If ever there were a decided secular bias that is evident in our culture, it’s the way elites continue to address mental health and wellbeing. They just don’t get it.
Read the personal advice column in a newspaper or magazine, and you will quickly learn how to guard against loneliness and depression, and how to ensure happiness. Most of it is bunk. Having written a book on this subject, The Catholic Advantage: How Health, Happiness and Heaven Await the Faithful, there are no secrets about what works. It can be explained in one word—bonds. Personal bonds, and bonds with God. But don’t look for the “expert therapists” to mention this.
In New York City there is a Center for Wellbeing & Happiness. It is located on the lower east side, serving “Black, Indigenous [and] People of Color.” Apparently, no white people need apply, although they have to pay for it (it is taxpayer funded).
Got some head issues? Here’s how they are fixing them.
Currently, this center is offering classes on “Fitness & Motion” that “invites you to activate and move with your whole body!” They have a “Tai Chi” class that “promotes healthy bone-density and blood circulation through low-impact conditioning.” There are two different “Yoga” classes that “allow us to harness the healing power of our own bodies throughout all stages of life,” and that “improve the flow of energy in the body.” Lots of movement to these tricks.
“Arts & Creativity” teaches “the beautiful art of Batik.” What’s that? “Wax Resistance.” What’s that? Don’t ask. There’s a “Community Knitting Group” that is taught by “Maureen, the Knitting Mama,” so that should work to settle you down. “Nutrition & Environment” focuses on—you guessed it—food. One of the classes is “Rooted in ancestral wisdom & earth-based rituals,” emphasizing “gentle movement, storytelling, winter herbs, meditation and soul-warming foods.” If that doesn’t make you feel good, nothing will.
According to a recent Echelon Poll, 65 percent of Americans believe that our mental health is “getting much/a little worse.” How could it not if the cure is self-indulgence. But don’t expect “Maureen, the Knitting Mama,” to agree.
A Gallup survey published this spring found that 19.1 percent of adults suffer from depression, which is near the highest Gallup ever recorded. Approximately 30 percent of Americans have been treated for depression in their lifetime, which is up by 10 points since 2015. Young people are among those who suffer the most. Loneliness is driving the depression, and it is not going be alleviated by yoga or winter herbs.
Another survey, released around the same time as the Gallup one, was published by the Institute for Family Studies. It researched happiness. Again, young people scored poorly, but not all of them: unmarried young adults did the worst. Not only are married adults happier than unmarried adults—of all ages—those who attend religious services are the happiest.
Bonds. Married people can bond with each other. Religious people can bond with God. Whom do single people bond with? Whom do non-believers bond with? Moreover, bonds have nothing to do with “the flow of energy in the body.”
Catholic League staffers found that New Hampshire, Vermont and Oregon are the three most secular states. They have at least two things in common: they are almost all white (88, 91 and 72 percent, respectively), and they have among the highest rates of age-adjusted depression rates (all over 25 percent). That won’t be fixed by learning about “Wax Resistance.”
If the ruling class wasn’t so opposed to acknowledging the positive role that religion plays in mental health and wellbeing, they would not hesitate to embrace it. The science cannot be disputed, even by those who make money teaching how to become more self-absorbed.
Bottom line: The key to mental health and wellbeing does not lie with you. It lies with others, and with God. “Soul-warming foods” may be pleasurable, but they are not a tonic to what ails the lonely and the depressed.
