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Welcome to the April "Riding
the Wave - The Wave Riders™ " Newsletter.
The article this month is long and so you will need to use
the link below to read the full article.
Crossing
the Line
by Indigo Irwin Kennedy
Is there a fine line between making it work and making it
worse?
How close are you to crossing the line?
Do the numbers scare you?
"Research suggests that
1 person in 4 will experience some kind of mental health problem
in the course of a year."
The Mental Health
Foundation - data derived from Goldberg, D. and Huxley, P.
'Mental illness in the Community.' 1980. Also Goldberg, D.
'Filters to care', in 'Indicators for Mental Health in the
population.', Jenkins, R. and Griffiths, S, (ed.) The Stationary
Office 1991
There are millions of people
with severe mental disorders. What is it that takes us from
great today, to just okay and finally to dysfunctional? I
believe there is a point where, as in any addiction, we cross
over the line.
Often, addictions have measuring
scales to determine if for example you are a casual drinker
or you have a drinking problem. Addiction might be determined
by measuring the amount consumed or how often you use the
substance, but how do we measure "adrenaline consumption"?
SubstanceAbusePrevention.org
defines addiction as, …"Dependence on a substance
that is harmful to physical or mental health, social well-being,
or economic functioning."
How do we fit "use of adrenaline"
to create art or to make it through a tough business project
into this definition?
EASY…we often use adrenaline
to feel good, and to get things done, even at the detriment
of our mental health, relationships, and our finances.
We continue to use this adrenaline
when we see that it throws us into depression and after we
have acknowledged the many "wild goose chases" we
have followed. The main response I hear is, "So, what
is wrong with adrenaline? - I love adrenaline - life would
be boring without it". I can even imagine that many readers
now are agreeing with those statements.
Boredom comes when we are low,
into the state of depression … not the mid-wave. Most
of us never visit "the middle" and so we assume
that "middle = boring" and this belief fuels the
use of our adrenaline. The more we use it the more sensitized
we become to stress, like an alcoholic that become severely
impaired after only one drink.
People have a tendency to jump
to the conclusion that we spend our weekends running naked
in the streets or hallucinating when we mention bipolar emotions.
They do not understand that what they are thinking of is only
the extreme forms. This higher state is where we might finally
admit …there might be a problem with using adrenaline.
I would like us to look at our adrenaline use before there
is a problem and to look at how we are using adrenaline in
our everyday work.
I recently read a book titled,
"Manic Depression and Creativity" and a few things
started to become very clear to me. The book contained quotes
and observations from friends of some of our greatest artists
and writers that exhibited unusual behavior. What became apparent
to me was that their behavior did not always appear to be
"strange".
When life began for them, they were talented, and they were
productive and social, but something happened to change all
of that. As I continued to read, It did not appear to me to
be "an event" that triggered the insanity, as much
as it was an attitude change. It seems to me that there was
a point where their core values changed to place adrenaline
and creativity higher than everything else, including sleep
and nutrition. The end result was a decrease in the creativity
that they valued and a decrease in their ability to function.
In the past, some philosophies,
placed artists high in value and status and this philosophy
allowed the mood changes and the irrational and anti-social
behavior to be accepted as "normal" or part of "the
gift" of the creativity. We now practice a similar acceptance,
value and status of the super- achievers - the multi-taskers.
Click
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