How a Wellness Plan Helps Charita Cole Brown Thrive

Charita Cole Brown was in college when she received her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, and even then, she knew that to live well, she would need a plan.

After accepting her diagnosis, she engaged in therapy for two and one-half years. During that time, she took agency over her illness. With therapeutic support, she devised a wellness plan that she relies on to help her defy the verdict of her bipolar diagnosis and live a strong, meaningful life.

“One of the things that is different from some others I know with mental health diagnoses is that I am not waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop,” says Brown. “I don’t live like that because I follow my wellness plan.”

Charita Cole Brown’s wellness plan

In her wellness plan, Brown prioritizes habits we all need for great mental and physical health. And she has added some personal must-haves, too. When she needs to make a change or add a priority, she adjusts her plan to accommodate that need.

“I have been living well for 30 years,” she says. Apart from one little “blip” involving surgery and too much anesthesia which conflicted with her medical therapy for bipolar disease, Brown says her wellness plan has remained something she can rely on to live her best life.

Here, she shares what works for her.

Sleep. “I sleep well. The most important thing to do is get sleep when you have a mental health challenge. Your brain needs to rest,” says Brown.

Good nutrition. Brown eats well. She even consults with a nutritionist to make sure she’s getting all the nutrients her mind and her body need.

Medication. “I have a psychiatrist because I can’t prescribe my own medication,” she says. “I take my medication.”

Pause and breathe. These are two interrelated things Brown assures people everyone can do. “Take deep, cleansing breaths, not shallow chest breathing. It calms your system,” she says.

Meditate. “My faith determines who I am,” Brown says. “I meditate on scriptures. I will choose and repeat a scripture that applies to my situation until it floods my heart and my mind.”

Accountability partners. “An accountability partner is someone who walks alongside you and watches with you for symptoms as you manage your illness. Everyone can benefit from someone coming alongside them to make sure they are OK,” she says. Brown’s original accountability partner was her sister Valerie. “Valerie was my chief accountability partner until May 2020 when she died suddenly from a stroke. The day after she died, I felt in my spirit that I would live by the lessons she taught me and I would be fine.” Those Brown knows who are living well with mental health challenges have at least one person who supports them emotionally.

Boundaries. This is a relatively recent part of Brown’s wellness plan, added after she read the book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and John Townsend in 2019, she says. Surrounding her, she imagines a fence with a gate and she decides who comes in and who goes out. “If I need you to go out, I can send you out through the gate. If I want you to stay, you can stay,” she says, adding that this helps her understand that she is in charge of her life — and that the word ‘No’ is a complete sentence. “It’s so empowering,” she says.

Learning your triggers. “If you have a mental health challenge, you have to watch your stressors. It’s sometimes difficult, yet doable. You can walk away. You have to learn to prioritize yourself. As my sister Valerie would say, ‘You can’t control anyone but yourself.’” According to Brown, Val also lived by the adages, “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” and “I don’t have a nickel in that quarter.”

Faith. “I’m a Christian and my faith in God is the reason I am living as well as I am,” says Brown. “Many people that I have met who are managing mental health challenges well, have confessed a belief in God. Not in a denomination, but in God. That’s quite interesting to me.”

Brown admits that not everyone with mental health challenges is living at the level she is. She presents life as not up and down, but circular. “We’re all at different points around the circle,” she says. She credits her ability to survive her sister’s death — and the death of her husband very early in their marriage — to the fact that she was living with a wellness plan.

Learn more about Charita Cole Brown and purchase her book, Defying the Verdict: My Bipolar Life at chartiacolebrown.com. Read the first article in this series about Charita Cole Brown on the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation website.