Be Only You

I’m sure we are all very familiar with the ever growing narrative around “mental health and wellbeing”. Thankfully it is becoming more and more normalised in most countries.  This concept is gaining traction of importance relative to other health modalities and while this topic has been close to my heart for many years, I found myself struggling to define what it actually is. So after some thought and reflection, here is what I have come up with.

Like most things of this nature, it is difficult to get a short, simple, black and white definition. The WHO provides a pretty meaty one as below

Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development.

World Health Organisation

Too often we get caught up in what we think we should be doing, what we should be feeling etc and we forget to take a step back to reflect on what something is not or come at it from another angle. This sort of realisation can be very empowering when reflecting on your behaviours and habits especially as you start to reflect on what mental health and wellbeing means to you.  For the past year, I found myself caught up into thinking that I could stress less and feel better by doing so. Although just this week, after listening to a few different podcasts and more reflection, I realised that it is not possible to stress less (it is an innate part of humans) but rather what I can do is work on de-stressing better and quicker.

Mental Wellbeing: What It Doesn’t Mean

• That you are always happy and never have stress or worries
• Or mean that you never feel stuck in a rut
• And that you have everything figured out all of the time

My Interpretation Of Mental Wellbeing

A state in which you have confidence in your ability to withstand difficulties or challenges that life throws at you (big or small). It doesn’t mean that you wake up every morning with 120% motivation for the day ahead, it means that you consistently put one foot in front of the other and do what you need to do that day, as best as you can. It also means that you are aware enough of the behaviours that don’t serve you anymore, you actively work on creating new habits to bring you into a new direction in your life. So in essence you are open and accepting of change and transformation into your life.

Your First Step Towards Mental Wellbeing

Joe Dispenza talks a lot about the importance of becoming aware (or conscious) or your unconscious thoughts (the part of your mind that is not readily accessible). These types of thoughts are believed to exert an effect on your conscious thinking and behaviour, ultimately your emotions. I previously wrote more on emotions in “You are not your emotions” and I suppose what I was getting at here, is the awareness, reflection and ability to confront these thoughts or emotions. Your personality is how you think, how you feel and ultimately how you act. When you become aware of this, you realise that you can change your thoughts which ultimately change how you feel and how you behave or act. If you keep thinking the same way, you will never change. We all need to change because otherwise we limit our personal development capabilities. So be open to being wrong, or needing support or admitting that you didn’t know enough. 

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

So What Else Helps With Mental Wellbeing?

There is no one way to achieve this, it is a combination of many different things, habits, behaviours, mindset shifts and only you can know what works for you. Other than having your basic needs of food, shelter, sleep,warmth and being part of a community (circle of family, friends, colleges etc), here are some suggested steps to help refocus you on your mindset, values and vision for your future self, all of which play a big part in your overall mental wellbeing. 

Step 1 : Figure Out What You Care About

Personal values are your building blocks of beliefs that signpost what is important to you in your life and how you live your life. I detail out the steps to discovering these in “What is your value system”

Step 2: Decide What You Want

Once you uncover your values and aspects of your life that you care about, spend some time reflecting on what the ideal scenario would be for each. It is important to note that you can really only work on what you want and not what you want from others.

Examples

• You decide that Health & Friends are important values to you, so you decide that you will spend more quality time with them and consider incorporating exercise classes or walks in the park as part of that
• You may also value Financial Safety in order to feel more secure in yourself. So you build out a budget plan allocating spends towards an emergency fund as a safety net. Even knowing that you are building towards this, is very beneficial. 

Step 3: Design Your Mental Wellbeing Masterpiece

Some people like to use a journal and just draft out simple bullet points. Others like to craft a physical vision board with pictures, screenshots, and writing. Or you may opt to use many digital options if you prefer the non-paper route. Whatever format you choose is perfect as long as it resonates with you and allows you to feel a sense of excitement. In essence it is your ideal life and how you want to live moving forward.

Finally Step 4: Bring It To Life

This is as simple as printing, saving, screenshotting your masterpiece where you will see it daily. Put a reminder in your phone every month or so to check back in how you think you are doing in each area. It doesn’t have to be too formal and it may be a simple reflection point.

Regardless of what is going on in your life (many will have this a hell of a lot harder than others) you have the power to reshape your perception of your human experience and more importantly your thoughts that will drive everything that constitutes your overall mental health and wellbeing. I am not saying this is an easy task or even comfortable and so the journey is a lot easier if you don’t go it alone. It doesn’t mean that parts of your journey will be travelled and explored alone (sometimes this is required). Whatever it looks like, keep going and take back your power!

Thank you for reading and if you haven’t already,  subscribe below to receive my weekly blog straight to your inbox and receive printable gratitude and values exercises! Please also forward this to anyone else you think might be interested

Much love ♥

Disclaimer: I am not a licensed therapist, these opinions are my own views and thoughts. I strongly encourage you to work with your healthcare practitioner and/or therapist if any of these views have had a negative impact on you.