Tending to our emotional fitness
The Emotional Gym, lifting heavy weights, and thinking differently about mental health.
Although mental health advice and awareness seems to be everywhere these days, it’s still easy to see a big gap between acceptance of looking after our physical selves and tending to our emotional wellbeing. It’s getting better, which I’m grateful about, but there is still a clear stigma about mental health that is hard to shake off.
Things like:
“Am I admitting defeat if I can’t cope?”
“I should be able to handle things on my own, right?”
“Why do I need support when others are having a tough time and seem to be doing OK?”
These thoughts are not unique! But there is a way to reframe them to reduce that stigma and make emotional wellness accessible to everyone.
For example, people such as Emily Anhalt and Ben Webb talk about the Emotional Gym – the idea that we can think about and work on our emotional fitness in much the same way as physical health.
“Maintaining emotional fitness is an ongoing, proactive practice that increases self-awareness, positively affects relationships, improves leadership skills and prevents mental and emotional health struggles down the line. Think about it less like going to the doctor and more like going to the gym.”
How does this work? Let’s imagine weights at the gym, of all different sizes. Some will be easier to lift than others, just as events in our lives will be easier to deal with than others. At first, we may be able to lift small weights – small setbacks in our lives, for example. But there are much bigger weights that will seem like an enormous challenge.
(Alt text) A dumbbell and a bottle of water on the floor with a woman resting in the background.
Through regular training, we can be better prepared to lift these weights when they come along. This means we can better cope with handling emotions and dealing with difficult situations. It won’t solve those situations, but it will give us much better strength and resilience to see us through tough times.
If this sounds like preventative health, then that’s right. What does preventative physical health involve? The right diet, some gentle exercise and regular checkups is the general advice. When these are in place, the body is more resilient to illness, it feels stronger, it has more stamina and can rest a lot easier.
Emotional health is the same. When time is spent on growing self-awareness, nurturing positive relationships, accepting our emotional life and recognising our triggers, we can build resilience and coping skills to better deal with challenges in our lives. Practically, this means dealing better with feelings of anxiety, offering ourselves compassion through difficulties and experiencing deeper, more meaningful connections with others and ourselves.
Basically, emotional fitness is about being able to carry those bigger weights without becoming overwhelmed.
In addition, just like that 20-minutes spent exercising a day will prevent health issues taking over later, that hour set aside per week for looking after your emotional fitness will free up space in our minds that may have been consumed by worry, unhelpful thoughts or regrets that distract us from living well.
But even if you find yourself in a difficult spot now, it’s never too late to start tending to your emotional fitness. It’s tempting to think that once you’re out of this crisis or when you have time, you will reach out. Procrastination is so useful in avoiding feelings of anxiety, just as pushing ourselves to do everything ourselves could hurt us in the long term without the right level of support from others.
It’s true, accessing therapy for the first time can be frightening, just as entering a gym can make us feel out of place or completely lost. I remember my first gym experience where the machines seem like torture devices (and still may well be). If there’s someone beside us who can demystify things, talk through what we want to concentrate on and show us how to work on it safely and effectively, then we’re much more likely to be successful.
(Alt text) A person running on a treadmill at the gym with other people walking in the background.
If going to the emotional gym hasn’t been a priority recently, it may feel overwhelming to start from scratch now (and bring up a few worries about muscle pain!) To make it more complicated, there are so many resources out there once you start looking. Some are useful, some might not resonate with you, some might actually be harmful and not based on evidence-based research. It’s sometimes impossible to tell which is which.
So where to start? Simply, finding a therapist (or emotional coach) is about three things:
Ensuring they are a member of a professional body, like BACP, UKCP, NCPS or BABCP. I am a Registered Member of the BACP and a fully qualified Integrative Psychotherapist. What does that mean? Here’s a summary.
Finding someone who specialises in your particular issue. For example, I work with depression, self-worth, anxiety, grief and relationship issues, as well as professionals finding it hard to be their authentic selves.
Figuring out what setting works for you. I offer online therapy and face-to-face counselling in Didsbury and South Manchester for those who prefer local, in-person sessions. I also offer weekend counselling in Didsbury for those who can’t break away from weekday work.
Getting the right fit. Research shows the relationship between the therapist and the client is one of the biggest indicators of successful therapeutic outcome. Here’s what you can expect from me. My aim would be to ensure we can work well together, and a simple 15-minute initial phone call will give us a good idea of whether we can go forward with therapy.
If you think you’d like to work on your emotional fitness or simply have someone who can support you to get started, click here to book a free consultation call.
