Build Up Your Mental Fortress
We all have a mental fortress that we are in charge of and operates to help us in times of difficulties and duress. I am not speaking of the mind itself, but rather the mechanisms which protect the mind from harm and falseness.
Just as a computer has a firewall to protect it from viruses and invaders, you have a mental firewall, or what I will call the mental fortress. Many of us have not given any thought to this, and so the mechanism runs on autopilot. We resort to old habits that have seemed to work for us in the past. Sometimes those old habits work in a way, but they may not always work well, or sometimes they cause us extra problems rather than truly helping us.
Your mental fortress kicks in any time someone offends you, you feel embarrassed, someone lies to you, you lie to yourself, you are going through a traumatic period, and if you are afraid, anxious, or sad or hurt emotionally in some way.
The mental fortress may tell you to get away from people who cause you emotional suffering. Or it may tell you to respond angrily or possibly even with physical force or to argue with whoever is hurting you. It may tell you that your goal is to harm them more deeply, whoever it was that tried to hurt you.
You may begin to see that there are productive and counterproductive parts of this mental fortress. Many of us go all our lives without thinking of any of this. Something happens, and we react. But it is important to proact – to have a set of actions or steps that you can take in advance, to avoid inviting problems and suffering into your life.
A computer anti-virus system may find vulnerable ports that are liable to be hacked and used maliciously and protect them or seal them so that they cannot be so easily infiltrated. Just the same, you should consider your greatest vulnerabilities and look for ways to mentally protect yourself from being hacked or controlled or falling into emotional turmoil every time one of these vulnerabilities is accessed. What we mean when we say people are “pushing our buttons” is just this – we mean that they have discovered our weak points and purposely probed them to get us to malfunction, to get us to react childishly and yell and scream, or to get us to feel scared and become easily manipulated.
Just as your immune system has many working parts to help protect you against infection, your mental fortress has many working parts to protect your mind against becoming contaminated.
Some of these components may involve our self-talk (how we talk to ourselves in our own minds). It may be our support network – feeling that we have people who can help us in times of need can make us mentally stronger. Other features may be our mental toolkit for approaching or solving problems – feeling that you can handle difficult problems can make you feel more mentally at ease. One type of problem-solving that is especially useful will be knowing how to think creatively, to generate possible solutions for difficult scenarios that we find ourselves in. For many people, a component of the mental fortress may be physical exercise to help get your mind clear and in balance. For others, it may involve religious beliefs or spiritual practices to help you feel that you are connected to something greater and that you are not so vulnerable and weak. Just the feeling that we are protected can help to shield us from harm and keep our mental fortress strong.
One of the greatest tools of the mental fortress will be our self-talk, as we can have some control over this. A young child needs a parent or some outside stimulus to help manage his feelings if he is scared or worried. However, as adults, we begin to learn to manage our own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Nonetheless, adults still struggle greatly with preventing their emotions from running out of control.
Many individuals now suffer from depressive thinking, which can involve depressing loops of negative self-talk. Similarly, many individuals suffer from anxiety, which can involve anxious loops of self-talk.
One basic mental tool to combat this will be to have positive, calm, reasonable self-talk scripts that we have planned for difficult situations. Such positive or neutral scripts can help cancel out the mental loops that keep us stuck in anxious or depressive or other harmful thought loops.
It is important to keep these written, as, during a stressful period, such positive scripts may be difficult to recall.
Here are examples of some of the scripts we may create and have ready to use when needed:
I am happy with everything and everyone I have in my life at this moment. I should not dwell on what is wrong but instead, think of what is going right.
I am in pain, but I have the power to think of something else to make myself feel better (e.g., my cat, my spouse’s smile, or a favorite memory).
I do not need to listen to my own mind – sometimes, it lies to me, and I can choose to observe the beauty in nature, talk to supportive family and friends, or engage in physical exercise to help calm my stressed mind.
I am at peace at this moment – nothing can hurt me or take my peace from me.
Love is all around me. I feel the love of everyone who has ever loved me, and I love them back.
I should stop assuming things will go badly and instead assume they will go well. This will help me to find ways to improve my life.
I am in control of what I think. I can take my mind to a better place.
Whatever this experience is that I’m going through, it is only temporary.
I love my mind and body in full. Even if sometimes my mind or body works against me, I love that every moment I am alive is a true miracle.
God is watching over me. Even in moments when I feel lost, troubled, and hopeless, God is always there for me.
These are just some examples. We all need to take some time to find positive scripts that we can use in times of great worry, anxiety, depression, or whenever it is that we feel we are losing control of our own minds.
Of course, feel free to use the ones I have proposed for yourself or adapt them in any way you find useful.
The idea is not to brainwash ourselves with false positivity. I aim to be truthful in everything I do, as I do not think lying to ourselves or others is beneficial. The idea, rather, is to counteract the negative forces of the mind with something positive so that for a moment, we can see that our negative train of thought is often incorrect. Often, there is something positive we can focus on to make ourselves feel better and more in control.
Keep in mind that I am not a mental health professional. My background is in psychology, with an emphasis in industrial-organizational and cognitive domains, but not specifically in the clinical or therapeutic domains. To any individuals with mental health concerns, I recommend seeking professional help.
My general point here is that even if you are usually mentally healthy and free from mental disorders, you should take some time to build up your mental fortress.
A large problem of modern society is that we wait for severe illness to take hold of us before becoming interested in our mental stability. Our mental health and general health experts usually know how to deal with specific illnesses, but we should take care of ourselves and build up our mental fortresses to help avoid falling into mental illness or severe mental turmoil.
The core function of your mental fortress will be to stop negative and harmful forces from coming into and affecting your life, yet being open and adaptable to receiving positive and beneficial influences into your life. A mental fortress that allows everything into your life, all the good and bad, is not functioning well. Likewise, a mental fortress that allows nothing into your life, neither the good nor the bad, is not functioning well either.
If you have a deeper interest in building up your mental strength and resilience for dealing with life and hardships, I recommend a couple of books:
