As many who struggle with mental health know, I spend a lot of time contemplating how to improve myself. Most times I try and think of “myself”, the results feel disorganized. My thoughts are often in conflict with my feelings, and I often find myself struggling to understand myself because the self I belong to is so dang complicated. So here goes trying to simplify things.

Lately, I’ve begun to think of myself as a being of three parts; Mind, Body, & Spirit. Each of these parts works together to form the “system” that is me, and so by identifying disorganization in the system, we can now identify a conflict between two or more of these parts.

The Mind can be identified as the part of “me” where my consciousness lives. It’s the part that imagines, reasons, and makes predictions. When the mind is disorganized it produces negative thoughts, embarrassing memory loops, and refuses to view things positively. The Mind receives information from my senses, processes that information through reasoning, and then by that reasoning exerts control on the next part of the system, the Body.

The Body is my physical anchor in the world. It is the part of me that people think of when they hear my name, and its the part that I use to affect the world around me. The Body reacts to physical stimuli, sends information “up” the chain of sensation towards the Mind, and receives directions on how to move. There are some instances though (like painful stimuli) that the Body deems so important that it must react immediately to save itself from. The Body acts as my personal vehicle, interacting with other people vehicles in the world while carrying my Mind along for the ride.

The Spirit seems to be my deepest, and purest self. If the Mind is the driver and the Body is the vehicle, the Spirit is the Path Itself, or maybe the Fuel. I hear the Spirit in my inner voice, the impulse leading me towards right and away from wrong, I feel the Spirit by my reaction to self affirmation and love, and I can sense its presence in moments when I am most in tune with myself. It is a beautiful feeling, and despite the times I am fed up with my Mind, or exhausted with my Body, I am always glad to feel my Spirit.