Men really don’t ask for directions, and most also don’t speak about the mental wellbeing challenges that they go through. Either we feel we don’t want to burden our partner, or we feel it’s weakness, or perhaps even just write it off to ‘tiredness’ or ‘normal stress’ that will pass… This is really unhealthy.
The pandemic has pushed a lot of us into new territory as we have had to come to terms with back-to-back online meetings, rapid-response emails, stuck hours on end in our ‘online prison’ as we’ve adapted to working from home and the time-saving tools provided by the lack of a commute. This was all good and well in March, when we first went into lockdown and we aimed to beat the virus in short order…
Then the reality set in: the virus is not going away any time soon, we are not going to be able to do the things we did in February; see the people we saw, see our relatives, travel and explore like we once did… Downward the mental health spiral.
It doesn’t need to be this way, as I was reminded the other day when speaking with a good friend of mine with a terminal illness, and reminded again last night during our ManCave session: we need to reframe our thinking about our current environment, about the situation we find ourselves in.
Here are some tools to do this:
Mindfulness, calming your noisy thoughts by learning to be present in the moment, to focus on the place and time you are at this very moment in time, is a very good way to learn to control negative thoughts.
Gratefulness: my terminally-ill friend told me about how grateful he is to have spent so much time with his kids and his wife, how lucky he feels for having had a career where he could have fun and travel the world – a very different perspective to being negative and bitter about his illness.
And finally, adapt your behaviour to these new circumstances and environment. Purposefully, mindfully, gratefully, let go of toxic things in your life – including toxic people. Work on those bad habits. Focus on what you can do to release the things that are holding you back or dragging you down. Read more. Walk more. Talk more…and if you need to talk, we’re here to listen.
Peter Wingrove is the CEO of Shawmind
