreat
Recall the sunlight and banish the shadows
Even if only for five minutes or an hour
Protect your brain from constant toil
Mental health is within your power
So is the off-switch to senses in turmoil
Anxiety is no fun, you need to find some peace and joy to stay well.
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Self care is not selfish care, it's essential
For many self care is a luxury, the dream
As to the body beautiful we're reverential
We allow our minds to shudder, to scream
The weight of all life falls off one person's frame
Everyone's problems won't be absorbed, resolved
For some life is harrowing, to others it's a game
We question if the human race has evolved
To look up at the stars, see beyond the darkness
Is not fanciful, those stars will outlive you and I
The sun will rise and set, new life and old in process
The time you spend on your brain health is wise
Go smell a rose, watch wispy clouds pass
Laugh at a meme, a joke, be amused
Listen to music, sing, get up and dance
Read, write, bake a cake, just do you
Seeking serenity in a storm can be difficult.
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Humans have brains from pre-stone age
When fight or flight was true life or death
Today, in stress responses we still engage
For the mundane at a pace that catches breath
We forget we weren't designed as machines
Boasting 24-7 availability to all and sundry
Constant performance, memory banks cleaned
Trapped in pressure cycles. Set our minds free
How long would you expect your car to go
With no breaks, no fuel, no love, no thought?
Only you can take time to health seeds sow
Let tired eyes see serenity when it's sought
Take my word for it, when me is lost you quake
We take our brains for granted, forget grace
Before into a million jigsaw pieces you may break
Find sure footing and see recognition in your face
Reconnect with your soul and just be
How often do we think about physical health? Compare that with the lack of attention mental health gets.
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Bonus Poem: Anxiety
This today will soon be yesterday
Let’s make it the best we’ve ever written
For each tomorrow is a chapter away
We often forsake our now for it, bitten or smitten
Try to live in the moment, savor each one
That’s a hard lesson to learn and maintain
But your mind wants to be in the present, having fun
Smell flowers, see sunsets, feel gentle rain
It’s not easy to be in the here and now
There are many invitations to fret, false clues
Tomorrow is a mystery, a tremor or still, for now
It will explain itself soon but it isn’t motivated by the blues
Tomorrow’s blank page betrays invisible ink what if’s and when’s
Willed for answers won’t always be found in our today
Questions unanswered, we take up our mental pens
Where we normally write a far too dramatic play
For when the dreaded tomorrow morphs in to today
Our fears quite often are found to never have in truth lain
Yet for hours, our eyes off course, they’ll have led us astray
A new merry dance for us to review on memory lane
Plus, being human, we flick back to see our faults
Liberally douse our life tomes in inner critic stress
Instead try to live in the moment without thunderbolts
Read each word you write and enjoy the ink blots, they’re heaven blessed.
(Previously published on my old blog and Vocal.)
© 2022 Joanne Hayle
