Yin and yang of mental health

Counseling and wellness are the yin and yang

Counseling and wellness are the yin and yang of health. OK, it was a good opening sentence. But what does it mean? In a Chinese worldview, yin represents the dark and passive part of a circle while yang is the light and active part. Overall, it represents balance. Does that mean I do yoga and all that kind of wellness stuff? Not exactly. I eat sushi especially on Fridays (remember, fish on Fridays?), but I’m not really all that cross-cultural.

The yin part of the circle: counseling represents my efforts to remedy the pain and suffering that life brings upon us. The yang part of the circle reminds us that wellness is really part of any complete game plan. I’m pretty much your standard counselor with lots of training in different kinds of therapy.

Counseling starts with clients’ yin (i.e., dark and passive images) that stem from recurring traumatic memories. That’s the yin. Wellness brings light and activity into depressed parts of a hurting person’s mind. Light and energy are the yang. What it means is that a person who is depressed, lonely, and hurting may not be helped immediately by wellness coaching because that’s only half the equation. Wellness helps let the light into a dark world but doesn’t show where to go or how to maintain a new healthy lifestyle. Counseling when combined with wellness is the yin and yang to combat emotional distress.

Neither option by itself may be enough. That’s why it’s the yin and yang. Get some counseling, let the light begin, make the world brighter, and then make it sustainable with wellness coaching. But I haven’t told you yet about all the ingredients of wellness counseling. In the end, it has three parts: body-mind-soul. That because it’s hard to think/feel or get physically fit enough to experience a peaceful, quiet, and serene world. That’s why Christian counseling is the hidden ingredient in the wellness formula. It’s my kind of yin and yang!