by Tracy Bevan | June, 2023 | Tracy Bevan
Asking For What You Need Boundaries are not all about saying no to what we don’t want, equally important can be asking for the things we do, but that doesn’t always feel comfortable or easy. So how to do it? The answer is straightforward, you just have to practice, and it will feel unnatural to start with because you may have spent most of your life doing the exact opposite. Spend some time digging deeper because if you can uncover the reasons for an established behaviour this can be a great catalyst to support change. If you grew up in a family with strong opinions, or strong opinions on particular topics, then a sensible coping mechanism for managing the dynamic would be to take yourself out of the equation. Your own desires are something you have some control over, so by discounting your own opinion there is one less person in the mix, making family life easier to negotiate. Added bonus – if you don’t speak out, you save yourself the disappointment of being overruled! Time To Move On That’s all well and good as you start out in life, families can be tough for the gentle soul, but as a grown up these behaviours are not always the most useful. They can land us in difficulties as we try to negotiate adult relationships including the relationship we have with ourselves. That inner voice can be crying out to be heard but we’ve learnt to stop listening. After years of not expressing our needs we can simply lose the ability to discern what we actually want. We create so...
by Tracy Bevan | March, 2023 | Health, Tracy Bevan
The world moves so quickly. It’s not surprising that our minds and bodies can sometimes struggle to keep up. Evolution takes a long time. A really long time. We often forget because our brains are wonderfully plastic and constantly adapting but some parts still remember the stone ages like it was yesterday! Whilst we are capable of assimilating new information at a fantastic pace, the area of our brain that was used to dealing with ‘that shadow looks like a bear’ can find it hard to interpret messages. The input becomes conflated and distorted, from ‘nice headphones’ to ‘everyone else has those headphones’ to ’if I don’t get those new headphones I’m in trouble’. We are left on high alert, our senses primed for danger, watching for the threat our brain tells us is out there. Stress Is Normal We don’t always notice the daily stressors we encounter because they are a constant low buzz in the background but coming out of lockdown offered me occasional moments of clarity. I noticed the discomfort created by motorway rush hour traffic or being back in an office. These things generate a strain on the nervous system and require some effort, heightening our stress response system. Let me be clear, these are not bad things. We were born for stress, effort and challenge, they fire us up and teach us skills. The problem comes when we stop acknowledging stress and forget to do the things that help us come back down again afterwards. Without the self-awareness it also gets harder to connect the resulting anxiety with its origin. Balancing The...
by Tracy Bevan | February, 2023 | Tracy Bevan, Work
Acknowledging the value of staff wellbeing has come a long way in the last few years. The pandemic bought the topic into sharp relief and did much to convert policies into practical action. There was a genuine need to check in with isolated employees to make sure they were OK. If a colleague asked ‘How are you doing?’ it was a real question not a social nicety, and it felt like a safe space to say ‘Actually, I’m finding this really hard’. Because we all suffered to some degree, the global experience of Covid did much to narrow the divide between the, generally, mentally healthy and those who have experience of mental ill-health. The ‘us and them’ distinction at the root of stigma diminished. Mental Health and Mental Ill Health It’s a strange by-product of the disease model of mental health that we define our mental wellbeing in the negative. We refer to our ‘mental health’ when we are actually talking about ‘mental ill health’. In fact, mental wellbeing is much more than the absence of mental illness, and it can be helpful to think of them as two different constructs, not opposites on the same continuum (Cheavens et al., 2006). To use an analogy with our physical health; when we break a bone or have high blood pressure, we go to the doctor with the goal of getting it fixed but we are aware that the most important aspect of managing our physical health is the day to day maintenance; exercising, eating well, good sleep and so on. It’s this regular effort that keeps us healthy. Likewise,...
by Tracy Bevan | December, 2022 | Christmas, Tracy Bevan
Love it or hate it, Christmas is upon us once more! As I get older I find myself more often in the ‘love it’ camp but I still have to watch that I don’t let things don’t slip over into ‘The Season of Too Much’. If I do, I start to feel overstretched and it can become hard to enjoy even the good times. Too many late nights and parties can leave me exhausted before I even get to the big day. I know for some, time with family can be a celebration, but for others it can be fraught with trying to meet expectations, negotiating difficult family dynamics or a reminder of those we have lost. At times, Christmas can also feel a very lonely place, especially when, if you are to believe Facebook, everyone else is basking in the warmth of their harmonious families! On top of this, we add the financial strain that a commercial Christmas brings. We can forget to take time for ourselves and savour the joy of what can be a very special time of year. People are often kinder, more open and more generous. If we take a step back and keep mindful of the simpler moments then we can reclaim this season as a positive chance to connect with ourselves and with others. A Christmas Wish List of Your Own It used to be that by the time I finished work for Christmas I could generally expect some form of illness. My batteries had been drained and as soon as I stopped my body collapsed! I would spend much of...
by Tracy Bevan | October, 2022 | Positive Psychology, resilience, Tracy Bevan
This September my daughters left for their first term at university. They are twins so milestones arrive in duplicate. No dipping toes into changing family dynamics for me; it’s a head first dive into an empty nest situation, and it has churned up a lot of emotions. Will the loss of my ‘mum’ identity mirror the kicking and screaming of my younger self as I was dragged in to motherhood 20 years ago? Can I step back into the pre-child version of me or is she lost forever? Am I equipped to navigate this time of change and uncertainty? Luckily the answer to that last one is, hopefully, yes. Positive Psychology has offered me some tools that come into their own when life gets uncertain. That doesn’t mean the sea doesn’t get choppy it’s just I am more confident in my ability to float, perhaps even swim. So today, Day 2 in a childless house, my chest is tight. It feels like there is a tangled knot of something stuck there and unpicking the mess of feelings may just help me digest the whole. So here is what I have learnt about transitions, emotions and resilience. Emotions This season of change is bittersweet. Positive and negative emotions are jumbled together and hard to separate. The aim is to acknowledge these, trying to discern them as clearly as I can, without assigning judgements like ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For me, there is pride in my daughters’ success in their exams and excitement as they move towards adulthood but there is also sadness, loss, regret and emptiness. I accept I will...
