TOanxiety, feelings of inadequacy or relationship difficulties: the Mental well-being is often challenged from these dynamics. Certainly common mechanisms but not easier to accept and manage. How to get out of it? The strategy exists and starts from awareness of those unresolved experiences who often hide behind everyone’s discomfort. A malaise that, after the pandemic, seems to have become even more evident but from which it is possible to start again to find unexpected resources and to bring out your full potential. This is the thesis of the new book signed by psychologist and psychotherapist Maria Beatrice Toro.
Mental well-being: the new book by Maria Beatrice Toro
Titled volume “4 wounds 4 resources for well-being. A guide to understand our weaknesses and turn them into strengths, to love and be loved” (Franco Angeli editions) in fact, it starts from a sadly known fact: the increase, following the pandemic, of anxiety disorders.
According to the author and psychotherapist, situations arise in times of crisis that work like “hooks”. Situations that reactivate internal patterns in people, sometimes ending up causing pain to explode. It’s “unresolved wounds” that make adversity live badly and represent the source theme of each one, a code written in experience that determines behaviors and choices.
The cover of Maria Beatrice Toro’s book “4 WOUNDS, 4 RESOURCES FOR WELL-BEING. A guide to understand our frailties and transform them into strengths, to love and be loved” (FrancoAngeli editions).
«The book was born from the observation that every human being, in the course of his development, can encounter difficulties that I called ‘wounds’, situations and discomforts that are usually attributable to 4 basic themes. During the pandemic period there was no general stressful effect that was the same for everyone but it is as if uncertainty had awakened each of these issues in a different way”.
The dominant wounds
So what are these unresolved wounds that can affect our mental well-being?
The author identifies 4 of the most common. There Overprotection woundwhich generally concerns people who, raised in an overprotective family environment, are inclined to try anxiety in the face of unfamiliar situations. There Judgment Woundtypical of those who have had a hypercritical family and have therefore developed insecurity and perfectionism. There wound of Guiltcaused by excessive responsibility leading to hold back emotions. And finally the wound of rejectiontypical of those who grew up in environments with little affection, feeling doomed to loneliness and not deserving of love.
Mental well-being: how to overcome wounds
Internalized wounds tend to remain in the mind for a very long time, ending up condition life and, in certain situations, to generate discomfort. However dealing with them is not only possible but, according to the thesis of the book, allows new potential to emerge.
«To face each of the 4 fragilities and be able to feel good a certain corresponding resource must be fielded. – explains the psychotherapist Maria Beatrice Toro – A person sensitive to anxiety and uncertainty, for example, can get out of fear by developing confidence. The development of this quality, which is also trained with meditation, will lead that same person to become a sort of ‘trust specialist’, or that resource that he had to activate in order to be able to overcome his moment of discomfort. Likewise, those who feel destined for solitude must work on the connection and more than the others it will thus be able to develop this resource of connecting and networking. Difficulty leads us to activate resources in a deeper and more effective way».
What’s the first step?
So where to start from to be able to face one’s weaknesses and transform them into a strength?
“As always awareness it is the first thing – explains Maria Beatrice Toro – But be careful: it is not necessary to retrace your entire personal history. What is needed is shed light on your current staterealizing that the time to call our fragility by its name. When we manage to give a name to what we are going through, in fact, we have already completed half the journey. Because we can talk about it, we can share. While what has no name cannot be processed either».
Mental well-being: how much dysfunctional beliefs weigh
Another important aspect is to become aware of those who are the repeating patterns generated by unresolved wounds. Mechanisms and thoughts that you are often unaware of but that end up influence the way we act (in the gallery we have reported 7 of them).
«The dysfunctional beliefs that we carry within us they weigh down the mind and prevent us from advancing on our path towards a rewarding personal and relational life – writes the author – because what happens inside is reflected outside».
The myth of resilience
Feeling good, however, also means accept that you can fall and somehow fail.
“During the pandemic they filled our heads with words ‘resilience’ – in fact explains the psychotherapist – but it is also right to consider that it is not always possible to be resilient. Sometimes we are just vulnerable. In life we can deal with strong emotions, difficult to manage that in some way can also lead us to fail our goals. My book is dedicated to all those people who emotionally ‘fell’ during the pandemic. But even those who have fallen can get up again. The failure it should not be experienced as an absolute existential defeat but rather as an experience that can teach us to activate other resources compared to those we always aim for».
Mindfulness to regain mental well-being
On the other hand, the pandemic has certainly enhanced the world of meditation, self-help and, more generally, those alternative treatment methods. A part of Maria Beatrice Toro’s book is in fact dedicated to mindfulness exercises which can help to make peace with one’s own frailties and to develop those qualities useful for overcoming malaise.
«Mindfulness is a useful strategy because it represents one way to be more patient and compassionate with ourselvesthe. – concludes the psychotherapist – It allows us to welcome our vulnerabilities without criticizing them. It is a path that in moments of crisis gives us a true, inclusive, non-judgmental response. A way to make peace with your experiences. Looking at them but also accepting them. Because, however much a human being may have been hurt, however much he may have suffered, however many shortcomings he may have suffered, the possibility of feeling good always exists, for everyone».
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