Tag Archives: Mental Health

Book Pilgrimage

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Honouring an internal ‘fluttering’ that began last year, I booked myself into 3 days at New Norcia Monastery’s guest house.

Before travelling by coach, I intuitively selected two books from my collection as the source material to ignite and explore an inner response whilst away. They were very different, but interestingly both pointed to the power of ‘Woman’ to nurture and guide in a point in time hijacked by power, authority, and control. Jean Shinoda Bolen likened our times to the myth of ‘The Fisher King’ and the desolation experienced when cut off from Self/Soul/Goddess. At Midlife, the invitation to reconnect makes its presence known. Turning inward ignites a small light in an individual and collective ‘dark night’.

Whilst staying true to the purpose of my time in New Norcia took deliberate decision making in regards to external distractions, I did allow myself one call at the end of the first day with someone I regard as ‘in my tribe’. We both respect the wisdom that resides within and are aware of the pitfalls of a ‘busy head’. We shared understanding that had surfaced in the week prior, got curious and allowed whatever moved through us to be voiced. The conversation was deeply nourishing and ignited the possibility of taking regular ‘book pilgrimages’ with other women, with time dedicated for us to read, write, and at the end of the day share personal ‘internal greening’.

The challenge is to stay true to the intention. Honouring an inner world of feelings, intuition, truth and ‘body’ knowing has become ‘forbidden fruit’. Finding venues that provide a suitable container (grail) can also be challenging. Solitude, quiet, comfort and care, in Nature are all needed to minimise external demands on our minds. I have booked myself into a different venue at the beginning of April but am sure to return to New Norcia for another 3 day immersion again during the year – maybe with other women?

2026 feels different. I have let go of some work that no longer feels right. I am changing in my expectations of myself and of work that I will continue to do. My care priorities are changing, including care for myself, the latter introducing some very new and different ways of being, and working. Time invested in external development will be limited while time set aside for inner communion will increase. Rituals to mark transitions in the day and seasons may be explored. I also feel prompted to explore our Indigenous six seasons and how climate change may be impacting. The year ahead feels right.

Thick with Thought

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Some days, I come home from work with a head that is ‘thick with thoughts’. Mentally congested, I am unable to digest another piece of information.

It would be easy to reach for a glass of wine to dull the senses. But at my age time is precious. I’d prefer to consciously engage with it – and I appreciate the contribution a good night’s sleep makes to the quality of my day.

I have found that just sitting on my verandah perusing the activity of my bushland garden quietens my mind. I suspect meditation would do the same. But I have found my easiest pathway to peace is through writing. When my mind is ‘thick with thoughts’ I ‘free associate’ write. I put to paper all those ‘flea hopping’ thoughts that are rattling around. Work I want to progress, back pain, IT problems, conversation comments, news items, the weather, money, friends and family. All of it. Written on the page.

And as I hop about, something happens. My mind slows and it turns. It settles on one thing to write about and a thread appears. With that thread, my body calms and life feels manageable again.

Earlier in the week a family member spoke of the ‘third shift’ in their life. In other conversations, we reflected on the simplicity and happiness of people living traditional village life. Later, as I washed my dishes (part of my second shift), the memory of households in times gone by with clear demarcation of resource generation and resource saving responsibilities came to mind. My mind tires with the continual need to move between the responsibilities of work, household upkeep, family, pets, garden, and health. Our minds are certainly processing much more than human beings living on the planet 50 years ago! No wonder we reach points where nothing more can be accommodated.

Our mental and physical health is dependant on a balance between cognitive activity (thinking to keep elements of our lives alive) and rest (letting it all go). Find your own way to build in moments of repose. And if writing appeals to you, tame those mental ‘fleas’ by anchoring them on the page and return once more to a singular slow train of thought innate to the natural flow of life. As you walk in the front door after a long day, allow writing to transition you into a calmer space. The external world doesn’t have to reside in our home.

Focus Makes a Difference to Fulfilment

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Decades ago, I was in a relationship that reflected the cycles associated with intimate partner abuse. It was crazymaking. I read every book available and sought help from numerous professionals. Endless seeking of information got in the way of doing what was needed. Leaving. My confusion was in my head. In my being I knew that what was being said and done wasn’t loving. That simplicity was all I truly needed. The rest was unnecessary complexity.

I see those same internal psychological dynamics operating in client presentations. People say they want something, but instead of taking action to make that happen, they get lost in a sea of thought and information from youtube channels, Instagram, internet sites, other people’s comments, professionals and self help books. Instead of information informing personal experience so that we can take action more confidently, for many its endless elaboration leads nowhere and action is stymied. The simplicity is that if something doesn’t feel right, then something in it isn’t. Trust that.

I often use this graphic in my consultations to reflect the internal dynamics of what happens. If we get out of our heads, logic usually informs what needs to be done. Maybe that is leaving a relationship, changing a job, moving someone out, getting on with studies, letting go of someone. Instead of working with the logic of what we know however, many people flip into their heads, rummaging through the various information they have read, what others will think, why they can’t do something, etc. etc. No one ever succeeded in life via that route. They succeed by getting on with things, even if it is new, they haven’t done it before and they are a bit afraid. Courage outweighs unfamiliarity. Because that is how human beings navigate the ‘new’, the ‘unexpected’, the ‘needed’. They get on with it, maybe not perfectly, maybe not even successfully, but they focus on what needs doing and do it.

Just as how we read has changed with the introduction of screen based print and entertainment, so too has how we solve problems. In reading, our automatic (learned to perfection) habit used to be deep attention, neural processing moving from left to right. Now, our automatic (learned to perfection) habit is to quickly scan haphazardly moving our eyes to differing locations, extracting info bytes and departing 3 minutes later. For many, deep reading takes more effort than it used to. With an exponential growth in information, our automatic problem solving skills have also changed. Once, we would have listened to our internal logic about matters and acted. Now we automatically search for the next information source endlessly talking, gathering (info bytes), watching …. but not moving. Our internal logic and wisdom is drowned out by the noise occupying our minds. We are stuck.

Journalling can be very effective in reconnecting with internal logic and taking practical steps. The first question is what do you want? What would your life look like if you had it? What would you have to learn to make it happen? What would you have to give up? Be specific. Give yourself permission to be honest and don’t get distracted by thoughts that critique what surfaces. Trust the train of thought that surfaces. You are not committing. You are just exploring.

Next, list all that you would have to do to make what you want happen? Again don’t get caught up in censoring your capacities and abilities. How do you feel about what you have written? Is trusting yourself and doing what’s right for you a possibility? Write into the apprehension, you may find it doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

When faced with a challenge are you automatically deviating into your head and rattling around in there instead of taking one small step? Because that’s all living is about. Small steps. Taking them one step at a time. Just like a baby learning to walk – thank goodness they can’t read before the task of walking! One step. Learn. Modify. Next step.

What if we’ve got ourselves all wrong?

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What if we’ve got our understanding of ourselves all wrong? What if we’ve got our thinking about how we need to use thinking all wrong? What if the innate capacities that drove Neanderthal man forward in evolution (without a book or teacher) are just as present in modern day man? What if, just as those capacities enabled Neanderthal man to successfully navigate his context, they are just as available for successfully navigating our context, and the contexts of the future? What if the way we think we have to relentlessly think about everything in order to live well is actually getting in the way of the capacities inbuilt to human beings that are the real drivers of change, thriving and evolution?

Innocently, we may have taken a wrong turn and the pendulum has swung too far out. Like mushrooms spawning, books, information and websites on how to manage our emotions, psychological states, parenting, relationships, business, performance, etc. now envelope our lives, each of them telling us how to do this, how to do that. It is humanly impossible to do everything they say, and yet each proposes that its contents will make us more effective – the implication being we will fail if we don’t. No wonder anxiety is so prevalent. Is it really true that we innately lack the wherewithal to successfully navigate life without an ‘expert’ somewhere guiding us? Or have we innocently lost our way and lost sight of what makes us human – the capacity to successfully navigate all the complexities of life – if we slow down the busyness of our thinking.

What if we settled back into an assumption that we have got what it takes and let go of running to do lists, schedules, books to read, classes to attend …. being in control. What if we played with letting that internal state go and gave ourselves permission to experiment? What if we maintained a quiet inner state for a small part of each day, what would we discover about what Neanderthal man innately trusted because he had never been taught to doubt it?

Bending Reality Out of Shape

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When people come into counselling, I suspect they think that if we just talk about everything, that in some miraculous way, it ‘fixes up’ the content of whatever is going on. The problem is there is SOOOO MUCH going on.

People not liking what we have done, people wanting more from us, unhealthy workplaces, poor relationships, addictions, people dying, sickness, struggling children … the list is endless. All of these issues benefit from a bigger perspective conversation. But the amount of time this would take is unreasonable, and new ‘problems’ surface along the way.

As part of her current More Signal, Less Noise 5 Day training Barbara Patterson presented a simple understanding of how everyone perceives in the moment – including ourselves. We are either interpreting life (and ourselves) from clarity, or we are interpreting from an agitated internal state and our thinking distorts reality. It bends it out of shape.

See the actions of a family member in a clear state and we see their acts of kindness and care. See it from an agitated state, and we distort our attention and thinking, catastrophising one small detail. See our own agitated internal state from clarity and we experience compassion. See the same internal state from agitation and we distort our experience into shame. Sensing whether ourselves and/or others have a calm internal climate or an agitated one, makes all the difference in knowing whether we, or others, are seeing clearly, or whether thinking is distorting reality.

Knowing this simple understanding provides flexibility in response as against groundhog day of repeated neural firing. If I know I am perceiving from an agitated internal climate, I can choose to sit still, breathe, redirect my attention, listen, etc. If I can see that the other person is expressing from an internal agitated state, I can choose to calm them down, distract, or I can walk away.

Everything going on in a person’s life can’t be talked through and ‘settled’ into place. But everyone can discern whether they and/or others are seeing clearly, or are innocently distorting reality. Familiarising ourselves with this simple ‘tool of awareness’ then opens a portal to forming a conscious relationship with the Me behind all the distorted thinking. The Me that nudges, realises, insights and knows – even when an internal tsunami is underway.

Roads … and Where They Lead

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I’m at a turning point in my life and whilst I’d like to only make ‘moves’ that are comfortable and are assured of a positive outcome, sometimes we just have to jump into experience and see where it leads.

Yesterday, I returned from a weekend away camping – on my own. A new experience, not necessitated by retirement, but rather brought about by the rounding out of 18 years ‘late in life’ responsibility for single parenting. Intense active involvement is no longer required. What to do with all the free time I now have in a personal life bereft of satisfying social activity?

Start with the activities I do like and go from there. Being in nature, camping, journalling, ‘barnstorming’ (without the plane) down neverending unknown West Australian roads that pass through towns marked only with a building or two. I booked a favourite camping site, loaded up the car, opened the door for my Red Cloud Kelpie and drove off.

The camping spot is just over an hour from Perth. Located in forest country along the escarpment running down the coast, it experiences more rain than its neighbouring regions. We woke on Sunday to thunder and my dog whimpered under the sleeping bag whilst I relished the tinkle of raindrops on the swag roof.

After the storm passed, and breakfast was done, we ventured to a section of the river I had identified the night before as an alluring swimspot. With no one else around we both luxuriated in quiet isolation. This exquisite moment revealed itself as the highlight of the trip.

What to do next? I had already written many pages in my journal, begun reading a new novel and made a start on this blog piece. With limited external ‘drivers’ to snag my mind, it had immersed itself in trains of thought about the folly of coming away, how I could be at home (but bored with what is becoming an entrenched daily routine), and my lack of social networks. Giving in to my lowered mood and returning home would only provide more of what I already knew. That didn’t feel right so I waited, and other, more enticing ideas arrived.

With the campsite packed up, I hit the bitumen road and drove an hour inland to the next town – Boddington. The townsfolk seemed to enjoy building local sculptures out of defunct farm equipment. It was hotter than our overnight stay and Shire signs forbade swimming in the river. Whilst the shady campsites were enticing, no swimming mitigated against staying. My dog, however, ran through the shallow edges of the riverbank. It was only as we were about to get into the car that I noticed her black, oily, smelly feet. She could not take them into the car. Ten minutes later I found a tap and spent 5 minutes washing her four paws. My hands were black. What was in that sludge?

On the road again, we drove in a different direction, further south and inland. Sheep land. Hundreds of them standing around the edges of water holes in the middle of dry arid paddocks. I wondered how many sheep farmers lost on days when the temperature was 10 to 15 degrees harsher.

At Quindanning I took a photo of this church. The square turret seemed out of place. The pub seemed busy judging by the number of cars outside.

At Williams, I got excited about what I would find inside the ‘Williams Woolshed’. Whilst it accommodated a great looking cafe and a huge display of products like wine, oilskin products, emu skin shoes, natural health care products, local books and wool attire, I was disappointed to realise not much of it was local. Real local people, living real local lives, is what interests me. What do they create out of a dry, isolated landscape while the sheep do their thing? What does their creativity inspire? Another product from interstate or overseas held no interest for me and the op shop in the old building next door was shut. It was time to move on.

It was now mid afternoon and I had to decide whether to drive home or find another place to camp for the night. Finding another place with water nearby was looking bleak so I turned for home. Little did I realise it would take another two hours at least to get there. I also didn’t realise how tired I was. Whilst the drive was a strain, I did come across signs to places I had previously earmarked to explore. At least now I had reference points both in terms of location and travel time. I also identified a few places of interest to explore along the way.

Overall, my camping trip wasn’t as I had anticipated. Whilst there were moments I relished, it wasn’t the pleasure I yearned. I know that both my enjoyment and despondency were a reflection of state of my mind at the time. One moment I was thinking that the opportunity swim in a pristine natural pool with no one else around was bliss, and in the next I was wallowing in thoughts about how isolated or tired in body I was. The weekend was an endurance test of my mind.

One I am glad I experienced. Even though I didn’t happily enjoy every moment, giving into my low state of mind would have robbed me of what I learned about myself and my terrain, and none of that which unfolded on my return would have unfolded. My experience provided me with information about the location of places of interest. I can now plan more confidently. I learned I need to take my good camera. I also now know much more about myself. I no longer have the stamina to drive for long periods of time. I need to take that into account. And I really do need to participate in activities other people organise.

Which is why, on my return home, I booked into several group events run by one of the fb camping pages I belong to. It is time to meet new people. Taking into account my reduced driving stamina, I have chosen events that are closer to home. With more experience and familiarity I will ‘range’ further. Small steps. Incorporate what I have learned and keep going. A low state of mind is like the sludge on my dog’s feet. Wash it off and keep going, even if you have wet uncomfortable feet. Do nothing and the sludge of a low mood state of mind becomes encrusted. The possibility of experiencing different destinations diminishes. All actions lead somewhere, including the inaction in response to low states of mind. They are nothing more than sludge. Keep travelling down different roads of experience, and relish what they bring, even when uncomfortable.

The Smarter Part of Us (Part 1)

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The title of this blog post came from the mouth of a young person who had come to see me because of the dangerous nature of the thinking that had crossed their mind.

I drew the line below on the whiteboard in my office.

I often draw a line to show people that we are all following our thinking all day long. And as the quality of our thinking fluctuates so does the feeling we experience. Think harried thoughts about all the tasks that need doing and you will feel harried. Think angry thoughts and you will feel angry. Think grateful thoughts and you will feel grateful. Be open to doing whatever comes to mind and you will feel calm and relaxed. In the particular instance above, the young person had been going about their day when something occurred and their thinking derailed down a dark alley.

Interestingly, they didn’t act on that thinking – otherwise they wouldn’t be in my office.

I commented on this and asked what thinking came into their mind after the dark thoughts.

‘That ‘that thinking’ wouldn’t end well.’ Yep, that was true.

‘That I needed to get myself out of there.’ Made sense.

‘That I needed to speak to someone.’ Wise.

‘Where did all this thinking come from,’ I asked (pointing to the rising line after the unhappy face). To which they replied with the title of this blog post.

A ‘smarter part of us’, naturally surfacing, no effort, no struggle to change our thinking, just spontaneously erupting of its own accord to lead us back to a clearer, calmer state of mind. Everyone has it. All the young people who come in to my office concerned about self harming or suicide have it. So do the adults who know they are struggling but sense there is more. Most of us don’t notice it. Some listen to it, some don’t. How have we got to this point in our evolution in which we are largely ignorant of the workings of our ‘wired in’ resiliency and mental health?

Do we notice the relationship between our thoughts and our feelings? Can we see that our thinking is the mediator of all experience, whether it be of a rainy day or of scary thinking crossing our mind? Do we notice that thinking fluctuates? Do we notice the powerful change brought about by a split second shift in our thinking that arrived without deliberately conjuring it up? How does that happen? Do we notice the impact of insights on our habitual trains of thought? Do we wonder where shifts in thinking come from? Psychology tells us that once we have started along a negative thinking path it tends to keep going in the same direction. What it fails to remark upon and get curious about is the fact that our innate mental health never fails to offer up a thought that will bring us back to our senses – if we choose to follow it.

So much untapped and unexplored depth to the healthy human system of psychological functioning, already operating in everyone, but for most, outside our consciousness. Experiencing more of our mental health doesn’t require learning techniques to build anything in us, everything is already inbuilt. Experiencing more of what is inbuilt is simply about becoming aware of it, of having conversations that bring focus to all that operates in human experience and not just the slivers that we have dissected out to examine. Experiencing greater mental health comes with increased awareness of the fuller picture of the processes at play in psychological functioning.

Waking up. A moment of waking up to what already exists is all that is required to a deeper, more stable experience of our mental health. Seeing that we are experiencing thought, noticing a sudden shift in vitality and seeing its true source (effortless thought replacing rumination), realizing we can trust the thoughts that originate deeper within us more than the ones making noise in our heads, are all moments with powerful repercussions.

If you would like to experience greater depths of yourself (and not just what you were conditioned to believe), or are genuinely open to experiencing more fulfilment and satisfaction with your life, mentoring consultations are available with myself either in person or via Zoom. Please feel free to make contact at georginamavor@outlook.com.

Curious or Caught Up

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When something troubling occupies your mind, do you view those thoughts with curiosity or do you get caught up in them? Both responses are manifestations of the innate principles of psychological functioning operative within everyone. One however is the result of a lack of awareness of how thought operates whilst the other is an expression of awareness.

As we go through our days, thoughts flow through our minds. And we follow them, most of the time experiencing them neutrally, with ease and grace. But every now and then, a train of thought emerges which is accompanied by feelings of unease. Variation in feeling is the natural expression of the Mind/Body connection. What we think, we feel.

Being aware of our feelings and knowing what they are telling us is crucial to consciously supporting healthy psychological functioning. Feelings tell us whether we are in the everyday flow of life, or whether we are experiencing an insight (a deeper, fresh thought) or whether something destabilizing is on our mind. When we are aware of the fact that we are only ever experiencing the thoughts on our mind, having a uneasy thought on our mind and feeling anxious is no big deal. Thoughts are like everything else – something separate from us to notice, to make a decision about, and sometimes to act on. The uneasy feelings some thoughts create is our body’s ‘siren’ – to notice and avoid going down the proverbial rabbit hole.

A ‘siren’ tells us to stop and pay attention. It doesn’t tell us to get involved with the accident. If we heed the ‘siren’, pause and get curious as to what we have on our minds, we work in harmony with our psychological system – instead of getting in the way.

Everyone experiences moments when we have something on our mind. My most recent experience was a feeling of unease, which when I noticed and got curious (instead of caught up), I could identify. ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ Concern for someone on that day was one of the matters on my mind. Looking at it with curiosity, common sense told me that there was nothing I could do except be available to support emotionally should something occur.

The second matter however was in regards to work I had put myself up for. At the time, I thought it would be useful, but clearly something about it was niggling me. Later that day, clarity hit me – at this point of my life the work wasn’t for me. From that clarity, I emailed my decision to those who needed to know. No doubts, no second thoughts. That clarity felt absolutely true and right.

What did I do in between accessing curiosity about my feelings of unease and the arrival of clarity? I listened to what I needed to do to feel better, to feel at ease, to feel calm, and I followed through. I got back into the flow of life and the flow of thought. And from within that flow a moment of clarity, out of the blue, surfaced. I didn’t give the troubling thoughts on my mind a second thought. I engaged with activities that felt right, my troubling thoughts moved on and in the flow of thought coming toward me, the real substance arrived.

Behavioural Experiments of the Mind

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We are all the directors of our experience of the story of our life. Our story has a beginning and an end. It has unique content. In between, we get to choose where we focus the camera of our awareness and the point of view of our thinking.

The craft of a great director of our human story is in understanding and deftly working with our thinking and feelings.

In all the myriad of details we can focus on in each moment, we unconsciously choose what we pay attention to — until we become aware of what we are doing. Alongside our attending we are interpreting, using the words and images from thought to make meaning, even if that meaning in the moment is to operate on automatic.

We experience where our thoughts meander.

Often we change direction, instantaneously experiencing the miracle of the mind body connection. We change our mind, our attention is caught by something, we have an insight, we hear the logic in another person’s words, we become immersed in a flow experience and … what we are experiencing in our bodies changes.

We experience where our thought moves.

Our thoughts, whether in the form of words or images are not ‘facts’. They are akin to clay, something we can shapeshift. We may not be able to direct what comes in to our minds (and maybe we can), but we are able to choose which forms to engage with and which ones to leave behind. We can direct the experience of our life story, regardless of its content.

As a therapist, I will at times set behavioural experiments for clients to discover for themselves what I point to in our sessions. I also utilise them when I too get caught up in an uncomfortable perceptual lens that takes me nowhere. Try them for yourself. See what you learn about your capacities as the director of your experience, about the creative nature of thought, about your own habits of mind and about the so-called truth of much of what we think, particularly about ourselves!

1. The first step is to notice. Notice the feelings in your body and check in with what is going on in your head. If this isn’t possible in the moment, hindsight is a remarkable human tool. Look back at the experience you have just been through. Look at the thinking driving it. If you acted on it, what was the result? If you didn’t act on it, what was the result? Much wisdom is gained in life through hindsight, when we see how behaviours that erupt from a troubled mind usually result in more trouble. Noticing is a powerful inbuilt mental health faculty.

2. When caught up in overwhelm, with a list of things that must be done running through your head, go in the opposite direction. Stop, ask yourself what you need to do to slow down your mind and your actions — and do it. What did you learn? How important was all that stuff you had on your list? Did the world open up and swallow you when you stopped all that pushing ahead?

3. When you are caught up in hurt and pain, wanting to lash out at others, stop and look after yourself instead. Be kind to yourself. Write in a journal, have a bath, dress in your favourite clothes, soften, be gentle to you. The other person may not be kind to you, but you can assuage your hurt by being gentle with yourself. And once you are feeling better, you can then decide what to do with unkind people in your life.

4. When your mind drops into a low mood, when everything about you appears gloomy and you have no energy — do something. Do something that fully engages you. Run, ride a bike, play chess, garden, walk in the sun. Those gloomy states of mind can be dangerous. They aren’t a life sentence, they are a thought created psychological state playing out in your body. Experiment with relating to it as a ‘state’ rather than a ‘trait’. Know that the true ‘trait’ is the power of awareness. If we can see that we are gloomy then what is the true self? The gloomy abyss or the point of awareness that sits above it all. Instead of buying into the gloom buy into the awareness. Act from there and see what happens. Did the gloom disappear? Did it shrink? What did you notice about your attention and thinking as you wavered between the activity you engaged in and the gloom in your mind. What we attend to expands.

Always notice, then when in a calmer state of mind, listen for what needs to be done, if anything. Not only does a director have a keen eye, she/he also taps a creative faculty when problems are encountered. How else would brilliant stories in films and books be created? We need the content of the story — and we need the interpretation. It is the latter that captures us, inspires us and reflects the hope that is inbuilt into life. Hope is part of its nature. Hope is part of our nature. It is part of the effervescent vitality of life. But it is hidden if we stay in ‘stuck’ states of mind. Developing our director skills in choosing which thoughts to privilege and which ones to walk away from is a key skill to determining whether our story is one of fulfilment or one of suffering. Which life story will you direct?

PS. The information provided in this post is for general information only. Appointments are available for anyone in Australia seeking more personalized support either face to face or via Telehealth. Please call 08 9330 3922.

Photo Courtesy of Denise Jans, Unsplash.com

Reality is Sooo Sane

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“I told him I knew he was frustrated because he didn’t win, but throwing his toys around will only break them and that would make him more unhappy. Quietening him down, I told him to take a few deep breaths so that we could get back into the game.” Words of wisdom from a young mother who has suffered anxiety most of her life, bringing sanity to the behaviour of her young Autistic son.

“Stop. I’m not helping you with your job application anymore if you continue to vent your frustration at me. I’m only trying to help but you do this every time you have to read and writing something. I too have things to do and don’t deserve to have someone angry with me when I am just making myself available to help. Come and get me when you feel you can stay calm. It might take time, but we can get it done.” A mother helping her teenage daughter who struggles with literacy.

Frustrated with the exhaustion of breastfeeding my only baby at 44 years of age, I finally accepted the reality that I was finished, that I just didn’t have the energy or support resources to maintain what the textbooks told me was good for my child. I had begun to turn to a glass of wine each night to keep me upright. That didn’t feel right. It was time to accept the physical reality of my situation, support myself instead of overloading me, and move on. No more breastfeeding, no more needing to prop myself up. Solid food only and move into the next phase. She turned out fine and I felt human again.

Reality is sane. Physical, emotional and cognitive limitations are sane. Live within them and we navigate life with greater ease. It’s our thinking disconnected from common sense that takes us into insanity.

Children need help (when their frustration with reality takes hold) to see that their frustrated behaviour will hurt. Destroying their toys or throwing themselves about doesn’t make their satisfaction with themselves or others better. Taking a few breaths and moving forward helps. Leading our children through the experience of  responding with common sense to reality supports the integrity of their inbuilt psychological health system.

Yelling and abusing the people who love and support us affect their level of comfort in being around us. In choosing abusive and disrespectful behaviour because of frustration, we impair the social connections that enable us to survive and flourish. An adolescent has the ability to know that their behaviour may hurt the love they value, and they have the ability to choose whether to engage in it or not. We can help them pause and choose, if we use language that separates their frustrated behaviour from who they are. “I really want to help you, but that behaviour is getting in the way. I want to spend time with you, but not if that behaviour erupts. I will assume that you know how else to respond but if you want to talk it through, just let me know.”

Adults have even greater cognitive capacity to bring better quality thinking grounded in reality to a situation. Instead of being caught up in some picture of what ‘should’ be happening, acceptance of what’s working for us or not is a pretty reliable gauge by which to decide whether to continue or to shift. If something isn’t working, step back, and choose what would work.

Help young children experience ways of soothing their frustration that don’t hurt. Ignite awareness of free will in adolescents and young people by using language that separates behaviour from them as people and affirms the ability to choose. As adults, get out of our heads and listen to the sanity and common sense in the reality around us. We all possess the capacities of awareness and free will. We can all choose something different even when caught up in strong feelings. It’s common sense. Everyone has the capacity to notice, to know what isn’t right for us, and to exercise free will. Those capacities are inbuilt into us and already operating. Begin by noticing when we are caught up in something. If it doesn’t make sense, stop. A saner response awaits.