Mental Health Training

What Are Aspirations? 

Do you have hopes and dreams?

Do you have the ambition to achieve a life goal in the future? You have aspirations.

These big picture life goals give us a sense of purpose and direction as we live out each day.

Don’t be mistaken. Having goals and aspirations is not the same thing.

Goals are action steps to get you to a final destination, while aspirations tend to be more general and long-term future-focused. Think of it this way, when you want to look back on your career and know you met all your goals, that is an aspiration. Obtaining a new position within six months is a goal. They work together, but they have separate functions.

A Breakdown of Aspirations

Having aspirations gives your life more meaning and focus. There are various types that we lean on when we start dreaming of our future. People have different outlooks on what their aspirations are. Some are simple, such as being a steady provider for their family. Others aim higher to become famous or rich.

Researchers have discerned there are two main types of aspirations we aim for – intrinsic and extrinsic. They are centred on common themes that can indicate our sense of purpose. Here is the breakdown between the two kinds to help you in determining what types of aspirations you tend to focus on:

1.    Intrinsic: These are the aspirations that satisfy your need to enhance your well-being.

Typically, they are centred on relationships, contributions to the community, health, and personal growth. For example, you may aspire to make friends, build relationships, and volunteer for a good cause.

This would be considered a social aspiration. Other examples include building a family (family aspirations) or developing new skills, such as in music or art (skill aspirations).

2.    Extrinsic: This variety includes achieving an instrumental outcome. If you want to be seen as physically attractive, wealthy, or popular, then you are aiming for extrinsic aspirations.

When you were growing up, did you want a million dollars?

That is a financial aspiration. In high school, did you want to be popular? You may have had popularity goals.

What about career aspirations? Many of us hope to accomplish certain things within our careers that are both intrinsic and extrinsic.

They are often tied to our desire to have a certain image or salary, but they can also have bits of personal growth and community contributions mixed in.

Four Ways You Can Use Technology to Stay Connected

Whether you've got to work from home indefinitely, or you've got a friend who lives miles away that you are trying to keep in touch with, technology can help you stay connected.

However, it can be difficult to use technology to stay connected if you don't know where to start. Keep reading to get some ideas to know the most efficient way to use technology to stay connected.

Video Calls

Gone are the days when a phone call is enough. These days, you need to make sure you have good WIFI to a video call when you are apart.

You don't just have to sit there and stare at each other. Make a night of it! Each of you can buy a bottle of wine and have a virtual drink or a virtual coffee if the call is in the morning.

Have Group Chats

Trying to stay in touch with the group from high school? Unfortunately, this will only get harder as you get older, but the best way to stay connected is by making a group chat.

This way, even as people are too busy to get together in person, they can still send pictures and videos of their life and talk about current events with one another. Just be prepared for the number of messages you will receive.

Maintain Your Social Media

Some people love to hate social media, but the reality is, that it's there for people to stay connected with their friends and family. Even if someone doesn't reach out regularly, at least they can check-in and see how you are doing!

While you use social media, just be sure that you don't post anything too personal like addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information!

Join Virtual Groups

Besides just staying connected with friends and family, it might be ideal to use technology to stay connected with the world and other people in the world. This is very easy to do if you join a virtual group of something you are interested in.

For example, there are virtual workout groups, virtual wine drinking groups, virtual reading clubs, virtual gaming groups, and even virtual art classes. So take a few minutes, surf the net, and stay connected with an activity you enjoy with like-minded people.

Staying connected as you get older can be difficult. Everyone seems to be so busy, whether friends or family members! Employ the above four suggestions to stay connected with the loved ones in your life using technology. You'll be surprised by how well these methods work. 

Living a happy life is everyone’s goal. Who doesn’t want to feel good about themselves?

And yet so many of us live a life of self-doubt, feeling undeserving or incapable, or wishing we were walking another path.

However, living a happy life, being a happy person, is a matter of how you perceive yourself and your place in the world. You can “think yourself happy” by taking action, being honest about yourself, your patterns of thinking, and being open to your capacity to change. Self-knowledge is the key to living a happy life. And that means living your truth, not other people’s truth, or what society tells you is your truth.

Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. An ongoing process of self-analysis and self-examination leading to greater understanding and self-knowledge is also the basis for most of the world’s religions and belief systems, for a good reason. If you don’t know who you are, you're not your true self in the world. If this is the case, you’re living a passive life, reacting to whatever comes along instead of taking control. Living unconsciously like this is living half asleep, and if you’re half asleep, you can’t be your best you.

Living an authentic life does not mean going off the grid. It does mean a daily practice of being honest about how you’re feeling and why, and reminding yourself that you are in control of how you feel. It means being clear about what your values and beliefs are – what “rules” you live your life by. Are your values yours, or have you absorbed them from other people in your life?

Do they still fit with the life you want to lead?

Five steps to living a more authentic life

1.    Be clear about how you want your life to be right now and where you want to go. Understand and live by your values and beliefs.

2.    Be aware of yourself and how you react and interact with other people, situations, events, and the world.

3.    Set and maintain conscious boundaries.

Be clear in your mind and be at peace with what you can and can’t control.

4.    Be okay with imperfection in yourself and others.

Be objective about your weaknesses so that you can improve upon them without letting them get you down. 

5.    Be kind and forgiving to yourself and others.

Living your truth means taking responsibility for your life and building deep self-knowledge that will ultimately lead to contentment and happiness. 

Everybody worries sometimes. Right now, you’ve probably even got a few worries on your mind. You might be thinking about a relationship or a situation at work, causing you trouble. Maybe you’re worried about your health or whether you’re going to have enough money to pay the bills at the end of the month.

Whatever the case, worry happens whether we intend for it to or not. This becomes a problem, though, when worry starts to take over your life.

So, what is the goal? Is stopping worrying enough to put you on an even keel, or are you hoping for something…more?

What if, instead of worrying, you could become excited, and then use this excitement to get more done?

Let’s look at seven ways to achieve this:

Be Here Now

Worry has a way of trapping you anywhere but here. Either you’re worried about something which happened long ago, or you’re caught up in fretting about something still to come. Neither is going to get you anywhere. To stop worrying, you need to focus on the present. What interests you right now?

Realize This Gets You Nowhere Fast

Worrying stops you cold. In fact, most procrastination is caused by worrying. With this in mind, why are you wasting your time and energy worrying? Sometimes just recognizing what a waste worry is, will be enough to derail it altogether. Especially when you have better places to be.

Throw Yourself into Something Interesting

Worry needs your attention to survive. Get busy doing something engaging to your mind, and you’ll find you forget all about worrying.

Rewrite the Script

If you’re seeing everything blow up around you, maybe you should try focusing on the perceived disaster. Ask yourself how you could do things to handle the situation were it to happen. Once you have it, practice the scenario in your mind. Picture yourself handling matters.

Practice

Worried about something you need to do later? Having a dress rehearsal in your head will make things go smoother and keep worried at bay entirely.

Ask

Challenge your worry.

Dig in and get to the roots until you understand your worry intimately. Ask yourself where the negativity came from. Peel back the layers until you get down into the heart of the matter.

Try a New Path

In the end, worry can become very attached to the familiar. Challenge yourself. Find a different way to do things. Explore where this path takes you.

The main point in all of these is to enjoy the journey. This is where you find the excitement and enthusiasm, which leads to getting things done. The rest is all momentum and a lot of brand-new accomplishments just waiting to happen.

What Is Idolatry?

Idolatry is obsessive and unrealistic worship, devo­tion or love directed at another person, who has then been termed an idol. The obsessed person is the idolater, and invari­ably has a false mental perception of who or what the idol represents.

Idolatry is sometimes called idol worship, and the people who worship idols can be called idolaters.

The idol may be some­one who the idolater knows, such as a school friend or teacher; or, as is frequently the case with teenagers, a public figure such as a pop music star, film star or sports personality. When idolatry occurs in adults, it is often at the beginning of a new relation­ship, when individuals may be unaware of their partner's faults and may even try to avoid discovering them.

Idolaters are most commonly young women who fall obsessively in love. The idol is put on a pedestal and regarded as the only person who can bring happiness. Sufferers may try to pursue a rela­tionship by trying to contact the idol, even though the person has given no sign of interest and is not even remotely familiar with the idolater.

This may take about a week, but before you start using positive affirmations, you’ll want to be more mindful about when and how you’re using negative self-talk. Get a small notebook that you can keep with you to write down the negative self-talk you are using now.

Create Positive Affirmations from Negative Self-Talk

After you write down those negative things, organise them into categories so that you can work on each area over time. For example, if when you are getting ready in the morning, you negatively attack your looks, you’ll want to tie that to self-esteem.

Then create positive affirmations that will raise your self-esteem.

“I’m a normal healthy weight, and my skin is clear and beautiful.” Even if you have problems, when you do this, you’ll likely make better choices during the day, not to ruin your good health and your skin.

Write Your Affirmations Down

Because positive affirmations are written in the brain’s language, they follow a precise formula.. Keep your affirmations in the present. Your brain will only ever optimally respond to positive present tense affirmations such as “I am calm.”

Hence, avoid using past or future tenses. If you see affirmations that say “I will…,” “I used to…,” or “I’m going to…,” then this is NOT an affirmation.

Only include positive words. “Don’t,” “can’t,” or “won’t” aren’t positively-inclined words, so steer clear of using them. For example, change “I won’t worry” to “I’m always calm.”

When you use negatively charged words, your brain has to put in a lot of extra effort to evoke meaning and seek out positive instruction.

Once you create the positive affirmations from your negative self-talk, you should write them down. Write your affirmations on small slips of paper and put them in a jar.

Grab one when you need it. Write them on pretty note cards and stick them where you need to see them. For example, you can put one of your affirmations right on the bathroom mirror or directly on your door, so you see it as you’re leaving.

Set Times to Using Your Affirmations

Remember, your brain is a creature of habit, always looking for instructions, and is eager to set you up for success – all you have to do is instruct it in a language it understands and keep repeating it.

Once you’ve created your affirmations, you can start using them. Use them at the same time you usually use the negative self-talk in place of that negativity. At first, it’s going to feel a little weird, but you’ll develop a habit. Right now, just do it by rote, and eventually, it’ll feel more natural.

Like any habit, affirmations take 21 to 30 days to stick to the brain. So, to change your thoughts, affirmations should be practised daily.

Say Your Affirmations, Aloud

Speak your positive affirmation confidently as if it were true. Statements that contain words like “might” and “could” aren’t nearly as powerful as statements that contain words like “am” and “do”. For example, “I could be calm in every situation” is not as solid as “I am calm.”

Your brain will respond to this, even if you secretly don’t believe it to be accurate.

When you are stating your affirmations in private, express them aloud. When you state them aloud, you hear them with your ears, and that is a different form of memory than writing them and reading them. As you listen to it, you’ll begin to believe it over time, as you should.

Resiliency and Positivity Go Hand-in-Hand

It’s hard to imagine being resilient without being positive. Some people can be resilient in their negativity. However, in the long run, that negative behaviour will sap the energy out of them. You cannot thrive for very long in an environment filled with negativity. You will lose resiliency in this environment.

When you project a positive outlook, others will follow along. People are attracted to this outlook and will want to make it continue. While some people will be attracted to others who are negative, on the whole, they prefer positive people. When this happens, you will be resilient by bringing others along.

When you are positive, you are more likely to look for solutions to problems. When you are negative, you are more likely to look for excuses. How can you be resilient when you are looking for excuses? Nothing will get done, which means you will hold yourself (and others) back. Plus, if you are one to look for excuses constantly, others will catch onto this and avoid you. If you do this in your job, it could eventually lead to your dismissal. After being fired from your job, there's no way you can be resilient.

Being positive doesn’t mean you should never complain. Sometimes, you need to point out weaknesses where you know they exist. However, positive people tend to offer up alternatives that make them part of the solution. Imagine if several such people offered up alternatives. Solutions would surface quickly, wouldn’t they? Contrast this to excuse-makers. They will never find solutions.

It’s believed that people with positive attitudes have a greater chance of beating life-threatening diseases as well. Your body has the best mechanisms available to fight diseases, even better than medications. If you are positive about your outlook, it will set your body to the optimal conditions that should help you battle those diseases. Even if this weren’t true, it certainly is better than being negative, which increases stress. Stress has been proven to block the disease-fighting aspects of your body.

Think back to positive and negative times in your life. When were you happier, negative or positive? It’s likely that you chose positive times as being happier. It’s also likely that you were the most productive during this time. By extension, being productive means you were resilient. It all came from that positive attitude.

How to Deal with Emotional Overwhelm

Emotional overwhelm can leave you drained. It can threaten your happiness and cause problems in relationships. If you let it go on for too long, you may find that you are consumed with your emotions.

No one can function well for any period of time without addressing what is causing the emotional overwhelm. You can take charge of your emotions and set your life back on even footing when you learn how to deal with emotional overwhelm.

7 Suggestions to Handle Emotional Overwhelm

Emotions can get in the way of living your life in a way that brings you happiness. Often, work, financial struggles, and family turmoil can leave you emotionally spent and ready to throw in the towel. However, you can put a stop to emotionally overwhelm with these seven suggestions:

1.    Analyse What Is Going On: When you feel negative emotions build up, stop and consider what is happening. Try to figure out what may be causing the feelings. Are you hungry? Have you struggled to sleep well at night?

2.    Review What Is Going Well: You work hard to achieve things. Times will happen when you will overlook your needs and fail to celebrate what you are doing right. Rewrite the story in your head to include everything you are accomplishing and how far you have come.

3.    Accept Yourself: It is okay to consider what emotions are working within you at the moment. Avoid invalidating them. Acknowledge them; accept them, and move on in a healthy way.

4.    Journal: Writing down your thoughts, feelings, and moods helps you better understand what is going on in your life. It also gives you a record to which you can refer when things get harry later, and you need a reminder of how you overcame the last time this went wrong.

5.    Find a Health Outlet: You may need to regroup and refocus your emotional energy in a different direction, such as through exercise or a hobby

6.    Reduce or Eliminate Stress: Look for those things that trigger your stress and consider what you can do to reduce or eliminate it.

7.    Make Sleep a Priority: A lack of adequate sleep will make your emotions run rampant and increase your stress levels. Focus on making sleep a high priority in your life. You might need to cut out caffeine, cut out naps, and make your bedroom conducive to a good night’s rest, but it will be worth it.

Don’t let emotional overwhelm rob you of your happiness and attaining your dreams. Learn to handle your emotions and enjoy the rewards.

Trauma is an individual event that is out of the ordinary for you. Still, everyone experiences trauma and deals differently with this distress, and something that may be traumatic for you could be an everyday life situation for someone else.

The unconscious aspect of trauma

For example, if you never witnessed animals in an abattoir being slaughtered, your reaction to seeing this for the first time would be extremely different from someone who regularly works there. 

I have known many individuals become vegetarians following a visit to this place. Surprisingly, they do not have open days.  

It can be difficult to judge how a person will react in any given situation; some of the most unlikely individuals in history has turned out to be heroes. Perhaps it is deep-seated compassion that exists in all of us, we just love to see the underdog come good.

I remember my first time as a medical student many years ago visiting a mortuary for the first time; all the cadavers (20 in total) laid out on plinths in a partial state of dissection with the intense aroma of Formaldehyde. 

It wasn’t until the late afternoon; one of our classmates returned to the lessons. She was so traumatised by the event that day.

She had left the autopsy early without any of us noticing. When questioned, She had no idea where she had been for the last few hours or any recollection of leaving the room in the first place.

The physiological aspect of trauma

During a traumatic event, a sensor called the Amygdala triggers your brain to activate a “fight-or-flight” survival response.

This reaction, which is all emotional, sends a message to your adrenal gland in a split second, leading to cortisol and adrenaline production to get you out of danger, which then activates a series of physiological and metabolic effects. 

Your mouth will suddenly get dry, your heart will start racing, your stomach will be upset, and you’ll feel like you are going to be sick or pass out. 

All this requires energy, to stand and fight or run away, and the body’s metabolism (i.e. raising plasma glucose) is activated.

Learn more:

Five Reasons Why Adult Friendships are so Important 

Why is it we never put enough emphasis on the important things in life? Are we really that busy?

Sadly, we tell ourselves precisely that. In fact, studies have shown we’re not taking the time for friends like we used to. According to a survey taken in the 1980s, the average adult had a minimum of three friends they were close to. Thirty years later, the same study came out with some chilling news. As many as one in four people claim to have no friends at all.

Why is it we don’t enjoy adult friendships? Could it be we’ve somehow got the idea they’re really not necessary? This is absolutely not the case. In fact, below, you will find five reasons why adult friends are crucial to your life and your good health.

Friends Give Necessary Support

We’re not meant to go it alone. We need friends to act as everything from cheerleaders to a shoulder to cry on.

Friends Teach Us How to Act

How do we conduct ourselves? If you’re socially awkward, it might be because no one taught you specific social skills critical to success. Friends are where we learn those skills. It’s with friends that we practice, finding out both what’s acceptable and what’s not. What’re more, friends help us get out of the ruts we fall into and challenge us to try social situations we might not otherwise consider.

Friends Give Us a Reality Check

Who else but a friend is going to tell you when you’re lying to yourself or wandering down the wrong path entirely? This kind of tough love is what keeps us from disaster and guides us away from the pitfalls of life.

Couple Friendships Guide Our Own Relationships

Not everyone was blessed with parents who modelled good relationship skills. Having “couple friends” is where we form our impressions of how couples in romantic relationships interact. It’s from these relationships we learn how to balance things like work and romance, and how to handle the parenting component. Being able to talk to other couples about challenges unique to this kind of relationship also gives a much-needed place to learn.

Friendships are Good for Your Health

Studies have shown people who sustain healthy friendships live longer and enjoy a better quality of life. People who regularly spend time with friends are shown to adopt healthier lifestyles, experience fewer physical ailments such as heart disease, and have fewer issues with dementia as they age.

In short, adult friendships are an important part of your life and worth exploring. Now is not the time to hold back. Get out there, meet people, and discover all that life has to offer. Making time for friendships should be a priority for all adults.