Episode 7: Languages of Mental Health - Mind and Soul

Full Transcript: English

Would you like to read this episode in German or Polish?
I’ll be glad to send it to you — just reach out.

Hi again, my reflective companion on the other end of the mic... 😊

This time, it took me a bit longer to feel comfortable diving into a new

chapter of this podcast --- and recording this new episode. Because I

want to stay true to the core message, and to myself, and so... to you.

No real reflection is born in the blink of an eye.

Yes, a spark, all those wonderful heureka sensations, they do come up

suddenly and without announcement --- but they pretty often need to show

their true colours inside my inner world before I can share them.

But here we are...

And this episode is, in a way, a funny one to begin, because... well, if

you've listened to the last episode, you might remember that I said I'm

not really one for "Awareness Days." Not in a cynical way --- it's

just... I usually don't connect to things that feel performative or

overly orchestrated.

But then again... here I am. Because some of them DO matter to me.

Deeply.

And one of those is World Mental Health Awareness Day, which

happened just recently, on the 10th of October. And it pulled me in

again --- not in the way it might for others, but in the way that always

draws me back into words, into language. Because I found myself asking:

what do we actually mean when we say "mental health"?

It's everywhere now --- that phrase. In campaigns, in schools, in social

media posts, in public policy...

And... that's good, in many ways. I'm not trying to be critical just for

the sake of it. It would feel complacent of me...

We do need shared language to talk about these things --- so that

important issues find their way into the awareness of more people…

But, at the same time --- I don't know --- I keep feeling that when something

becomes that universal, that flattened, something starts to slip.
The essence gets lost.

And what struck me this time was the phrase itself --- mental health.

And suddenly I saw it with fresh eyes.

It's one of those umbrella terms, right? One of those phrases we need,

because they hold a lot under them --- stress, anxiety, trauma,

depression, burnout, recovery... but also, maybe... soul ache. Loss.

Grief. Disorientation. Detachment …

And here is this kind of dissonance I'm sensing --- because what does

the word mental really point to?

And---- is THAT enough?

If we trace it --- and this is what I always do --- it goes back to the

Latin mens, meaning "mind," or "reason." The part of us that thinks,

reasons,

Processes. Plans.

...And also the brain as an organ where the mind is supposedly seated.

And ------ I started to feel... okay, yes, that's part of it. Of course.
The mind matters. The brain matters. It's definitely inextricably linked to

our holistic health, the body’s overall well- being.

But the way we talk about "mental health" in public spaces often ends up

sounding like:

how well is your brain functioning? How efficiently are

you thinking? Are you productive enough? Are you emotionally stable

enough to contribute to society?

And that's where I start to feel uneasy. Because that's not healing ---

that's optimization. And when we make healing about optimization...

it automatically becomes its opposite. The whole idea of healing begins to unravel — and the process gets disrupted.

And that's where I started drifting --- you know how I do --- down one

of those rabbit holes again. But this time it didn't feel abstract. It

felt like I was returning to something that's been quietly asking to be

seen for a long time.

I kept thinking: what if the word mental --- rooted in mens, the

mind --- is only one piece of the picture?
What if what's actually hurting in many of us isn't just the mind, or maybe not the mind in a narrow, purely scientific sense --- but something different entirely?

The part of us we might call... soul, heart, innermost self --- whatever

and wherever it actually resides?

In my own mother tongue --- in Polish --- we don't really use the phrase

mental health as often. We speak of zdrowie psychiczne ---

psychological health. And that already shifts the frame a little.

Because it gestures toward a wider space: not just the thinking mind,

but the sensing --- with all senses, actually --- feeling, remembering

self.

And of course, psychology --- like psychiatry --- comes from the Greek

word psyche. And I love that word. And I find the idea of Psyche, its

image and what it embodies, simply wonderful and inherently true...

Psyche means breath. It means life force. In ancient Greek, it was

the part of a person that left the body in a swoon, or at the moment of

death. That's what the old poets and philosophers believed. It wasn't

the rational mind --- it was something subtler. Something that floats.

That lives. That leaves.

But here's the thing: modern psychology and psychiatry still use

psyche in their name --- and yet what they try to reach or fix... or at least what many mainstream approaches try to reach or fix... is often not the psyche in this deeper sense.

Which is, by the way, so wrong on so many levels... because you can hardly fix something as layered and individual as a human mind or soul.

It's more about thoughts, behaviors, emotional processing. It's also

often centered on language --- talking therapies, spoken insight,

explanation. And sometimes that helps. But sometimes... it doesn't. As

spoken language has its limits --- painfully experienced when you try to

name a feeling that, by its very nature, can't really be named. Right?

Because what if what's truly hurting isn't just the mind? What if the

ache is coming from something less explainable --- the part of us that

remembers things without words, that burns quietly, or freezes in

silence?

And just because this part doesn’t think in rational steps doesn’t mean it isn’t wise. The soul has its own kind of knowing — not linear, not logical, but no less real, no less valid or true, for that matter.

That's why I sometimes think: maybe psychology should've been called

something else. Maybe it should be called thymology.

In ancient Greek, thymos was something different than psyche.

Thymos was the fire in the chest. The breath and the blood together.

It carried anger, desire, longing, courage, the hunger for recognition.

It wasn't split into thought vs. feeling vs. motivation --- it was all

one living process.

And when I think about what modern therapy often tries to help with ---

shame, blocked rage, unspoken longing, broken courage --- I think: *this

is thymos*. This is the wounded fire. And calling it mental health or

psychology somehow misses the mark.

So yes. Thymology. It doesn't roll off the tongue quite like

psychology. But maybe it's closer to the truth...

Because in the end --- I think what most of us are looking for---- isn't

just clarity, or functioning, or even stability. It's wholeness. And

sometimes, words aren't enough to bring us there.

That's the paradox, isn't it? That even though most therapy is based on

language --- on speaking --- the soul, the psyche, doesn't really

speak in words. It speaks in breath. In scent. In silence. In the energy your skin senses --- mostly unconsciously. In image. In memory that can't be named yet.
So this is why we also need tools other than language to heal, and help ourselves

Still, on the other hand, maybe what we're doing here --- you and I --- when we trace a word

slowly... When we stay with its root... Its resonance. Its story...
Then

the path through healing the soul --- the psyche --- through language

opens up in front of... our mind?

That's one of the ways I heal. one of the ways I know how.

So when I say mental health, I don't just hear policy. I don't just

hear wellness apps or coaching slogans. I hear mens... and then I hear

psyche... and then I remember that the part of me that hurts the most

isn't always the part that thinks. Sometimes it's the part that longs...

that remembers... that holds pain that has no words yet.

And again --- that's the paradox, isn't it? That sometimes words are the

only thing we have --- and yet they still aren't quite enough.

Which is why I believe we need to stay close to the words themselves.

Let them open again. Let them breathe. Let them show us where the

healing might begin...

I guess, in the next episode, I'd like to follow this thread further ---

into the word stigma, and how the invisible wounds we carry are still

being branded, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

But for now... So here's where this leaves me... and maybe you:

If you've ever felt like the world expected you to be functional when

your soul was breaking... you're not alone.

You're not broken.

you're just being called to heal — in a language the system never learned to understand.