Flexing our Mental Wellbeing

Image courtesy @jblesly

I attended an interesting talk last night which explored how organisations and trained psychotherapists are helping combat the rising epidemic of mental health issues in adolescent children by learning how to help children cope with their internal worlds and emotions from a young age as far back as primary school!

Rachel from In Two Minds has over 14 years experience in the field of studying the neuroscience of the developing brain in young adults and children and is a parent herself, to three children, so can relate from a personal level.

What struck a chord with me, is that we focus on our health and general wellbeing, what we eat, drink, how we exercise. Yet we need, equally, to be paying attention to our mental health and wellbeing. Treating us a whole, mind, body and soul not just body health.

A lot of why we exercise or how we eat revolves around the messages we give ourselves from a young age. Maybe you were bullied or teased for being fat and couldn’t run fast, or your P.E kit was too tight on you, or you had to take those dreaded communal showers !

Perhaps you saw your parents overeat to compensate for how they felt in themselves, or someone drink a little too much and too regularly to hide a bad day at work, or how they deal with stress. It made me realise that we too even though we are now adults have learnt behaviour from our primary and secondary school days, and all this without us realising, reflects onto our children. I have a young daughter, and I used to say every time she asked me why I was putting on make up, ‘that I was old and needed it to look better” Goodness, what a mindset to have started, which I quickly now change to ‘ because I enjoy using it’ the same way I won’t ask her if I look big in something or silly, as these subtle quick responses could have started her to think ‘if I don’t wear make up i’ll look ugly and old’ thankfully she is only 6 and I have time to repair and replace that dialogue with a positive mindset and spin. But you can see how quickly we don’t realise that what we say has an impact on body image and what is true beauty. I will tell her if she says ‘Do I look pretty’ that yes she does but that it is also beautiful what she can do with her mind and thoughts and heart and how she treats other people, diverting away that looks are not everything. It is about what she can achieve and contribute and what her heart and voice has to say that is incredibly beautiful too!

So when you next attend a Yoga class and are feeling bloated, or that you think you look big or ugly, old or silly. Tune in as Rachel says to a different radio station in your head. Rachel gave examples that someone might listen to Radio 6 Music, she might listen to Radio 4 but if you tune into ‘I’m not good enough Radio Station’ you will eventually end up believing that this is who you are. So try tuning into ‘ I have awesome potential’ Radio station instead or something of a similar positive frame of mind.

Rachel teaches a great set of skills and exercises for children and young adults that we can learn from too. Such as checking in on a daily basis on how we are feeling, why are we feeling a certain way, is the voice of negativity telling us truth or do we need to acknowledge it but say no thanks I’m not listening to that today, you can trot on.

Hard to do I know, as we have been listening to these for so long, they love to trip us up. Right before a meeting, or a job interview, speaking in public, doing something new.

Which is turn leads us to vulnerability, we are afraid to put ourselves out there for fear of judgement, not fitting in, or saying the wrong thing. Will I offend someone? What will they think of how I look? I thought if we have these crippling thoughts, then maybe without knowing we pass or transmit these onto our children, and whilst I believe in them seeing our human side, none of us are perfect, we all have a bad day, we sometimes argue with a partner or loved one, yet if we can show up and help them see how we resolve conflict, or how we navigate a bad day, we set them up with tools, that life isn’t perfect, we fall, but how we rise is where the gift lies in giving them hope that in their future they can depend on themselves to navigate through it and come out the other side.