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DISCLAIMER - this newsletter comes with no actual pharmaceutical drugs.
I struggled with my mental health in 2022.
I've found it hard to put how I felt into words.
Have you ever been outside a nightclub and as the door shuts you hear the music fade?
I sorta felt like that. Like someone had turned the volume down on life.
I’ve always been lucky with my health *touches wood*. Having spent the last 5 years working in hospitals I can’t express how grateful I am for this.
Looking back, I’m even more grateful for having a difficult 2022.
This might sound weird. Let me explain.
I'm grateful because 2022 provided me with a new perspective on the world and my life. A perspective that I want to share with you to help you improve the way you feel. I gained insights that have helped me solve big problems and developed ideas that have started my journey to living life to the fullest.
I want to share these with you.
It’s virtually impossible to pinpoint when this all started. I became short-tempered and less hopeful about the future. I started waking up with a knot in my stomach.
Mental health is a weird and wonderful beast. There were periods where I felt like the normal 'me'. As much as these brought welcome relief, they were confusing. They stopped me from digging deeper into the root cause.
The year became a journey to find out what was going on and to devise a strategy to feel better.
I can break this down into two key stages.
Self-Discovery
The single most important step I took was to take time to understand myself better.
You can achieve this in a number of ways but I would always advise for you to seek professional help. Without doing so, I’m sure I wouldn’t be opening up like this today.
Before I continue.
Therapy is not:
- only for people having a 'breakdown'
- a sign of weakness
- about blaming everything that goes wrong on your childhood or parents
Therapy is:
- recognising that you can improve yourself
- learning to better understand you and your relationship with the world
- developing tools to help you live a happier and healthier life
Having the opportunity to speak to a trained professional is like being able to see your life from above. It opens up a fresh perspective on your thinking. You develop tools to identify unhelpful thinking patterns and reinforce your positive ones.
My experiences helped me to clarify:
Why I was feeling lost.
What changes I needed to make.
What to do if I started feeling down again.
I appreciate that I am privileged enough to be able afford to do this privately and I wish there was more available through the NHS. However, as investments go, a monthly therapy session (£50-80 roughly) should be high up on everyone's list.
Self-care over self-soothe
What comes to mind when you hear 'self-care'?
Dominoes and bubble bath? Watching your favourite movie? An hour unwinding on social media?
Don’t get me wrong, I can get down with all 3 on the right occasion.
But what if I said dominoes and bubble bath every night? Twice a day? Hourly?
You would probably tell me that this isn’t particularly healthy or sustainable.
It would be a nightmare for both your water bill and your health.
These are all forms of self-soothing.
In other words, activities that help us to cope with negative feelings of discomfort or boredom.
Self-soothing serves a purpose. It can be an excellent coping mechanism for difficult emotions when used correctly.
But it isn't the only tactic that we should use to cope with our negative emotions.
It can become problematic if we rely on self-soothing to paint over our problems.
Self-care is self-soothing's wiser and older sibling.
It may not be as fun but it definitely knows what's best.
Self-care requires you to ask yourself big questions. You must step back from your life and check in. You need to listen to your body and learn to prioritise the behaviours that genuinely serve you.
‘Is doing X actually adding to my life?
‘Is my relationship with Y making me happy?’
‘Am I engaging with activity Z because I want to - or is it something else?’
Activities that I once deemed as my 'down-time' had started to negatively impact my life. Realising this helped me to pull back and prioritise behaviours that keep me feeling full of life.
If self-soothing is pruning the leaves of a plant then self-care is the water that gives it life.
Practicing self-care is refusing to brush over our negative emotions and learning to deal with them in the best way possible.
Progress is Power
Human beings are only happy when they are reaching toward their full potential.
Phil Stutz
I was stuck in the mud. Most of us feel that drive to move forward, learn and grow. We desire progress and ideally in a direction that aligns with our values.
I needed to find a way to move forward.
'The Prescription' is my take on how you can best move forward with happiness, efficiency and purpose.
These 3 revelations are my fuel for forward motion:
1. Curiosity
I'd retreated into my shell and stopped exploring the world around me. Since leaving school my interests had declined steadily. I found myself in a repetitive cycle of work, exercise and socialising.
Let me tell you a quick story.
I used to think I was open-minded until my girlfriend made me go cold-water dipping for Valentines’ day.
I remember vividly thinking:
'Why on earth would I want to plunge myself into a reservoir that is 2°C on my day off from hospital?!'
I resisted. I even got a bit moody about it.
The gnaw of guilt then got the better of me. I stopped complaining and went.
I did my first breathwork session with @breatholution and spent a few minutes in the water.
It was freezing. To my amazement, it was one of the best (and most important experiences) of my life.
It was so different to anything I'd done before and I couldn't believe how good I felt afterwards.
I now regularly take cold showers and jump at the opportunity to submerge myself in cold water. (Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it).
It was so important, not because I now like cold water, but because it brought self-awareness to my lack of open-mindedness.
It created a mindset shift. I started to question my attitude towards different areas in my life. If I could be so opposed to something and then absolutely love it, what else was I missing out on?
Open-mindedness is something we need to prioritise. It is the key that allows you to experience life fully.
Embrace it.
(Please be careful getting in to cold water - go with a friend and avoid if you have any heart issues).
You can embrace your curiosity in 3 ways:
Explore
Go to new places, do new things.
Even if this is as simple as taking a new route to work or going to a different restaurant.
Your brain loves novelty and it will reward you with dopamine if you provide it.
Consume
Schedule time into your day or week to absorb new information.
Find a medium that suits you.
I choose audiobooks or podcasts for my commutes or during exercise and read a book before bed.
Practice
Curiosity is a muscle that you must train.
Pick up a new skill or practice an old one.
I recently started DJing (DJ name suggestions welcome) and writing blogs (obviously).
Find something that will challenge and entertain you.
2. Systems
Forward motion is hard to achieve when the rest of the world is trying to distract you.
Modern society is a maze that we must navigate effectively to achieve our goals. It only takes one wrong turn to fall into a frenzy of social media scrolling or down a rabbit hole of internet shopping.
"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."
James Clear
We can break our dreams down into actionable goals. In order to achieve them, we must take certain actions on a consistent basis.
Systems are the guidelines that help you to take these actions.
Without using systems I found that I was less productive. I would often start a project but get distracted before I finished. It was more difficult to start and maintain healthy habits.
I haven't started using a checklist for brushing my teeth.
I have, however, started using a number of tools and techniques to streamline my life. Having too much on your plate without a way to structure it leads to overwhelm and burnout.
Motivation is unreliable and relies heavily on our emotions.
Systems provide structure and accountability which reduces the need for motivation.
They allow you to achieve far more with far less brainpower. They help you move towards your goals and buffer the effect of life's inevitable distractions.
(I will break down the systems I use in later newsletters).
3. Mindset
In my 2nd therapy session I realised something big. In essence, my day-to-day actions were not creating the life that I wanted to live.
'Brilliant! I know what's wrong so now I can go and sort it out' I thought.
But it wasn't that simple. I couldn't see a way of changing my daily actions. I felt stuck. I had become rigid in my thinking. My mindset was fixed.
Then one day it clicked.
Before I tell you, I want to tell you this:
YOU are more powerful than you think.
The world is full of endless possibilities.
But only YOU can help you get there.
What I learnt is to see life as a series of problems that we each have the ability to solve.
I made the mismatch I had identified between my day-to-day actions and dream life into a 'problem'.
I then went about trying to solve it. I did something, learnt what worked and what didn't, improved it and tried again.
In doing so I've grown exponentially as a person. My days now look so different to how they did a year ago and I look forward to solving the different challenges I have set myself.
Without this mindset shift, I wouldn't have been able to learn the power of progress.
There is nothing quite like that feeling of chipping away at your goals.
Forward motion. One step at a time.
To Round Off
For anyone looking to improve their life or the way that they feel:
Self-discovery is a wonderful place to start.
Be careful not to mistake self-soothing for self-care.
Progress is power and forward motion is achieved through:
practicing curiosity to open yourself up to the world
adopting a mindset to embrace the uncertainty and overcome 'problems'
harnessing the power of systems to achieve your goals
My journey is only just beginning and I'm always trying to learn. It’s now time for me to start sharing this with you.
I've found writing 'The Prescription' therapeutic in itself. I hope that my insights around health, side-hustling and self-improvement will benefit you too.
- Mark Cox
I'm always keen for a chinwag. Drop me a message or follow me on: https://www.instagram.com/thestraighttalkingdr/
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