"Your mental health is within your control."
"You have the power to change it."
How often have we all heard this message? And yet really taking our mental health into our own hands eludes so many of us.
It’s so much easier to blame other people or external factors when things aren’t going our way.
Or we turn on ourselves and punish ourselves which, again, defeats the object.
The truth is it’s no wonder we’re so bad at acknowledging our mental fitness is our own responsibility, when as a society we haven’t been given the knowledge, skills or value system that would enable us to manage it.
We are educated in how to thrive academically, professionally, even physically and socially - but mental health education is largely absent from our culture.
Step one in our journey to better mental health is learning how to observe, identify and articulate our thoughts and emotions. But in a culture where, in particular for certain demographics, emotionally charged language can be stigmatised - how are we supposed to move past step one?
The problem with stigmatising emotions is that, in order to overcome a negative emotional state, we first need to learn to accept and acknowledge it, and then we need to open up about it. Only then, once it’s named and out in the open, can we move past it.
Stifle it, run away from it, or pretend it’s not there - and the problem only gets worse.
Repeat this pattern over and over, and mind states become mind traits. Maladaptive coping strategies turn into addictions, self-sabotaging habits and disorders - trapping us in behaviours which alienate us from the support systems we need.
If only there were training programmes in mental fitness - how different might the culture in our company look, the conversations in our family - how different might we feel in ourselves?
Enter Fika Mental Fitness. Fika offers formalised mental fitness training for staff, embedded into employees’ everyday experience - with courses in the fundamental skills of mental fitness.
Empowering your staff by helping them learn new mental fitness skills for life. With customised programmes to support them through the challenges and tough transitions they will face at work.
To hear more about how Fika can support your team, transforming their work engagement, productivity, and their lives outside work, get in touch.
