Seeking self, dropping anchor

Are you aware of what your ‘stress comfort zone’ is? We all have a level of stress that is adaptive or helpful and becoming aware of what level that is for you is critical to preventing distressing levels of anxiety and/or depression. Distress can be experienced when someone has nothing worthwhile to do (not enough stress) or when they are overtaxed by constant activity (too much stress). Can you relate to these? This diagram shows that as stress increases so does performance and well being UNTIL you reach your stress comfort zone. As soon as we move into over or under stimulation our performance & well being then begins to decrease. This doesn’t mean we just avoid circumstances which push us out of our stress comfort zone, sometimes this cannot be helped! Rather it allows us to be more proactive in managing such times, ensuring that we seek BALANCE… aiming to steer away from staying in over or under stimulation for extended periods of time & being able to bring ourselves back ...

  These two styles of behaviour refer to how mental illness can present itself. - Externalising: behaviour directed towards your environment (e.g. others) - Internalising: behaviour directed towards one’s self. Most people are aware of externalised behaviours as they are more visible: aggression, damaging property etc. whereas internalising is an attack on ourself. Internalising is harder to spot & can easily go unnoticed by family & friends. Internalising behaviours can look like: Feeling sadness, lonely, afraid, unwanted, or unloved Being withdrawn and not wanting to socialize Becoming irritable or nervous, especially when stressed or emotional Not wanting to talk or communicate with anyone Having difficulty concentrating or focusing on important tasks Sleeping a lot more or less than usual Eating a lot more or less than usual Negative self-talk Substance abuse Suicidal thoughts, attempts, or ideation Question for you:  Are you aware of when you are internalising ...

I’ve been on holidays this week with my family before we go from 3 to 4. It’s been a brilliant opportunity for me to zoom out & do some self-observation. We have a 2 year old who is giving us a great stage for practising the commonly experienced parenting dance of ‘what the heck am I doing?’ & ‘how on earth do I manage this?’ - which produces a great deal of anxious reactivity (from everyone involved!) Something I’ve been reflecting on is how for me this lack of confidence in relation to responding to toddler meltdowns, stems from the challenge of having been given TOO MUCH information. I’ve been working in children & family mental health now for 8+ years, so you’d think surely I have it all together right? Wrong. What all this input has done has actually muddied the waters & prevented me from developing my very own thinking. Anxiety causes us to often borrow thinking from others… which feels easier than doing our own. We reach for all the parenting books, Instagram...

The third factor impacting our capacity to regulate is our environment. I find this one really interesting because we can’t always change our environment & we can’t control what happens throughout the day! And nor should we… unfamiliar environments (e.g. a new school, new job etc) & unpredictability (e.g. changes to routine, cancellations etc) can reduce our capacity to regulate (stay calm) but this is not to say they should be avoided! It’s healthy to place ourselves in new spaces with new people & learn how to tolerate the discomfort. It’s also important for us to be equipped to cope with unpredictable changes without falling apart. I think there are two helpful ways to look at this one:  If there are new & unfamiliar places/people occurring throughout our week (inevitable!) then how can we increase familiarity & predictability in other areas of our (or our child’s) day/week to provide some space for grounding ourselves and/or recovering/resting. Becoming more...

The second factor I mentioned impacting our capacity to regulate are emotions. Each person has their own unique relationship with emotions & it can be really helpful to give yourself the space to become more aware of yours. Self-awareness is calming! Most of us develop a baseline understanding of emotions during childhood, often by observing significant adults around us & their reactions to our different expressions of emotions. For example, a lot of clients tell me that for them growing up any expression of anger was responded to with automatic punishment leaving them to this day confused about how best to express anger in relationships & also leaving them highly anxious when faced with another’s anger (eg. Their partner or child). A helpful way to identify which emotions raise anxiety for you is to observe yourself in relational interactions & see what triggers those anxious body responses.  Question for you: Are there any emotions you avoid experiencing? Are you ...