I have a dear friend, and clinical colleague, Kai Littlejohn, who said to me a couple of years ago, "Thanks for always being solid". I felt like it was the best compliment I had received in a very long time. What does this have to do with mental and emotional health? Let me explain.
When you speak and act with integrity, you're trustworthy, reliable, and you are who you say you are. You have effective communication, and you can have authentic conversations. This is part of the building block of solid relationships. However, to get to that point, you have to do your own inner work. You have to be honest with yourself.
The compliment of being solid, in my mind, means I have grown and healed to the point that I can take constructive feedback. It means I can follow through on my word, or I can have a conversation about why I cannot keep my word, while holding space for the person to have feelings of disappointment. It means all the practicing I have been doing related to fostering solid relationships, is creating progress for me in relationship to myself and others. That's a good feeling. Of course, none of us are good at anything 100% of the time. However, practice does make progress.
Advice
Self-awareness, mindfulness, visualization, meditation, and cognitive behavioral therapy are some of the techniques everyone can use to start becoming more solid. That's because these techniques help bring a person into present moment focus without judgement or negative self-talk. Once present moment focus is achieved, and while it lasts for that time period, we can chose how we want to move within the spaces in which we are involved. When we are not present, we act, or react, on old patterns that were set up a long time ago. Present moment awareness helps us break cycles and patterns. It helps us build stronger relationships with ourselves and others.
