Mental Health

From Politicians to world class Athletes, Mental Health is a big conversation right now.

My friend Julian James asked me to support him in creating some images of him. These images would feature his carefully crafted message “The Is All Temporary”.

Julian has made a name for himself by holding up signs in public which literally stop people in their tracks.

When I asked him about this he told me that he wants to interrupt people’s train of thought. We discuss this at some depth and distinguish the power of pattern interrupts.

A pattern interrupts it’s a psychological thought process which interrupts what you’re currently thinking in that moment and takes your mind on a different trajectory.

With regards to mental health, I can see a lot of value in this because if you’re trapped in a vortex of habitual thinking that is negative and debilitating emotionally, this can lead to unpleasant results. However, if you can be introduced to a phrase or a sequence of words that forces you to think about something differently, this interruption to your normal pattern of thought can actually be psychologically beneficial.

We spent the whole day around the Liverpool Street Station area creating images, looking for groups of people and back drops where I could frame Julian amongst people passing by.

What I found interesting was how oblivious people really are about what’s happening right in front of them. If you look at the image above, you can see people aren’t really paying attention to anything except their iPhones.

This is all Temporary is a wonderful interruption because I saw several people engage with Julian to chat about what we were doing.

This just proves that the message is right and correct.

What we think is important right now, this time next week, next month, next year is really not the issue and yet we think it is right now.

This raises the question, what is really important right now?

I honestly think, right now, the most important thing is peace of mind.

Peace of mind where we are not worried about anything. All our needs are being met, we are secure and we are creating and living life with a sense of purpose and meaning.

I believe this is the critical element to our mental health.

This is all Temporary is simply an awareness about life - nothing last forever.

There is an ebb and flow to life.

The quality of our lives will be in direct proportion to how much uncertainty we can COMFORTABLY live with.

Thanks for reading

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