In an overarching reality fully focused on money (financial growth), we get deprived of morality and unconsciously develop mental disorders at all levels of society. Nearly all our current global challenges can be attributed to that. Disconnecting from the financial doctrine, embracing the morality of our sustainable existence as a natural species in our natural Earth habitat, gives us again a sense of meaning and purpose. It empowers us mentally, healing old problems while developing a sustainable future together. But we need to make the disconnecting choice. The experiences, with the introduction of an alternative coined as Sustainocracy, have provided useful insights with very promising results. They were published in the global Journal of Mental Disorders (article to be released soon, available upon request).

When my article on “breaking with our heritage” was published, through the University of Urbino in Italy and the Euro-Spes community on business and spirituality, I was invited by the Journal of Mental Health Disorders to reflect on such mental turning points through their global magazine.

A mental turning point was experienced when I decided to break away from the doctrines of the financial world in order to develop certain ethical considerations that were important to me. The benefit of such breaking is that one develops a new reality, getting to compare both, the finance driven doctrine and the one based on ethical values, also from a mental empowerment point of view. The analysis remains very subjective when only related to me, a potential outcast of a mainstream functioning of society. It becomes more objective when relating it to other mental and behavioral breaking points experienced by more people, even by entire regions, such as the city of Eindhoven.

Equally I could relate to the reaction of people and institutions when invited to join the activities of the human centered “Sustainocracy”, an environment based on my own moral awareness about existential human values. For instance to develop the “healthy city” together. Especially the activities of COS3i for social inclusion became a Box of Pandora with many people carrying different kinds of old traumas. These had mostly been inflicted by the impact of a single approach to reality through doctrines (such as money or religion). Presenting people with an alternative, a second choice based on human values, gave many a mental boost. It equally showed the negative impact on mental health when people get disconnected from morality. It undermines their identity, their behavior, their wellness, while developing mental and behavioral disorders that can range from psychoses, burn-out, behavioral tunnel visions, competitive aggression up to deeply rooted narcissism.

This does not only affect people in a situation of financial disadvantage but also those that develop well in the financial competitive hierarchies. Presenting people again with morality breaks with the limiting tunnel visions, enhancing their well being with meaning and purpose. This happens in a job, in leadership positions and also in people’s private life. When they feel meaning and purpose again they equally feel the possibility to give their old trauma’s a place in their past. They develop their own breaking point and empowerment.

Only when an alternative, such as the approach of Sustainocracy, is introduced as an healing injection of morality, the old mental disorders become apparent. Before they were nasty handicaps, problems for society. They justified the appearance of all kinds of care institutions that function within the same overarching doctrine. These normally don’t solve the problem, they suppress them or try to get people to deal with them through denial or minimization. The mental disorders also develop into political and financial hierarchical clusters, deprived of morality and with biased self interest as their only motivation. The people involved don’t see themselves as mentally disturbed because of the lack of a moral counterweight. This explains why we have arrived at a global situation referred to as the “Anthropocene” or “the human being as the 6th cause of destruction of life on Earth since its existence”. These indicators already allude to the collective mental disturbance that leads to self destruction. It reminds of my article “How stupid can smart be“, reflecting about the denomination of the region of Eindhoven as “the smartest of the world”. How smart is a region when it pollutes itself out of financial self interests, causing severe physical and mental disorders among its citizens? Is smartness only measured in financial terms or patents? Or in our capacity to sustain our species in a healthy, mature and progressive way? With Sustainocracy we decided for the latter.

We all have a choice. We only have to make use of it and reap the benefits. The invitation to develop it will always remain, with or without our help.