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A mentally healthy 2022: how to put your mind first this year

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The mentally draining clutches of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021 meant that discussions surrounding mental health became universally more pervasive and de-stigmatised. However, as society begins to enter a more COVID-normal life in 2022, it is important that we continue to prioritise their mental health the same way we have had to for the past two years – and this is how.

For many, a new year means new resolutions, new goals, and a seemingly fresh start. Essentially, to use the age-old phrase, many approach January with a mentality of “new year, new me”. This isn’t an inherently damaging ideal. However, these new goals are often centred around the same aspects of life: starting the gym, eating clean or starting a diet, cutting out alcohol, managing finances or losing weight. Evidently, a survey demonstrated that 78% of Australians have set financial goals as their new year’s resolution, 30% have pledged to change eating habits and exercise more, and a further 28% have made resolutions to lose weight.

Conversely, only 8% of Australians made resolutions that prioritised their mental health, like meditation and practicing mindfulness – a significantly lower percentile than that relating to physical and financial goals.

Although 2020 and 2021 brought an emotional whirlwind of lockdowns, confusing vaccine rollouts and a seemingly never ending pandemic cloud floating over our heads, discussions surrounding mental health are more public than ever, with public health officers, professional athletes, celebrities and children collectively trying to break the stigma surrounding mental health – reiterating that it is okay to struggle. After all, 1 in 5 Australians will experience a mental health disorder in any given year.

Despite the renewed sense of optimism of 2022, with the promise of no more lengthy lockdowns and drawn-out restrictions – the pandemic is still upon us, and it is likely that many individuals still feel the weight of that on their mental health, despite being back to their “COVID-normal” busy schedules. Here are three ways – or belated resolutions – that will help you keep your mental health as a priority this year.

Lead with compassion rather than criticism

Compassion and self-compassion are some of the greatest ways to be kind to yourself, and in doing so, putting your mental health first. Broadly, being self-compassionate involves acknowledging negative emotions, mistakes and faults with kindness, rather than with criticism and judgement. Essentially, it can be separated into three components: self-kindness, common humanity – in the acknowledgement that suffering and failure are a universal experience – and mindfulness.

Research has shown that individuals who practice self-compassion have a direct correlation with lower levels of mental health symptoms, whereas lower levels of self-compassion resulted in higher levels of psychopathy. Moreover, it has been evidenced by a myriad of studies that self-compassion can have a wide scope of positive results as an extension of improved mental health: increased motivation, happiness, improved body image, enhances self-worth and fosters resilience.

One strategy to increase your self-compassion this year, is implementing self-love affirmations into your daily routines. Whether you have one affirmation that you tell yourself each morning, or a different one for different days, having a few phrases or mantras to counter negative thoughts is a good way to introduce the idea self-compassion into your life and in doing so, make your mental health a priority.

Narrow your focus and “just be”

When there are so many different factors that influence health and wellbeing, it is less overwhelming to focus on just a couple of those. Lisa Henderson, professional counsellor and mental health service provider, spoke to Forbes Health about her focus on “meaning making” to prioritise her mental health. She notes that it is easy to get consumed and overwhelmed by busy work, and in doing so lacking productivity, impact, and progress.

She notes that when she takes a step back, breathes deeply and prioritises the work that lead to the most impact and productivity – despite how busy it might make her, she feels fulfilled.

The New York Times reflected on this concept in May 2021, referring to this meaningful and impactful living as “flourishing”. After “languishing” was used to define the universal sense stagnation people were feeling during the pandemic, the term “flourishing” began to emerge as the opposite – a contentment and fulfilment with life that everyone hopes to achieve.

As part of one’s journey to flourishing, finding a sense of meaning and purpose among life’s busy tasks is a key strategy. In line with Henderson’s perspective, reframing the way you think about your busy schedule can improve the level of satisfaction and meaning associated with completing work. Some ways to do this include deepening workplace relationships and reminding yourself about what your job does to help others.

By changing the way you think about your tasks, you can alter the way they make you feel and in turn, help elevate your mental health – without trying to find a spare hour in your busy schedule to practice mindfulness, meditation or exercise.

Know that you’re not alone

Many individuals who are struggling with mental health, are known to suppress these emotions and attempt to carry on with their lives as normal – despite their potentially reduced capacity to operate effectively. Professionals note that this can often lead to other ways of coping that are unhealthier – like alcohol or drug abuse, emotional eating or shopping.

As mentioned above, 1 in 5 Australians are said to experience a mental health disorder in any given year. This statistic demonstrates that even though you may feel like it – you are not the only one suffering from poor mental health and talking openly about it is not something to be ashamed of.

One way to reinforce this in your lives is to speak openly about your struggles to loved ones – so that it is not something you feel as though you must hide. By letting your family and friends know that you are having a hard time, it relieves some of the pressure to be performing at your best and gives you time to seek help. As mental health issues become more de-stigmatised, many workplaces are also vouching for the normalisation and acceptance of “mental health days”, so as to relieve the shame attached to taking time for oneself and prioritising mental health.

If one good thing can be taken from our collective suffering in 2020 and 2021, it is the open discussions and focus on individual’s mental health – and a greater understanding of the amount of people who struggle with mental disorders. Whether our lives continue to be consumed by lockdowns and a pandemic or not, the need to protect our mental health will never be diminished, and by implementing some of these strategies and outlooks outlined here – regardless of if you think you need it – your mental health will thank you.

As always, if you feel as though you need to reach out for help, there are a number of services at your disposal:

Lifeline
24 hour telephone counselling service. Phone: 13 11 14 or Text: 0477 13 11 14 6pm – midnight AEST
www.lifeline.org.au/(link is external)

Kids Help Line
Confidential and anonymous, telephone and online counselling service specifically for young people aged between 5 and 25. Phone: 1800 55 18 00
www.kidshelp.com.au/(link is external)

Beyond Blue Support Service – Support. Advice. Action
Information and referral to relevant services for depression and anxiety related matters. Phone: 1300 22 46 36
www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/get-immediate-support(link is external)

Butterfly Foundation
Butterfly provides support for Australians who suffer from eating disorders and negative body image issues and their carers. Phone: 1800 33 4673
thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/(link is external)

 

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PARENTING

Feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed? Here’s all you need to know about parental burnout.

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Over 45% of parents feel the effects of parental burnout. The crippling exhaustion, overwhelming stress, and the feeling that everything is just a bit too hard, is a shared experience with nearly half of all parents. Here is what you need to know about this common phenomenon – and the steps to take to feel like yourself again.

Many parents have come to realise that having children is exhausting… And even more exhausting when a pandemic, working from home and recurring lockdowns are thrown into the mix. The overwhelming feelings of stress and exhaustion associated with trying to juggle both life itself and the lives of their children too, can sometimes feel like a bit too much to handle. If you, as a parent, felt this too, don’t worry – you are definitely not alone.

It’s important to realise that these feelings are completely valid and parental burnout is more than just general tiredness or irritability. If left unmanaged, the all-consuming sensations of burnout can have significant consequences on not only parents’ mental health, but the sense of equilibrium within the family itself.

The first diagnoses of parental burnout dates back to 1983, but more extensive research was carried out in 2017, by Belgium researchers Dr Isabelle Roskam and Dr Moïra Mikolajczak – who really delved into the prevalence of parental burnout, especially in the 21st century.

They found that since previous studies, society has placed more pressure on families to raise high-performing, healthy and stable children – as well as a shift in gender norms – especially during COVID – which has generated an increase in more working mothers, and less who stay-at-home full time. These subtle changes can make the act of parenting more difficult and stressful and thus, emerges the patterns of parental burnout.

Beyond the initial feelings of exhaustion, parental burnout can also manifest in:

If these symptoms are left untreated for too long, the damage to parents’ mental health, hormones and relationships with both partners and children, can be significant. Research has found that parents who experience parental burnout, are likely to be more coercive or neglectful towards their children – despite the initial burnout often resulting from putting too much time and energy into your children and neglecting your own needs.

Other common factors that can lead to the development of parental burnout are:

For parents experiencing this level of burnout – despite how difficult it may seem – there are several ways that this burnout can be alleviated. Here are some common and scientifically proven ways that parental burnout can be reduced:

  • Establish a routine: by creating a set schedule within the family that allows time for everyone’s respective activities and obligations – as well as carving out time to be together as a family – parents can set boundaries between work and home and lessen the expectation to be doing everything at once.
  • Communicate your feelings: whether it is with a partner or a friend, telling someone how you are feeling is the first step to treating parental burnout. As this condition is often provoked by bottling up stress and exhaustion, the first way to fix this is to let someone know you need support.
  • Go to a support group: support groups for parents are a great way to feel like you’re not alone. By talking to other parents who may be sharing the same struggles, feelings of isolation that may be contributing to the burnout can be alleviated.
  • Exercise: it’s a well-known fact that moving your body releases endorphins and, for many, provides an outlet where you can release pent up stress. This doesn’t have to mean killing your body in the gym six days a week. If you are starting to feel stressed or overwhelmed, even a ten-minute walk or stretch can help release the feel-good hormones to make you feel more relaxed.
  • Consult a therapist: regardless of if you think you don’t need it – everyone can benefit in some way from talking to someone professional about your everyday problems, or perhaps past trauma that has led to burnout. There is no shame in getting help, and if you feel you need to talk to someone, a psychologist may be able to provide the informed guidance that you need.

The chance of developing parental burnout doesn’t go away as your kids grow up. As parents, it is likely that you will always put their needs above your own at points in time. But it is the acknowledgement that you are struggling, communication that you need help, and the seeking out of support that will help you on your journey to feel like yourself again.

 

 

 

 

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WELLSPRING

The Subconscious – Its power and purpose

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Iceberg
From the moment we are born, every experience and emotion we have ever felt is stored in the part of our mind called the subconscious. Intangible, immeasurable, and for the most part inaccessible, this portion of the human mind is complex and extremely important to our individual personal identities.

 

Our mind is like an iceberg. Floating in the ocean, we can only see what is above the surface of the water – and while this may be colossal in size, it only makes up a tiny ten percent of the total size of the iceberg. What is hidden underneath is nine times larger. Our conscious mind represents this ten percent of the iceberg in view, above the water, and our subconscious represents all that is below. The conscious mind is only a tiny portion of what is going on underneath.

The conscious mind is responsible for collecting information in our day-to-day life through our senses, which it relays back to the subconscious. The subconscious encompasses those activities we take for granted such as breathing, blinking and monitoring our temperatures, but it also stores every past experience, emotion, and thought we have ever had. Like the iceberg under the water, we can’t see or readily access the true depth and size of our incredibly powerful subconscious mind but it plays an extremely important role in all of our lives.

The capacity of the subconscious mind is incredible, with few limitations on how much it can store. According to motivational speaker, renowned self-development expert and author of Focal Point Brian Tracy, “By the time you reach 21, you’ve already stored more than one hundred times the content of the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.”

smell taste touch neon sign

The subconscious mind is constantly active and responsible for an incredible amount of our human functions, actions, choices and personality. In psychological terms, the subconscious is a secondary mind system that stores everything we receive through our senses in a kind of data processing memory bank. It monitors information coming in from our conscious mind such as sight, taste, hearing and touch.

The two aspects of the mind – conscious and subconscious – communicate all the time. The elements that are processed by our conscious mind only stay in the subconscious if they are intensely emotional experiences. This is partly what makes the subconscious so powerful and important in its long-term effects on us as individuals.

What does the subconscious mind actually do?

The subconscious element of our minds covers more than just suppressed desires and forgotten traumatic memories that we are often told about at school. It is responsible for all of those day-to-day movements and activities that we take for granted or don’t even consciously recognise doing. For example, breathing, blinking and regulating our body temperatures are all acts we do subconsciously.

According to psychologist Havan Parvez, of PsychMechanics, the subconscious is always active, even when we sleep. It communicates with us through images and symbols in our dreams, relaying information we have encountered during the day or even from many years ago – the subconscious storage bank goes back as long as we have been processing information through our senses.

 

 

Another key function of the subconscious relates to our behaviour. It regulates our reactions, actions, decisions, and physical choices to fit with those it has previously established as ‘ours’. It keeps our thoughts and beliefs consistent, establishing our comfort zones and deeming what activities would suit them.

Brian Tracy, self-development author and motivational public speaker, states that the subconscious mind is what, “Makes (our) behaviour fit a pattern consistent with (our) emotionalised thoughts, hopes, and desires.”

Man and woman in love sitting close

 

Psychology blog, Mindsets, also claims our natural intuition arises from the subconscious, which uses our previous experience, emotions and memory to help us assess situations. If you have ever felt a ‘gut feeling’ or inexplicable sense about something, this is your subconscious mind communicating with you and sending you signals based on your own previous knowledge.

According to Yvonne Oswald’s book, Every Word Has Power, the subconscious mind does the following:
  1. Operates the physical body.
  2. Has a direct connection with the Divine.
  3. Remembers everything.
  4. Stores emotions in the physical body.
  5. Maintains genealogical instincts.
  6. Creates and maintains least effort (repeating patterns).
  7. Uses metaphor, imagery and symbols.
  8. Takes direction from the conscious mind.
  9. Accepts information literally and personally.
  10. Does not process negative commands.

How can we harness its power?

It is important to know the ways in which we can harness the power of our subconscious minds. Think about emotional experiences you have had that have impacted your future life. Can personal issues with trust, relationships, certain habits, that you currently have be traced back to an incident or experience you had in the past? This is your subconscious mind acting based on the intense emotions you felt during that time.

Woman looking into the sunriseOne of the most significant reasons why we should endeavour to use the power of our subconscious for our mental health is to clear emotional blockages and for the purposes of personal healing. According to Joseph Drumheller, award-winning author and leader in meditation, healing and education, we must be in the proper state of mind before exploring our subconscious. He suggests practising some detachment when considering our emotional charges or particular feelings in isolation. Distance your rational mind from these emotions. Then it becomes easier, and safer, to push into these feelings a little deeper.

Drumheller says that letting yourself explore and feel your emotions as they arise or as you consider certain aspects of your life is important when working on your subconscious. Through your detachment from these emotions, start to think about them more critically. Take mental note of when a certain thought, image, noise, or memory triggers a particular emotion. From this point, we can start to ask ourselves why we feel this emotion, and if from our space of mental detachment, we can see that it may not be warranted, we can start to let the feeling go. As the emotion grows fainter and less raw, we are letting go of this emotional charge and clearing some weight from our subconscious.

This method is useful to try, but the results can differ from person to person. Drumheller suggests that if we are stuck with a particular emotional charge that is difficult to shift, or we begin to lose ourselves in the feelings of that emotion, then there is another method to try. Visualise a large scared object or symbol such as a flower or a cross hovering directly in front of you. Imagine that it holds immense power. Start to think about each of your emotions and visualise this object pulling the force of these emotions out of your heart and mind, drawing them into itself. In this way the power has been transferred to the object rather than your mind in releasing the emotional charge and is a good method for beginners or those struggling with release.

Further suggestions

There is an extensive array of literature, podcasts and other resources available for information and guidance regarding our subconscious. Several books written on the subject are available as audiobooks which can be a fantastic way to engage with the material.

Based on readership ratings, the following books are recommended:

  • The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy
  • Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
  • Beyond the Power of your Subconscious Mind by C. James Jenson
  • The Subconscious Mind: How to Use the Hidden Power of Your Mind to Reach Your Goals by Linda Siegmund

Exploring your subconscious is something that can be done privately but is also worthwhile when done with the assistance of a mental health professional such as a psychologist. Those trained in this field can guide you, provide suggestions, and offer support should you need it.

Therapies for your subconscious such as Private Subconscious-mind Healing (P.S.H) are also available for more guided or targeted exploration of the subconscious. This therapy is non-invasive, extremely gentle in its approach, and is designed to assist in resolving underlying subconscious problems that are affecting our day to day lives.

 

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