Active Rest

It sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? And what exactly is active rest? Essentially it’s doing something you enjoy, like a hobby, and making time for it or scheduling it in. Its something that you might get into that flow state when you do, where you’re concentrating and then suddenly an hour has passed and you can’t believe it, it feels like minutes.

You’re usually doing something that absorbs you, maybe something crafty or dancing or doing yoga, even going for a gentle stroll for example. Active rest helps you to switch off from whatever you’ve been focusing on, whether work or your worries, and helps your brain process the information you’ve been storing up, which is why when you stop trying to solve a problem and go and do something else, you have either a lightbulb moment about how to solve it, or a realisation that it doesn’t really matter anyway.

Active rest isn’t crashing in front of the tv at the end of the night and watching Netflix. That’s passive rest and while I’m sure we can all agree that we need time spent doing that, it’s important to note the distinction.

Active rest is restorative, and you feel better for doing it. When we’re busy and feeling under pressure, we can see these activities as non-essential and deprioritise them, and that’s one of the worst things you can do.

Making time for your hobbies and interests helps you maintain your equilibrium so try and make these plans something you stick to. There’s always more work to do, so having a hard stop because you’ve got a yoga class to get to forces you to make time for it and the benefit you get from it will mean it will be well worth your while.

Bouncebackability

When I run resilience workshops, I start by giving everyone an elastic band (also known as a rubber band, not something you see much of these days when we’re both climate conscious and paperless but don’t worry, I reuse and recycle!).

Elastic bands come in all shapes and sizes, thin to thick, short to long and everything in between. When you stretch an elastic band, you stress it, and then it bounces back into shape when you release it. Maybe when you’ve put it round a bunch of papers for example, you might stretch it to get it over them and once it is on and in place, it relaxes.

A new fresh elastic band might not have a lot of stretch in it but as it gets more used, it becomes stretchier and more flexible.

You’ll recognise an older elastic band that’s been used and stretched over and over as it starts to look a bit frayed. It loses some of its elasticity and you have to use it carefully as it looks like it might break.

An elastic band that breaks is no use to anyone. It can’t do the things it was meant for, and it won’t ever go back to being a normal elastic band again. You could tie a knot in it, but it might  not do what you need it to and it could break somewhere else.

I think of resilience as just like that elastic band. When you’re resilient and new and fresh at things you’ve got elasticity and you can bounce back from the stresses of life. But the more stress you come up against, the more it erodes your bouncebackability. Too much of it and you need to be careful or you might break just like the old elastic band. And just like the band, if you do snap, you won’t be the same again. It will change you.

That’s why resilience is really important. Because in life we will face challenges, some more than others but ultimately everyone comes up against something at some point, even the most blessed of us. It’s how you deal with it, your mindset about it, and the foundations you have in place that will help you both tackle the challenges that come up and thrive when they do. Like a tea bag, we get stronger when we’re in hot water. We rise to the challenges that come our way and we realise we are more capable than we ever thought we could be. Without those, we would never know. We wouldn’t see what we can and will do for ourselves, for others, for our principles and beliefs.

But we need to be prepared for those challenges so that they don’t overwhelm us. Knowing the foundations of resilience, knowing the things that specifically make you more resilient and actively taking steps to keep your resilience levels high means that when you go through challenging times, you might get stretched and stressed, but you’ll also do the right things and bounce back better.

Falling down can’t be helped. Getting back up again is a choice and one that we can prepare to make.

Perspective

When you’re doing something day in and day out, living and breathing it, you can easily lose all sense of perspective. When something becomes all encompassing, whether it’s your work, an illness, a family issue, if you’re on the ground and in the thick of something challenging and emotive, your world starts to shrink and the focus of your attention becomes ever more important. That’s often by necessity, because whatever is going on is demanding of your attention, and that’s usually manageable if it’s a short sharp shock, like a crisis situation where you can drop everything else and deal with it without any major consequences.

The difficulty arises when it’s not a crisis situation, when it becomes an ongoing challenge with no real end in sight, and when all of the other responsibilities start to fall behind and stack up and become more problems that need solving.

When that happens, when you’re in the weeds of one thing and you’ve got several other challenges lining up behind it, it’s very easy to lose perspective. So what do I mean by perspective? Really I think it’s the ability to stop and look at everything going on in your life from a step back and in the context of being one of billions of human beings in the big wide world. We’re the centre of our own universe but that doesn’t mean we don’t and shouldn’t compare our lived experience with those around us or that we’re aware of.

Whenever we had a bad day at work, an old (as in no longer working together rather than aged!) colleague of mine used to remind us that what we did wasn’t life or death and put it into perspective by saying “nobody died” to reiterate that a bad day for us didn’t really have the same impact as a bad day for a doctor or a surgeon or nurse, or anyone else with truly important life changing jobs.

Perspective is something you get when you can walk away from the situation for an extended period. Remember that feeling when you come back from holiday, and you go back to work, you don’t know what you’ve missed but you also don’t really care because it’s out of your control. You’ve had some time away and maybe spent time with your family and friends, doing things you love, you’ve caught up on your sleep and had some time to think, and work becomes less important because you’re not living and breathing it.

Perspective helps you maintain an emotional equilibrium. It’s difficult to become angry or frustrated if you’re maintaining your perspective and when you can control your emotions you’re far more effective, so it helps you deal with the challenge more productively.

Resilient people know when they’re in the weeds and need to find their perspective, but they also take care to make sure they build in regular holidays and down time to make sure they stay at their best in the longer term. They set and hold boundaries to make sure the challenges they face stay contained and don’t spill over into other areas of life where possible. They know that, in the scheme of things, the challenges they face will soon pass, they think about how they’re going to get through them in the best way, and then they tackle them deliberately and confidently.

Resting

A change is as good as a rest, or so they say. In some ways I agree, a change can be a great way to reset, to shake things up, and stop you getting stale. Keep you motivated. But I don’t agree it’s as good as a rest.

Resting gets some bad press, if you’re not being productive and working towards your goals in every spare minute then you’re not trying hard enough.

The morning routine narrative that you should be getting up early and smashing the day has been popularised in recent years. If you want to do great things it’s apparently essential to get up before sunrise, light a candle, meditate, journal, exercise, cleanse your chakras and sip on a green tea.

I know what I’d rather be doing at 5am and (spoiler alert) it’s getting another hour or so’s shut eye so I’m fresh for the day ahead! A great nights sleep that leaves you well rested is one of the best ways to start your day. There’s nothing wrong with a morning routine if it works for you, but my school of thought is to spend the first part of your day easing yourself into it and using this relatively quieter part of the day to do something that needs focus or brain power, whilst your reserves are high.

I like to think about rest in two ways. The first is built into your day to day life, it’s what you do to make sure you recharge during the day and across the week. It means having a super busy day one day and balancing that with a less busy day the following day. Stopping for a cuppa and putting your feet up when you can. Instead of thinking about what else you can do, taking some time just to be. It’s during these moments that you can get a bit more clarity on your thoughts. A bit of reflection time helps you focus on what’s important and the best next action, and you don’t get that from ploughing on through something. Let’s face it, the work is never done, and if you do get to inbox zero it’s guaranteed not to stay that way for long!

The other type of rest is an extended rest. It’s time away from work or responsibilities, in a chunk so that you get a clear break. It’s time away without having to think about those things too, so that it stays restful. Checking in with work and keeping an eye on emails or taking calls means you won’t be able to switch off completely. Delegate and use that wonderful out of office function to manage expectations and then forget about it. Taking time to relax, read, lounge around, spend time with friends and family, it all does us the world of good.

Don’t fall into the trap of filling your time off with all the jobs that need doing, or going on holiday and giving yourself an itinerary to see and do everything either. Holidays are opportunities for extended rest, so make the most of that and don’t feel you need to fill every minute with sightseeing. Make time to actively relax and put your feet up, and recharge your batteries so that when it’s time to go again, you’re ready to get back into the swing of things.

Check in with yourself now. Are you giving yourself enough time to rest? Have you planned in breaks and some fun things to help you relax? If not, take a bit of time to do that this week. Burnout is very unpleasant and much easier to prevent than to come back from, so make resting (and you) a priority.

Prioritising

I read somewhere recently that having it all means doing it all and as far as I’m concerned, I have no intention of being that person. I’m not sure how you can think you have it all if you’re doing it all anyway?

I was out with friends from work pre-covid and we were discussing having a cleaner, and I mentioned mine also did my ironing, and that I have someone to cut the grass and paint the fence too. It’s called staff apparently! But from my perspective, having people to do the repetitive tasks that I struggle with (my ADHD brain is not motivated to mop floors or trim lawns weekly) makes complete sense. My time is valuable and I want to live in a nice clean house with a tidy garden and I don’t need to be the one that keeps it like that because that’s not my strength.

I do think that playing to your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses is important. If we keep trying to do the things we’re not good at, it doesn’t help us feel brilliant, right?

But more importantly, we need to prioritise. We all get pulled in different directions, and have so many demands on our time. Demands that we want to help with, looking after family and friends, being there for the people we love, and doing things for ourselves too. When we have too many things on our plate though, it tests us. It makes us feel more fragile and vulnerable. When you’re spinning all the plates and running around trying to keep them going, the thought of dropping one of them is horrifying so we chase our tail and try to keep going. It can work in the short term, but eventually something will give. And it’s so much better if you decide which plate is going to be sacrificed and put it down yourself rather than letting it crash and break, that does far more damage.

A couple of unexpected plates needed spinning this weekend and I’ve already realised I’m under pressure. I was planning a few jobs that are going to have to wait. The wood floor will live without a reapplication of oil for a few more weeks. A few quick dinners will replace the more complicated things I was going to cook, and I’ve delegated the hell out of anything I can. I’m making sure I make time to exercise though, I need that even more at the moment. And good quality sleep. I’m prioritising the things that I know will help me, and that might be slightly different for you but the principle is the same. Make time for what you need, especially in times like this.

I don’t want to do it all, and having it all means for me that I don’t do it all. It means I do the stuff I’m great at, share and delegate the things that aren’t my strength, and focus on being the best I can be so that when challenging times come calling, I’m prepared to be the person I need to show up as.

Pick your priorities carefully, and don’t be afraid to deprioritise when you’re under pressure. Take the easier options. Be kind to yourself. You won’t be much use to anyone if you burn out, least of all yourself.

Friends

Feeling (and being) connected is fundamentally important to humans. We’ve survived for years as groups or tribes, as a collective which is greater than the sum of its parts. And yet in modern times, the importance of this has been completely underestimated. Only a few decades ago, people for the most part stayed in their communities, lived close to family and friends, and by default had a deep connected social and support network. More recently, it’s become common to leave those communities in search of jobs and careers and set up life somewhere far away from that support, and it’s often not until there’s a crisis that the isolation is truly felt, at which point there’s not many options providing immediate help.

When I was running a workshop recently, we talked about Loneliness. Eating alone is one of the biggest indicators of loneliness and according to a survey by Sainsbury’s Living Well Index (in partnership with Oxford Economics and the National Research Centre) eating meals alone is more strongly associated with unhappiness than any single factor other than having a mental illness. We can’t always make sure we eat with others, I know that in my house it’s almost impossible to get everyone together at the same time due to work, school, college and sports commitments, but I make a concerted effort to coordinate schedules so we manage to all eat together at least once a week. Think about how often you eat with others, and work out what you can do to increase it as even small changes will make a difference.

When we talk about friends, we often use it as a broad brush term that covers people we’ve known all of our life to acquaintances we’ve met once or twice, so I think it’s important to break them down into subsets when we think in terms of resilience. The most important friends to have are the friends who you could call anytime, night or day, and know you can rely on them to help you out. These are your SOS friends. You might not see them regularly, because life gets in the way, but you know if the sh*t hits the fan that they’ll be there and have your back. According to the Telegraph less than 3% of your Facebook friends would fall into the category of friends you could turn to. This number is falling in the western world, with some people recently not being able to name even one person they could turn to in a crisis. Everyone needs as a minimum one person, but ideally more than that. We’re social beings and so this is your reminder to prioritise friendships and building deeper relationships. Make plans. Make suggestions. Learn something together. Make a concerted effort to put yourself out there, even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it, because that’s when you need your SOS friends the most.

Let’s talk social media friends now. I put these in the category of casual acquaintances, but social media can be tricky. You might know the intricacies of these friends lives, or certainly feel like you do! We need to remember though that what we see is what they want us to see. The show reel of their life rather than the nitty gritty reality. I’m sat writing this in my bedroom, which is currently a mess with piles of clothes on the floor and shopping bags that need sorting and a case half packed and clutter everywhere. Would I share this picture of me working on my socials? No thank you. Are there pictures of me on my social media working in a lovely space, wearing a nice outfit and make up? Absolutely! Social media can be a useful way to stay connected but it doesn’t replace real life friends and time together in person. Having a big number of social media friends won’t make you more resilient.

The next subset of friends I want to mention are Good Friends. These are people that you enjoy being with, make you feel good about yourself, and you’ve got a shared history. Yes you might not feel you could call them at 4am in a crisis, but you’d tell them about your problems and want to help them with theirs too. You might not see them all the time but you know that when you catch up it will be like you’ve never been apart. These friendships are good for the soul, keep nurturing them and don’t let it go too long between actual conversations or face to face time. Maintaining these friendships is good for your resilience, but you need to actively keep them going. When we go through challenging times, friendships like these are one of things we stop making time for and that chips away at our resilience instead of topping it up. If you find yourself doing that, make time to connect, even if it’s a short phone call, it will help.

The next group I’m going to talk about are in the category I would call mates. Usually in your wider network, these are nice connections to have. A word of warning though, they’re usually quite shallow connections and spending too much time with this group can make you feel like you’re missing the deeper connections of good friends. Mates are for fun times, inspiration, and exposure to new ideas. If you’re going through challenging times, a little time spent with mates can be a useful distraction but if time is precious spend it with your SOS and Good Friends instead.

Work friends are another subset, and an interesting one. Often work friends are friends you wouldn’t have picked but because of time spent together you’ve got closer. Two questions to ask yourself about work friends are do I spend time outside of work with them, and would I still be friends with them if I moved jobs and worked elsewhere? I’ve found some unexpected friends from work who I’ve stayed in touch with over the years despite job moves and such like. Similarly I’ve had friendships that have moved on with changes. Both are helpful for your resilience and good allies to have but those that you’ll stay in touch with are where to invest your time and effort.

The last subset is right time right place friends,  for the here and now. Often these people come into your life when you need them and fulfil a specific purpose. Maybe you’ve both just come out of a long term relationship and you provide emotional support and company for each other. Maybe you’re going through a hard time at work and someone who has been there and got the tshirt recognises it and wants to help you through it.

I’m not even going to touch on toxic friends because I’m pretty sure you know that anyone you’d describe as toxic isn’t a friend, and definitely won’t make you feel more resilient. Focus on the people that make you feel good, and you can’t go far wrong.

Dealing with self-doubt

I learnt an energy clearing exercise a couple of weeks ago as part of a month-long course I was doing. We had to set our intention for the week ahead (which is something I usually do anyway) but we also had to list five things that we were not available for.

It was coming off the back of a challenging couple of weeks and so I was ready with my list of things I wasn’t available for! At the top of the list I put drama, as it’s easy to get sucked into but honestly, I’m not here for it, I have neither the time or the energy and I find it does make me feel negative and pessimistic. So that was an easy one to put to the top.

I added negativity for the same reason, we can all find problems and moan about them, but it’s rarely helpful (maybe occasionally for shared experience and bonding) but positivity is important to me and I value it highly.

The one I want to talk about today though is the third one on my list which is self doubt. I’m not available for any of that at the moment either. But it does and has cropped up, and when we go through challenging or difficult times, times of change or adjustment, we can often find ourselves doubting our abilities. And trying to do anything from that place is such a challenge, because when we doubt ourselves we don’t come across as confident and in control and capable. It can make other people doubt our abilities too, which can cause a downward spiral.

A few years ago I worked with a hypnotherapist to help me with stress management and weight loss. He was very good and had a range of techniques but one of them stood out and has stayed with me since and it’s about our inner critic. He explained how we’ve developed that critical voice in our head, how it’s trying to keep us safe and not take any risks by telling us the worst things we might hear from other people. I imagined it a bit like the devil on one shoulder, knowing all my past experiences and issues and ready to point out what I’d done wrong and how useless I was, and how I shouldn’t even try.

I’m mid forties now and I’ve made so many mistakes I stopped counting a long time ago. But our subconscious keeps a record and makes sure that negative inner voice pops up and those embarrassing moments that flash into our minds from years ago keep coming to the surface.

For people that have been criticised a lot over the years because they didn’t fit in, didn’t do things in the way most other people did, or didn’t live up to the high standards of a critical parent, the voice of the inner critic can be overpowering. If you had encouraging and supportive parents, it might be a little quieter. If you are a parent, you might want to reflect on which of the above you are…I realised I had a tendency towards critical and have tried very hard to turn that around.

According to ADDitude Magazine, leading ADHD experts estimate that by age 10, children with ADHD receive 20,000 more negative messages – from parents, peers, or otherwise – than they do positive messages. Adults and children with ADHD often report lower self-esteem than neurotypical peers – particularly if the ADHD was undiagnosed or left untreated.

Given the number of women who are now being diagnosed with ADHD later in life the impact of this could be significant. That’s a lot of negative messages.

So, if we have that loud inner critic, the self doubt and the lower self esteem, how do we deal with all of these things so they don’t get in our way, don’t stop us achieving our potential, and don’t hold us back?

The first thing is just knowing it. Listening for your inner critic. Knowing you’re feeling that self doubt and you’re lacking in confidence and self esteem. Recognising it is a great start.

The second thing is you have to be careful how you talk to yourself because you are listening. Don’t even joke that you’re stupid or lazy or a rubbish driver, or anything else you don’t want to be, because your brain registers you saying those things, and it’s paying attention!

Replace the things you say about yourself with positive, affirming statements instead. You’re not stupid, you’re learning and you’ll make mistakes along the way because that’s how you learn. You’re not lazy, you’re tired because you haven’t taken time to rest and you’re doing that now. If you want to really catch your own attention, say these aloud to yourself along with your name. “Lisa you are tired and you’re now taking some time to rest”. “Lisa you’re learning and mistakes are normal”. When it hears your name the brain interprets it as information coming from someone else, which is powerful as it contrasts with your internal thoughts and challenges them.

The third suggestion I would make to reduce both self doubt and self esteem is to keep a record of your achievements. A bit like the folders we used to have at school if you are of a certain age, it was an A4 padded book with space to keep certificates, reports, glowing feedback or similar. Mine was a gloomy burgundy colour and I still have it, 30 years on, although it doesn’t see the light of day often.

I know that when it comes to things I’ve done that deserve celebrating, I’ve probably forgotten about them and moved onto the next thing within a few days, and I don’t think I’m the only person like that. We don’t stop and bask in the glory, we do the very British thing of saying it’s no big deal and then we pick up the next challenge on the list.

But we need to remind ourselves of all the great things we’ve done. When we made the brave but scary choice to have laser eye surgery. When we took the leap and resigned from a good job in the hope of finding something better. When we finished a long hard and painful marathon. All of those are mine, but sometimes I forget I’m the person that did all of those things, and I need reminders. My marathon time sign is one of them, it lives on my desk to remind me it can be a slog but I will keep going because I’m bloody stubborn.

Put reminders of your successes where you’ll see them, exactly like that. Or write a list of your successes and keep adding to it, on paper or on your phone, or take a picture of it and set as your wallpaper so you have that regular reminder.

Next time your inner critic pipes up with something unhelpful, just thank them for doing their job and trying to keep you safe, tell them you’re okay and you’ve got this, find some evidence you’re more than capable and then go and do it. Because you’re not available for self doubt this week, or any week.

No.

Saying “no” is in response to a question from someone else. That’s a really important distinction to make here.

When someone else asks you to do something, it is their agenda, not yours.

What’s being asked might be to support a good cause, maybe for charity or for your child’s school, so it’s not completely someone else’s agenda, but similarly it’s also not yours.

We have a finite amount of energy, money, and time. If we say yes to everything else that someone else wants us to do, we are using those precious resources on someone else’s priorities. Not on our own.

I think we say yes to some things because we worry about getting FOMO. Nobody likes to feel like they’ve missed out!

We say yes to others out of duty sometimes, like we “should” help with the fundraising, we should show our face there, and other times out of fear of judgement, that if we don’t say yes it will look bad or we will seem difficult.

We often don’t realise how frequently we’re asked to make plans / pick something up / do someone a favour, so look out for it now and see if you notice it.

Taking the time to actively plan your own future, think about what you want, and how you’d like to spend your time, money and energy is really important. When you can see where you are going, and plan that out, there’s less time to accommodate everyone else’s priorities. If you don’t have a vision board and a set of goals and intentions that’s okay; you don’t need to formalise them, you just need to know where you want to go and who you want to be, so you can use that in your decision making.

The next time someone asks you to do something, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is this something I already wanted to do but haven’t yet scheduled?

2. Do I have the time, energy and money to do this without impacting my other priorities?

3. Do I really want to do this?

If the answers are all yes, then say yes!

If the answer to number one is no, say yes.

If the answer to number two or three is no, say no.

And when I say no, I mean just that. No. You don’t need to apologise, or explain, you can just say no.

If that makes you feel like you’ll come across as rude, soften it as you see fit. “No thanks, but appreciate you thinking of me” is one way to do that without explaining.

Do you have a tendency to say yes to the things that come your way, or are you good at saying no? Let me know in the comments.

Be prepared

Being prepared is one thing you can do set yourself up for success. It’s not always easy when you’ve got a lot on your plate but making sure you know the demands on you, in both your work and home lives really can help.

Often the overwhelmed feeling comes from not knowing what we don’t know, or not accurately sizing the things we do know about. We feel out of control because there is so much to do and we haven’t given ourself the time to work through what that actually is, and how long it will take.

Sometimes you have to make tough choices to not do one thing, in place of enabling you to be prepared for another. Preparation gives us confidence, clarity, and reduces stress levels so it’s really important when you need to be more resilient.

Preparation can come in the form of doing pre work for a meeting, or research for a piece of work, or it can simply be working through your approach to a problem or an issue that you’re facing so you have an If…then statement. If this happens, then I’ll take this action. The act of thinking through the various scenarios ahead of time and your proposed reaction to those is useful because it removes the uncertainty.

Where there is uncertainty there is often anxiety. The reactions you propose might be uncomfortable, you might not want things to turn out that way and you might not want to take those approaches, but deciding that those are the best courses for a particular scenario will help you connect with that approach and take away some of the challenge, and also give you comfort that you’ve done the thinking and it’s the right thing to do. So not always easy but the process itself helps.

Being prepared can also be really practical steps too. Doing the right things to support a good nights sleep before a big day is one of those, making sure you have a wind down routine to relax into bedtime, maybe an early night and a bath to help you sleep. Whatever works for you. Another practical step to take is making sure you have organised meals or snacks ahead of a busy day, so you’ve got options that will help you stay sharp rather than sluggish, food to hand when you need it, with minimal cooking time so you can fit it into that day. Leftovers is a good way to do this, cook extra for dinner and have it for lunch the next day.

Finally one last way to prepare is to get your stress levels under control, in a supportive way. Often when we’re stressed we’ll reach for the less healthy coping mechanisms (pass the wine!) as they seem easier than the alternatives like fitting in some gentle exercise. Coping mechanisms are fine and I’m not going to be critical of things that do help, but just recognise that the help these provide is limited and often has a down side, for example with the wine, the down side is usually worse quality sleep and feeling sluggish or lethargic the folllowing day. If you’ve got an important day coming up, the wine won’t be the best choice on that basis, but no judgement. Just to say maybe try the exercise option first or as well as and see if that makes a difference. Sometimes a nice walk with a chatty friend is more effective than a solo jog or chilled Pinot Grigio.

And a last note on being prepared is to remind yourself of how capable and competent you are. We so often brush off our success and move on to the next thing immediately rather than wallow in our amazingness (is that even a word? It should be!). If you forget all the great things you’ve done in life, write them down. Make a list of all the things you were really proud to achieve. Passed your driving test? Put it on the list. Helped someone in their hour of need? On the list. Did something daring like left a job you hated or went travelling? Put it on the list. And get the list out every so often when you need to remind yourself of all the great things you’ve done. There will be more than you think, but I f you struggle to write the list, get some help from your friends and loved ones, they will remember the big things you did even if you don’t.

Help!

Asking for help is one of the things that resilient people do. They recognise they can’t do everything on their own and they know there is power in sharing a burden.

The issue is, when we’re in challenging times and we’re stressed and just trying to get through the day, we can accidentally isolate ourselves. We put off making plans with friends and family because we’ve just got too much on.

We think that if we just put all our effort into this issue that we have, we’ll get through it. Whether it’s excess workload, competing deadlines, a medical issue, caring responsibilities, it’s too much for us alongside everything else, and so we give up on some of the things that would help. A sign that you’re struggling is when you tell yourself that you just need to get through this.

You stop doing the things you love, the things you’d enjoy, and everything becomes focused on this one major issue. Its really difficult to see that when you’re in it though.

But think about it this way. If you knew that one of your close friends or family members was going through a tough time, would you want to help them? And If you suspected they were struggling but they didn’t tell you? How would you feel?

When we’re going through a stressful situation, we become more self centred. It’s a survival mechanism and we focus on what we need to do to keep our head above the water. When we’re thinking straight we’re more likely to ask for help. But when we’re in a negative spiral we can let feelings of shame and embarrassment stop us. We don’t want even our closest friends to know we haven’t got it all together. But really, if it was one of your close friends, would you care that they didn’t have it all together or would you want to do whatever you can to help them? I know I would want to help and I think that’s true of most people.

I’ve seen for myself that despite how busy people are, they will make time to do things for others because they want to help them feel better, and because we also feel good knowing we’ve made a difference to someone.

There is so much strength is asking for help, and seeking it out can make a huge  difference in how quickly you bounce back from adversity. There are always helpers. They might come from the most unexpected places but if you look, you’ll find them.