MindHealth by Sara Stevens

We have been looking, over the last few blogs, at the melting pot of our emotions and those emotional responses that can be triggered by stress and things that make us anxious. If you have read all of these then you will be quite aware of the differences we have, and how things impact us on an individual level. I think it shows that having too much of any emotion can lead us into seeing red, or ge...

We have been looking, over the last few blogs, at our melting pot of emotions and how when we get anxious, we can respond in lots of different ways. Our unique blend of feelings means we can sometimes not fully connect to where this is coming from, which in turn can make it harder to change those negative behaviours that can stem from this. When we get anxious it’s such a range of responses that w...

We have been looking at our inner melting pot of emotions over the last few blogs and how when we get anxious about things we can all react in our own unique way. The thing is if we are reacting in a certain way and we don't recognise where this is truly coming from, then it is harder for us to change these responses. Understanding our minds at times can be super complicated and I often say to my...

We have been looking at the melting pot of emotional responses we can have when life gets challenging, and how we all have our unique way of dealing with things. If our emotions are running high, then sometimes our inner minds fear that this could be too much for us to deal with and can detach us from what is happening. We know that this happens in shock and PTSD situations and this detachment fro...

When life is making us anxious or things are challenging, this can impact us in many ways. This melting pot of different feelings is unique for all of us and often how we are thinking and responding to things is at the bottom of us feeling the way we do. If we are being challenged by life and we spend time with worrying thoughts, it can take us down many different routes. This in turn will negativ...

We have been looking at the melting pot of our emotional responses to things and how this can trigger our unique response to how we deal with things in our lives and also how we live on a day-to-day basis.   If our prominent colour is red then we will be carrying anger and frustrations within us, this can also mean that we might have habits of stirring ourselves up. We can do this by how we d...

The way our minds work with worries and fears, is like a melting pot of many different colours that blend into our unique habit of worrying.   We all add our own different colours and amounts, making it a bespoke formula, but the basis of all of it is, the pot and the colours. This is how our minds work to navigate fears and worries, and then form habits and direct us down a certain pathway o...

Life can weigh us down at times and it can leave us feeling the heaviness of this, which then can have an impact on how we feel and function in our lives. I think lots of emotional and mental health issues can weigh heavy on us and some of these things we can't change, but we can change how we communicate with ourselves. We can often be our worst critics and when life is challenging, we can beat o...

We are continuing to look at ways to help keep us feeling as bright and as sunny as possible even when life might have other ideas. As we looked at in the last blog ‘Sun’, this weather metaphor of our emotional states is ultimately the best one to be living in. The clouds are the things that can just blow in from nowhere and overshadow that inner brightness and joy that we had been experiencing. W...

The blog last week was looking at the metaphor of the weather and how this can describe the feelings and emotional states we can experience and move through. I think the sun is one of the nicest ones we can feel from others and be experiencing ourselves. It is all about being bright, bold, warm, and vibrant. When we are living in the emotional state of the sun, we can shine brightly, and everyone...

Our emotions can be viewed just like the British weather. They can be erratic, and unpredictable and can go from snow, and freezing weather conditions, to bright blue skies and lots of sunshine. I think it's a good way to look at our emotions by using the weather metaphor as a simple way to help us stay in touch with how we feel. Also, for the other people around us, it can be a great way to look...

Changes take time and it's important to acknowledge this.  I have thousands of sessions every year with people and one fact that can come out when people have been trying to get better, is the fear of failure. If we try to push ourselves too hard to change or expect too much of ourselves then we will be adding to the issues, not helping them .  What we need to do is find ways that we cha...

Our minds are the most amazing and spectacular things we can ever conceive . I know we often don't look at our minds in that way but it is so true. All you have to do is look around our world and all the things we have created. like rockets that go to the moon, keyhole microscopic surgery, life-saving vaccines, buildings that go up to 163 floors high, and computer technology are just a few of them...

We were talking about being kind, and how this doesn't have to be grand and big, even the smallest things can make a difference. With this being the case, it is easy to think that we can learn to be this way and not just do this from time to time. We are all creatures of habit, and it is about forming habits that enable us to stay in good patterns, that are essential to long-lasting change. To liv...

We can all look and see some terrible things at the moment happening all over the world. It can be hard to quantify that people can behave in this way to other people and cause them harm in this way. When we see these things happening in other parts of our world it can often make us feel quite helpless in how we can change or even help what is happening. At times like this, we have to take a step...

Life is a medley of many different feelings, thoughts, memories and experiences. It can be very easy to get pulled down by the negative ones and stop us from taking pleasure in the other things in our lives. Often just being present and in the moment, just finding things that we can gain pleasure in and emanate that out, can make a big difference to how we feel. Maybe we see children playing and l...

Time is a precious thing, as each moment that we get in life is something we can only have once and when it's gone, it never comes back. Change can seem a scary thing and often we put things off because of fear. What is super important is that we acknowledge this, and don’t make excuses to hide our fears and stop us from moving forward and harnessing that moment. Our primaeval part of our unconsci...

We can all get anxious from time to time and this is quite normal for all of us. But if we are letting this anxiety and worry overtake us, it could then cause us lots of issues on a day-to-day basis. With anxiety, this can either come in an instant, maybe we see or hear something that makes us jump or shocks us; at those times we can become instantly anxious. The other way with anxiety can be that...

We are seeing much instability in our world at the moment and for many of us, we can feel the impact this has on our feelings of peace and safety. It is a time that we need to offer support to those that need us but also to give ourselves the inner strength we need to help us keep peace within us. Often when things upset us or don't go the way we had expected them to go, it can cause a host of fee...

When we get stressed, we not only feel this in our minds, by making our minds become a bit like scrambled eggs; as we have looked at already in other blogs, our bodies get anxious in all sorts of different ways. Understanding this is key to helping not continue to live this way with all those negative impacts that we feel when we are stressed. I do think for many of us life is a roller coaster, an...

In the last blog, we were looking at worrying and the impact on not only our minds, but our bodies too. In this blog we want to explore one area of how our bodies can respond to stress. If we worry and get anxious, we will more than likely be impacting our breathing patterns. Our breath is such an important aspect of being alive, if we haven't taken a breath, in just a few minutes our bodies will...

We all worry from time to time and that is quite normal, but if we let these worries get out of hand, we can cause ourselves lots of issues. Worrying is not just sometimes what we do in our minds but is also something that our bodies do on many different levels. It is so easy for our minds to push worry into our bodies, and it can be done on such a deep level of our unconscious mind, we might not...

We have been looking at ways to help keep your mind in a clear place and help you feel more relaxed and get those good night’s sleep that we all crave.  If our minds are full of life, thoughts, options, worries, fears, and the burdens of our life, being in a calm place won't come that easily. Even if we think we are coping well, it doesn't mean that we are coping the same way on an unconsciou...

We have been looking at finding ways to take down stress levels so that you not only feel more relaxed, but you also can sleep better. If our lives are messy, then our inner minds will also be messy. We all carry our lives around with us in our heads, we can't help it, it is how our mind works . So, if we can't change this then we have to look to change how much of our lives that we are carrying a...

Last week we were looking at ways to help you switch off from work and allow your mind to relax better and in turn, help you get a better night's sleep. It is important that we support our minds, or they can easily get overwhelmed with things, the more we carry, the more difficult it will be to switch off. Let's use the analogy of the library again as this is a great way to help you see better how...