Summary
Holidays can affect mental wellbeing. Create SMART goals to deal with Memorial Day 2025. Let’s try to get along. We can stand up for injustice by reaching out to people, being kind, being grateful, and giving information freely. Let’s stop engaging in addictions to money and to hatred. Take care of your health, based on facts. Call your elected officials and request they support research for healthcare. United States Capitol switchboard telephone number is 202.224.3121.
Holidays and Mental Wellbeing
I have previously touched on the topic of holidays and mental wellbeing. With the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, I invite you to consider the topic again. Consider how holidays impact your self-care routines and your gratitude for the life you have.
Today’s post is deliberately brief. I ask everyone to contemplate the intersection of holidays and mental wellbeing.
Memorial Day Weekend Affects Your Mental Wellbeing
Memorial Day weekend in the USA generally involves people connecting with their loved ones. Socializing with family and friends can be stressful. Socializing with family and friends during a patriotic holiday, such as Memorial Day, may be even more challenging in 2025 because of the sociopolitical climate in the USA.
I challenge everyone to employ the SMART goal strategy to navigate the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.
- Specific goal
- Measurable goal
- Attainable goal
- Realistic/Relevant goal
- Time-bound goal
In the context of Memorial Day weekend, what is your goal and does it meet the criteria of SMART goals?
Mental Wellbeing for Everyone
Let me say it again. The wellbeing of each individual member of a community affects the wellbeing of the community.
The sociopolitical climate in the USA right now, on May 18, 2025, is troubling. Emotions are running high. Hatred, accusations, greed, selfishness, egoism, name-calling, lying, gaslighting, intimidation, dehumanization, as well as shaming and blaming are just a few of the actions which politicians and members of the public are embracing. I say embracing because there is a culture of embracing actions with a negative emotional valence with the purpose of asserting power over people.
The addiction to power and to money is manifest in the USA. I have a couple of responses to the situation.
Instinctually, my first response is a question. Can we please just get along?
My second response is a request. Please, go get some help for your addiction to money and your addiction to power.
I posit that if we would detach ourselves from the desire for money and the desire for power over someone else, we would get along and we would have a healthier society as a result of abandoning these addictions. The USA would experience a noticeable increase in wellbeing.
Taking Action for Wellbeing During Memorial Day
Be a little introspective: check your biases and check your default beliefs. You may be wrong, just saying.
Employ safe practices: firecrackers kill; infections kill; and violence kills. If you are sick, stay home. If you are angry, step away from the situation. If firecrackers are a must for your holiday weekend, attend a publicly sponsored fireworks display.
Reach out to neighbours and strangers and thank them for being a part of your community. It costs nothing to be kind and kindness and gratitude go a long way for promoting and preserving wellbeing.
Don’t fight with people. Guide them to information and facts. In the end, history speaks volumes. Hopefully, people will hear the truth.
Take good care of your health. Based on science, please, not on conspiracy theories. Research and data are important sources for policy development and clinical practices to ensure we remain healthy. Call your elected officials and request they support funding for the sciences and for research: we need facts, evidence, and innovative researchers to maintain our health and our healthcare system.
United States Capitol switchboard 202.224.3121
Be patient. We have to live with each other and we have to fight injustice. We cannot give in to the rhetoric of hatred and dehumanization, especially not now.
It’s essential, for our wellbeing.
Be safe. Be kind. Be gracious. And, above all, take good care of yourself and of others.
We have a long road ahead of us.
Disclaimer: The content of this post is not meant to substitute for a consultation with your mental health professional team.
If you are having thoughts of hurting yourself or someone else, please CALL 9-1-1; CALL 9-8-8; or GO TO THE nearest Emergency Room.
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