Mental Whensdays

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Mental Whensdays

Growing the habit of mental health. One mind at a time.

05/11/2022

What’s super important for the workplace, is the distinction between an external stressor + an internal stressor. At work, external stressors might be an unforgiving manager, a disruption to a morning commute, or Microsoft Teams breaking down. Naturally, external stressors divert our reality away from our expectations because we can’t control nor predict them. In comparison to external stressors however, internal stressors are within our capacity to control + predict. It might be our inner critic setting unrealistic targets, a loss of healthy boundaries with working hours, or feeling uncertain about the direction of our career. Internal stress is then not that easy to escape from because we’re creating it ourselves… so what do we do?

Another way to think about “expectations vs reality” is as “mind vs body”. If we’re able to be mindful whether a stressor is internal or external, then we can start to change our reality (body) or our expectations (mind) to bring ourselves back into balance. If it’s external, then we need to a bring our body back into alignment with our mind. If it’s internal, then it’s about bringing our mind back in-line with our body.

To see the specifics on how to do this, head to whensdays.co.uk 🔗
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03/11/2022

Pressure is the weight of responsibility we feel when we know our actions have consequences. If we f*** up, people gonna notice. Pressure turns into stress when our current situation begins to diverge from our expectations. For example, we’ve all had that Friday afternoon when we were planning on logging off early, only to have our boss request an urgent piece of work before COP (close of play).

& Amelia Nagoski write about stress very insightfully in their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Their main insight is that we can separate the cause of our stress (the stressor) from the emotional process of the stress response cycle. Because stress is stored in the body, getting rid of stress involves engaging our body + showing our body non-verbally that we are safe. In the lion example, the act of running does the trick. Other evidence-based practices which can resolve the stress cycle include: breathing, exercising, crying, laughing, being creative, being affectionate. Head to whensdays.co.uk to find out more 🔗|
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30/10/2022

Curiosity means accepting that we don’t know, and that we want to learn. It’s acknowledging that we have undoubtedly come from different places, and we want to build a connection. Curiosity is kind of like a bridge… And like a bridge, we have different ways of showing curiosity and building a connection. Sometimes it might feel like there’s a whole ocean to cross… other times the gap will probs feel real small. Maybe at times, one person might have to do most of the work… but hopefully, there’s also encounters with equal amounts of curiosity.

The question of belonging, as Brene Brown will tell us, is about whether we feel accepted as who we are. And if we’re not able to talk about our differences truthfully then we’re not able to validate that we are accepted for who we truly are. I know lots of self-help content out there advocates for celebrating differences. But honestly, I have never fully understood how to practice this in a respectful way – until now. Now, I’m starting to realise that we don’t immediately need to have common ground with someone else to connect with them. Curiosity is a choice we make together to build the common ground for ourselves.
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28/10/2022

Between any two individuals there is always going to be surface-level stuff that differentiates us. However, there ain’t always going to be stuff that we have in common. So what happens when we’re being curious and we’re only seeing differences on the surface? On the surface, it might look like we’re a bit stuck. But what if the actual act of being curious is all we need to connect with someone?

Curiosity means accepting that we don’t know, and that we want to learn. It’s acknowledging that we have undoubtedly come from different places, and we want to build a connection. We’re signalling to each other the type of people we are, underneath the surface level differences. Curiosity is kinda like building a bridge. It's is a choice we make together to build the common ground for ourselves. And if we’re not able to talk about our differences truthfully then we’re not able to validate that we are accepted for who we truly are. Curiosity leads to connection, community + belonging.

To learn more about what this week’s idea is about, head to whensdays.co.uk 🫶🏽
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23/10/2022

One of the many learnings + insights shared from our community this week. To see the rest of the results from the experiment, click link in bio 🔗
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19/10/2022

Our third installment of Whensdays for BHM is on the question "Where are you from?" For a question that “means something different every time it’s asked”, we ran an experiment within the Whensdays community. The hypothesis: Everyone's relationship to this question will be different, so pooling our perspectives together will be more productive than just hearing one person's voice. The results: so many learnings + insights packed into a few minutes of reading time. To find out about the results from the experiment, click the link in bio 🔗
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06/10/2022

A few teaaaaser shots from our first Whensdays IRL link ups 🔥 We were a small crew but the quality was high. And it’s all about the qualityyyy. Blues For An Alabama Sky is an incredible depiction of the lived black experience in Harlem, NYC, during the Great Depression. Although it was nearly a hundred years ago, all the big issues they were dealing with then we are kinda still dealing with now. Sorted us proper cheap tix through the NT Friday Rush which would highly recommend people check out! And ofc, we fit some food in for pre-game as well Shout outs to & for bringing the N R G 🙌🏽 see ya next Whensday! 💃
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Address

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Website

http://ifnotnowwhen.blog/

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