Your Daily Brush: Eat Tea and Challenge Your Thinking!
When we look beyond the obvious, we can find new solutions to old challenges. Everyone has the capacity to invent, innovate and be creative and you can do this in the service of your mental hygiene.
Dear Friends,
When you hear the words tea leaves what comes to mind?
Like most people, I always pictured a beverage made by brewing tea leaves; and the usual variations - hot or cold; with milk or lemon; sweetened or unsweetened; with spices perhaps if one is so inclined.
Enter my former psychology professor Esther Rothblum. She is the one who, in the first year of my PhD program at the University of Vermont in the Fall of 1991, introduced me the topic of women’s mental health, and how harmful social norms exert an adverse impact on people’s mental health. The rest, as they say, is history, because she played an important role in making me aware of issues I continue to work on to this day.
Esther (who is originally from Vienna and therefore, I probably should address her as Frau Professor Doktor), not only led me to the topic of women’s mental health. She also led me to Burmese Fermented Tea Leaf Salad some years after graduation.
Before we both ended up in San Francisco, where I now have the pleasure of meeting her on a regular basis, we used to meet in the city from time to time, when we were in town for meetings.
During one such get together, she suggested we have lunch at a Burmese restaurant and told me about fermented tea leaf salad. For me it was love at first bite. What a discovery it was - a mix of interesting textures and flavors! Below you can see the salad ingredients just before they are mixed and dressed up with lemon juice.
Aside from the combination of flavors and textures, it is the idea of eating tea leaves that is intriguing. It is unexpected! And the creative use of tea leaves inspires me to share all this with you. And it is also a chance to share with you about Esther and her role in my life.
Rx: Lessons from Tea Leaves
Significant threats to our emotional health don’t always have to be big. Daily hassles (also called micro-stressors), exert a toll on our psyche as the negative impact of even small annoyances and frustrations adds up over time.
In such situations, creative problem solving can be part of one’s mental hygiene activities. You can think of this as a tool in your mental hygiene tool kit.
I invite you to reflect on what might be annoying you or frustrating you at this time. How might you get creative about solving the issue?
If tea can be both a beverage and a salad ingredient, surely there are new ways to look at long standing challenges in your life. Go forth and get creative! And if you happen to visit San Francisco, you can join Esther and me for lunch.
To your health!
