Are you a human doing or a human being?

We are excited to share with you some inspiring insights from our Kontributer, Tasha Broomhall who is the Director and lead trainer for Blooming Minds. Tasha has a background in psychology, disability, employment, psycho-social rehabilitation and aged care services. Tasha wrote something in this article that woke me up, ‘…we get disconnected and distant from what’s important to us. When this happens we can get into a bit of a funk. Its not that we are clinically depressed or anxious, it’s just that life has become a series of chores, chasing goals, chasing our tails. The joy, fun and delight has gone from daily experiences.’ Thank you Tasha! Sometimes I get that restless feeling and usually my days fly by and I wonder, what did I do this week? I do a lot every day, but I guess I ask myself that question because sometimes nothing stands out to me. Probably because I didn’t ENJOY myself. All it might take is turning on my favorite record while I work or taking 15 minutes to sit outside and enjoy the sun. I encourage you to take 10 minutes and enjoy this fabulous article.

Buoyancy!

Sometimes we get entrenched going through the motions of life – working, family, cooking, cleaning, exercise… We get very busy DOING.

I was at a café yesterday with my two little girls. As I looked around at the other customers I saw a table of teenage girls sitting across from us – all three engrossed in mobile phones, not talking to each other for the whole hour; a mother with her toddler who spent most of the time on her iPad whilst the toddler ran around the café; an older man who sat punching away on his laptop – not even looking up to acknowledge the waitress when she brought him his meal nor when she cleared his table. I was bewildered at first, and then wondered how many times I’d done the same things. Probably more than I’d care to confess.

We can easily get caught up in what we are doing and not acknowledge or engage with who we’re with or where we are. Sometimes we are so busy doing that we forget to BE. My old Psychology professor Dr Alex Main asks me ‘Tasha are you a human doing or a human being?”

Many of us get caught in the struggle of balancing roles and relationships and sometimes get so busy going through the motions that we are not present at all – we get disconnected and distant from what’s important to us. When this happens we can get into a bit of a funk. Its not that we are clinically depressed or anxious, it’s just that life has become a series of chores, chasing goals, chasing our tails. The joy, fun and delight has gone from daily experiences.

Are you in a funk? Get out quick! You are the only one who can change how you spend your days.

Choose:

more activity,
more sunlight,
more interaction with others who nourish your being,
read stuff that helps you feel good,
list daily the things you are grateful for,
music that you love,
volunteer your time to help someone in your family, community or through a charity

BUILD UP THE GOOD STUFF IN YOUR LIFE AS BEST YOU CAN

One way to increase your mental wellbeing is to develop your buoyancy – our capacity to ride the tide of life. There are three levels to buoyancy:

There is High Tide buoyancy for when we’re experiencing big challenges! So we don’t get overwhelmed and are able to stay focussed on dealing proactively with the challenges, rather than being dunked under the waves, struggling for breath. To deal with high tide challenges we need to know how to manage stress in the moment, and ongoing.
There is Ebb and Flow buoyancy where you are floating along. You are strong and stable, flexible to move with the tide where required and not overwhelmed by little bumps in the ocean. To deal with the Ebb and Flow we need to be able to keep perspective when challenges are occurring – make sure that we are not over reacting and look after our health and relationships proactively.
There is Low Tide buoyancy – something that we sometimes struggle with. This is the freedom and openness to celebrate our achievements and to celebrate the achievements of others, rather than looking for the next crisis. It requires us to celebrate the blessings that we have and to have gratitude for the positives in our life. It helps you to enjoy your life day to day and to keep perspective when challenges occur.

To start developing your buoyancy firstly you need to WAKE UP! You need to make conscious decisions and take deliberate actions to create the life that you want. We don’t stop to reflect on how we’re going in terms of our broad life goals very often.

What happened to stop you from living in the way that is most important to you?
What can you do to keep your values front of mind and in focus?

One way to do this is to use a journal to help you get clear about your values, to decide how you will intentionally live and to keep perspective of the blessings that are abundant in your life.

Follow this 4 step process and bloom!

1. In your journal write down what your strongest values are.

a) What is most important to you?

b) What would you be most disappointed if you did not achieve or experience?

c) What roles or relationships are most significant to you?

d) What personal characteristics do you wish to embody?

You can write it as a list, explosion chart, or sentences – whatever feels natural to you.

2. Take each of these values and describe how you will live this value – what it will look like and feel like, the influence it will have on you and others.

3. Next, each morning before you get out of bed, journal 10 intentions you have for the day that will help you to live your values. How you will talk to yourself, how you will talk to others, actions you will take. They need to be things that you WILL DO, not things that you will avoid doing.

4. Each night write down 5 things that you are grateful for. These can be big or little things. The things that if you were to lose, you would miss.

Continue steps 3 and 4 daily until your journal is full. Then begin the process again at step one and re-evaluate your values and current goals.

May you bloom!

Tasha Broomhall is the Director and lead trainer for Blooming Minds. She has been providing mental health and wellbeing training programs throughout Australia for more than 11 years, including guest lecturing at both Murdoch and Curtin Universities and presentations at local and national industry conferences. Learn more about Tasha at BloomingMinds.com.au.

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