Emotional Health Awareness Day: An Opportunity to Check In with Yourself Intentionally

Today is emotional health awareness day. An opportunity to check in with yourself intentionally. To have conversations with loved ones, to see how the people are doing around you and to perhaps share with them how you are doing.

I’ve been thinking about it all weekend, because having been on quite good form I’m having a bit of a dip. It was the anniversary of my Nana’s death last week. 6 years. She died just four weeks after my son was born, and she never met him, and although by this point she was in a home and in huge decline with her dementia, it’s still one of my biggest regrets. My Nana was my safe space, the cooker of chocolate cakes and roast lamb, and the giver of hugs that smelled, for the first ten or so years of my life, of perfume and cigarettes. I’ve noticed this last week or so I’ve not been on great form. I realised I have been eating more sugar than usual.. for a while , probably since the beginning of the year, and whilst I’d knocked booze on the head in the main since last September I’ve been having the odd glass of wine or cider and it’s all feeling a bit chicken and egg. Is the uptick in consumption to do with stress or is the stress to do with the uptick? It’s hard to tell. So intertwined are these things.

It’s so easy to bumble along and bury these feelings in cake or whatever the crutch de jour for you,  happens to be. Convincing yourself that you’re doing fine and in the main we are. We are all managing, we are all just about keeping on top of everything, but how often do you have a conscious mental clear out?

My husband got back from a match this weekend and said that the trains had been delayed due to a person down, on the line. A far too regular occurrence, desperate if you are the driver, even more desperate if you are the cause. I wondered if that person knew it was emotional health awareness day today. That perhaps if they had known, it could have been the catalyst to strike up a conversation with someone about how they were feeling.

How are YOU feeling dear reader? …

…seeing as you’ve said ‘fine’ I’m going to ask you again. How are you…really?…

I invite you to write a list. Three things that are bothering you. Then write three things you are grateful for.

That’s it. No solution or conclusion. Just facts. Three things that are bothering you and three things that you are grateful for.

My last request is that you focus on the list of things you are grateful for… the list of things that are bothering you, I invite you to share that with someone you care about.

Sometimes the simple act of writing these lists can be the trigger for flow that we so desperately need for a reset. The negative list might flow easier - our minds tend to gravitate toward what's weighing us down. The gratitude list might take more effort, especially on days when the world feels heavy. That's okay. That's human but the trick is to start small. Big Thank you’s for your bed, your breakfast, your seat on the tube, your super soft socks, your trusty rucksack, your (fill in the gaps) because really no matter how rough things can get we have SO MUCH to be grateful for.

My Nana used to say that ‘this too shall pass’ and sometimes I have that on repeat as a mental mantra when I’m up all night with my son, or if I’m feeling low. She was right, she was always right, in the midst of emotional storms , it's important to remember that sunshine exists. That's why we need these check-in days, these deliberate pauses in our rush through life, these opportunities for conversation.

To the person on the train line - I wish you had found your pause, your moment to reach out. To anyone reading this who recognises that darkness, please know that while your pain is uniquely yours, you don't have to carry it alone. There are people who want to listen, who will sit with you in that storm until it passes, you just need to take that first step towards them.

This isn't about fixing everything. It's not about forcing positivity or denying that chocolate cake (or wine, or whatever helps us cope) doesn't sometimes feel like the easiest answer. It's about acknowledgment. It's about saying "I'm struggling right now" and knowing that those words don't diminish us. It's about remembering that for every person who seems to have it all together, there's a list of their own they're carrying.

So today, on this Emotional Health Awareness Day, I invite you to be gentle with yourself. Share your list if you can. Listen if someone shares theirs. Remember that emotions - all of them - are the greatest gift of being alive, the glorious part of being human. And sometimes, just naming them and observing them without judgement is the first step toward carrying them more lightly.

And if you're reading this and thinking "I'm fine" - well, I'll ask you one more time, just as my Nana would have done: How are you, really?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

With all my love

Athene x