What to do When Your Mental Health is Suffering (Part 2)

In my last blog, I talked about how you’ll know if your mental health is suffering. 

Now, I’m going to share three main things you can do when you know your mental health is suffering. 

Number 1: Prioritize Yourself

Prioritizing yourself is the first of nine Pillars of being a Dynamic Woman from my program Dynamic You.  It’s the first because it’s crucial you do this before you do any of the other pillars. There's no point in pushing yourself in your career, business, or connecting with others if this first pillar isn't in place.

You have to prioritize yourself especially if you're in a space of not feeling like yourself or feeling like you can’t handle the world. It can be self-care with journaling, meditating, praying, exercising, going into nature, showering, massages, sleep, and quiet time.

It’s crucial to unplug and have times of no stimulus: this means no phone, no TV, no social media, no people, and spending a bit more time by yourself.  This way you don't have these external factors making you feel bad and stressing you out. ​

Also part of self-care and prioritizing yourself is seeing a doctor. This is one thing that I find has been so influential in my clients’ and my own development. I personally prefer a naturopath to be able to run my blood work and see chemically and hormonally how I'm doing. For instance, we can have low iron which can make you really tired and you can't function and deal with life when you have a mineral deficiency. Again, you need to go to a doctor to figure this out. I was speaking with a client about how it’s not fair to expect yourself to be running on full cylinders, like a car, if you don't have enough gas in the tank or if you have the wrong gas. Imagine you put diesel in a gas engine, you're not going to do very well. 

As soon as you can figure out if you’re off hormonally, chemically, or minerally, then you can put a plan in place to get better. It could mean you take supplements or medicine. It might mean you have to change your diet and cut out sugar, alcohol, wheat, dairy, caffeine, and other things that can cause inflammation, brain fog, irritability, and spikes in your day. 

Number 2: Get Support 

There are two main pieces to support. You can get support through paid professionals like counselors, coaches, psychologists, psychiatrists, and many more. That's the clinical piece and the other piece is support from those around you.

It's great that you talk to someone professionally, but you also need to have those around you, family, friends, and connections who see you all the time to know what's going on. It's about getting support from others and designing how your relationship will now be. You and your circle can collaborate to improve your health and your mental well-being. 

If you have the Dynamic You book or if you have the program, you can go into the Collaborate Pillar and look at designing and redesigning relationships so that you can redesign how things are. ​

To give you an example of this, I’ll share about when my Dad was in palliative care and then when he passed. It was such a sad and confusing time and it was stressful caring for my kids.  I could do it, but it was overwhelming because my husband was still in BC and I was in Ontario. I did some designing with my in-laws, having them take the kids and allowing myself space to sort out things, support my Mom and be in my grief. I also talked with friends and let them know, “I don’t feel like hanging out or even chatting on the phone, but text is ok.” They understood and were thankful that I shared this with them so they knew how to best support me. 

I also said to my husband, “Hey, I am not myself right now. I need your support and help.” We discussed how he needed to do more around the house, take the kids out more and not expect a lot from me. You have permission to ask for help. You have permission to get the support that you need, especially from those around you. ​

A lot of the high-achieving leaders that I work with are probably doing 80% of the work in a relationship. It is okay to take it back to 50% or to even get the other person to put in 80% and you recharge for a bit. ​

Number 3: Go into Maintenance Mode

The last action is a concept that I came up with in the past decade working with my clients who needed it. Many people have asked me, “You have so much going on, how do you juggle everything?” The key thing for me is I don't always do everything. I can’t. I delegate well to my team, and most importantly when life is crazy I go into maintenance mode. I focus on my priorities.

When life gets hard, there are too many balls to juggle. You need to take a quick look at what you're juggling, and ask yourself, which are glass balls and which are rubber balls. 

Here are some examples of glass balls you can’t drop and come up with some of your own as well:

• Your health because you have an underlying health condition. 
• Your career or your business because you need money to be able to pay the bills. 
• An aging parent that you have to take care of. 
• Your children.
• Your spirituality or your faith because you know that that's the thing that's going to help you to get through it. ​

These are the glass balls. These are the things you can’t drop or they’ll break.

Then what does it mean for the rubber balls? You can let them go and they just bounce. No harm done. This allows you to go into “maintenance mode”. Maintenance mode is an amazing opportunity for you to drop the rubber balls and only focus on the glass ones, and let everything else slide from your plate or delegate it if it's important. 

Finally, after a summer of the kids being off, it was the 1st day back to school for my daughter, but my son jumped off our bed and broke his femur. Imagine, you have a two and a half year old, who is now at home with you with almost a full-body cast on. You need to be there to get everything for him. You need to bathe him in the big cast. You actually need to change diapers in this contraption as well. It was really hard for me. 

I was used to dropping him off at daycare, dropping my daughter off at school, and then I'd have time to work my business. All of a sudden, I'm dropping balls left, right, and center and they were glass ones too! 

What did I decide to do? I asked for support, but mainly I focused on my priorities: my clients and my son. Then what were the rubber balls I let bounce? My house got a bit messier. I was a little bit more lax in what I ate and said yes to support with a meal train, which was such a blessing. I think I cried when each person came to the door to give me a meal, not because I was getting a meal but because of the love I felt from them. ​

In maintenance mode, my husband and I also didn’t have date nights, so we could care for our son. I put my personal development on the back burner, but I kept my self-care up because it was a stressful time and I needed it. 

Maintenance mode is meant for a short period of time. This is not for all year. This might be a few weeks where you have a major project, you're moving, there is a death in the family, someone's having surgery, there's something major happening, and rather than completely losing all control, you let the rubber balls fall (the areas of life that don't matter as much) so that you can focus on the priorities and delegate the other pieces out. 

So what will you do when your mental health is suffering? You can bring in one of these actions: make yourself a priority, get support from professionals and your circle, and go into maintenance mode.

So what will you do when your mental health is suffering? You can bring in one of these actions: make yourself a priority, get support from professionals and your circle, and go into maintenance mode.

Mental health can be a challenge. It is debilitating for so many people, and it can happen to the most successful high achieving, intelligent, put-together people. I encourage you today, don't worry about being vulnerable. Don't worry about looking bad. It’s ok to share that you have anxiety or stress or you’re not feeling good about something. It can only get better when you talk with others you trust. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to me. Maybe it's time we had a session. We can coach on a topic of your choice. Just email me at [email protected] to set one up.

I'm also offering 6 complimentary audits for either, “What do you need to be more balanced in life?” and “What do you need to be a more valuable leader?” By the end of our time together, you're going to have a checklist that tells you exactly what you need to do in order to be more balanced in life or be a more valuable leader if that's what is more of a priority for you. If you’d like one, email my team at [email protected]. 

Read my other blogs here:
1. Stop Dropping the Balls and Instead Find Balance
2. Stop Juggling everything! Tips to help you avoid overwhelm
3. The Power of Baby Steps