What were your biggest fears in your growing years? 

I think my biggest fears were acutely centered around 'is this all life has to offer?' I wasn't academic, I was told I would only be able to be someone's PA if I could learn how to type, that I wasn't smart and the thought of working at Tesco or a shop for the rest of my life terrified me. I wanted more. I felt suffocated by how small life's options seemed for me. I believed what they said at school and knew I wasn't going to be a lawyer or 'an' anything. I wasn't good at a lot of things, mediocre at best, so it worried me.

How did you overcome those fears?

I don't think I did intentionally. I was always a rebel, always asking questions, always wanting to know why things were the way they were; perhaps that was how I started to address my fears, with curiosity, searching for something past them. But not intentionally. I dropped out of Uni. I waitressed, felt really lost and that I didn't fit in anywhere. It was only in my late teens/early twenties that I caught a break working on a commercial and fell in love or felt passionately for the first time about the work. It was an all-night shoot in the hotel, full of misfits from the director to the producer, makeup people. They were my tribe of misfits, and I begged the producer daily for a job until he caved and gave me one. Then and only then did I feel like I could be me, find me, live by my rules.

What were your workplace anxieties when you started your professional career? How did it overall impact your performance?

I only really registered workplace anxieties later on in life before I had my son. I can thank my scattered mind (probably undiagnosed ADHD) to focus on what I was doing and push through normal nerves etc. I had to deal with a lot of baloney from men in the workplace and bully bosses - but I think I had this weird toughness in me, born out of struggling to figure things out, make my brain work for me. That all my energy was spent basically either doing the job or telling people not to bug me. Some people were horrendous at the workplace. Looking back again, I think I called a spade a spade. Although I felt sad about not being great at my job, it spurred me to be better at work. Somehow, most of the time, my beautiful brain separated me and my abilities - that helped me laugh at myself or be aware that I didn't know what I was doing and that I was learning. I was also fortunate to be privileged enough to have books. Access to books was my escape into knowledge and learning at my own pace, which helped me find ways of processing. I also have had good people in my life who have been there for me.

When I got older, in my 40s especially, I realized that I had very few skills that would impact this fast-changing world or even get me a decent job. My beautiful brain recognized I had huge gaps but couldn't figure out what they were. Processing took longer and I was having a hard time with brain melt. This was, I think, my most anxious time, being a single mother, the world of responsibilities all on me. I had to start living in a way that was foreign to me and my brain, and that was, and still is, incredibly difficult for a person with a brain that works the way mine does (something I have been discovering as 'spectrum' in my 40s too). 

My anxieties though are managed by all of my thought work and self-coaching, learned from years of reading books, and a few jobs that I had along the way that were in the fields of future thinking and learning. So, I guess now I get around anxieties by being ok with not being good at something or feeling uncomfortable. I don't like it but I can manage how I respond to it.

What do you wish professionals knew about mental health?

Invisible diseases are debilitating. Many illnesses cause mental health issues as a symptom but also as a by-product of the disease. The people suffering can be easily helped by very simple things, the cheapest and easiest one being just a supportive space to say 'I am having a hard day' - the power of being able to voice how low you feel goes a million miles towards you being successful in your day at the office. Because you are not using all your energy to do any 'hiding' or 'masking' - you can say it's not one of those nice days, can we have lunch together later, or I need to leave to get to my therapist appointment - so let us get on with work now. I will holler if I need a break. It's astonishing how healing this simple, or these simple things, can be.

What are the workplace practices that can improve the mental wellness of employees?

Gosh, so many. A safe space, healthy culture, conflict training, same goal mindsets, in-house coaches, access to therapists, a trained counsellor on the HR team, empathy training, the list is endless - we are people working in environments with others NOT of our choosing. We need an inclusive and positively supportive environment for the team to be successful. It is time employers start investing in their staff - it's a win-win for the company and staff.

What are the major causes aggravators of mental health problems associated with work?

How people are expected to work, the hours, no flexibility, no creche facilities, no maternal/paternal support/leave, access to mental health professionals, bullying behavior, the hours, home or personal stressors with no reprieve at work, no dispensation of work time or duties for those that are carers of sick parents or young kids, non-inclusive culture or society, an 'over' anything culture (over religious, over judgmental, over KPI centric etc) that doesn't see the humans in employ, no safe space or safe people to share what's going on with them, bosses who want results and are not invested in staff, women who have no space to rise up without being made to sacrifice something and the list goes on and on.

Describe a "healthy mind" in your own words.

This idea of mental health being the opposite of mental illness or mentally unhealthy is an incorrect perspective. We all have mental health like we all have physical health, but how healthy is it? Now that is the question. 

I think if you have good mental health, you are your own best friend or ally. You have astute self-awareness; you are only in competition with yourself and look to others as motivators. You make good choices for yourself, and you can get yourself back on track when life gets in the way of best-laid plans and be okay with not being okay 50% of the time. 

In short, I think having a good level of mental health or a healthy mind is having the ability to 'recalibrate' yourself constantly along the way.

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