What Is Mental Health? | Becoming a Better Ancestor with Jonathan van Arnemen
- Apr 22
- 2 min read
Most of us grew up in communities where mental health wasn't really talked about. Not because people weren't struggling — but because we didn't have the language, and sometimes the culture didn't leave room for it.
Jonathan van Arnemen, a registered Dance/Movement Therapist and Licensed Associate Professional Counselor, is trying to change that. In Episode 1 of BABA: Becoming a Better Ancestor, he opens the season with a question that sounds simple and isn't: what is mental health, really?
It's not just the absence of illness
Jonathan's framing challenges the way most of us think about mental health — as something you either have or don't, something that becomes relevant only when something goes wrong. His approach is rooted in somatic therapy, which recognizes that mental and emotional wellbeing lives in the body, not just the mind.
For Caribbean communities, this is particularly resonant. We carry stress in ways we don't always name. The pressure of being first-generation. The weight of representing your island when you're the only one in the room. The grief of distance from home. Jonathan gives that weight a framework — and more importantly, a path forward.
Why Caribbean students need this conversation
Caribbean students studying abroad are navigating environments that weren't designed for them. New countries, new systems, new social dynamics — often without the family and community networks that made home feel stable. The mental load is real, and it doesn't always come with obvious symptoms.
What Jonathan offers isn't a clinical lecture. It's an invitation to take your own wellbeing seriously — not as weakness, but as part of what it means to show up for your community long-term. You can't be a better ancestor if you're running on empty.
BABA: Becoming a Better Ancestor
This episode is the first of EmpowerU and SIVLL's BABA Season 1 series — a collection of conversations with Caribbean and diaspora leaders across fields, all asking the same underlying question: how do we build the lives and communities our descendants will be proud of?
Mental health is the foundation. Everything else gets built on top of it.
Watch Episode 1 on YouTube:
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