July 8, 2025 • 21 mins
Emotional resilience is more than bubble baths and boundary talk - it’s about building strength to face life head-on. In this episode of The Wellness Connection, Fiona Kane speaks directly to listeners navigating modern mental health culture, especially those feeling overwhelmed by therapy-speak, social media trends, or pressure to avoid discomfort.
If you're someone who's trying to grow, heal, and show up fully in the real world - not just retreat into safe spaces - this conversation will challenge and encourage you. Fiona explores the difference between healthy coping and emotional avoidance, and why true resilience requires discomfort, not constant protection.
Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/
Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/
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The Beat of Nature
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fiona Kane (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
.
I'm your host, Fiona Kane.
Today I'm going to be talking alittle bit about mental health
and some of the things that Ihave seen coming up that I feel
like some of our awareness aboutmental health and our
acknowledging that we needsupport, those sorts of things.
(00:22):
A lot of it has actually beenreally beneficial and really
good, but some of it's gone toofar and some of it has actually
now become a crutch that isdamaging for our mental health,
in my opinion.
So I'm just going to talk alittle bit about some of those
things and some of the thingsthat I see that are concerning
me, and some of this is that areconcerning me and you know, and
(00:47):
some of this is, you know, it'san evolution for me as well,
because some of these things,you know they're tools that I've
used or I will use and they'reuseful tools, but it's like then
it kind of there's a point atwhich it's not useful anymore,
put it that way.
So the first thing to rememberis that when we're looking at
building, you know a strongmental health and you know when
we're looking at building astrong mental health and when
we're looking at any physical,mental health, whatever health.
(01:09):
When you're looking at buildinghealth, you're looking at
building capacity and buildingstrength and being able to cope
with life and deal with life andhave a certain amount of
resilience right.
So, whether it be mental orphysical health, it's kind of
the same idea that we want thisresilience and we want this
capacity, and so that's whatwe're looking at.
(01:29):
The problem with mental healthis we've gone a little bit the
other way, where we're actuallyencouraging people to be afraid
of their own shadow, and it'sall about safe spaces and about
avoiding any pain, and that isnot helpful.
So I'll just talk a little bitabout some of the things in
(01:49):
regards to this that I'm talkingabout.
So one of those things is inregards to boundaries.
So boundaries are reallyimportant and they're a strategy
that I talk to my clients about, and it is really really
important to understand whatboundaries are and what they're
not, and they're certainly notjust walls.
Uh, they're not walls, and butsome people believe that that's
(02:10):
what they are.
They just believe they're 20foot wall.
Put up this wall and then theydon't have to deal with any pain
or difficulty or challenge and,like I'm not saying, there's
never a situation where youmight need to put up a wall like
that.
Obviously, in life iscomplicated and there might be
some reasons in some situationswhere that is appropriate for
you, between you and a certainsituation or a certain person or
(02:31):
something.
But largely what the point ofboundaries is to help you build
capacity.
So what you might do is youmight say, all right, I'm
struggling to deal with that, mychallenging parent or my
challenging whoever it is inyour life, I do need to take a
bit of time out, because I justneed to recharge and recalibrate
and then I'll be stronger andthen I can manage this a little
(02:54):
bit better and I've built up mycapacity and I can manage it
better.
And sometimes that's a moreappropriate answer than just
saying you should never talk tothat person again.
Obviously, there are situationswhen that is appropriate, but
in general what I'm seeing is alot of people are they're
destroying relationships,they're spitting off from their
family, they stop talking totheir parents, and sometimes
(03:15):
it's over politics, it's overall sorts of things, and more
often than not that does notneed to be the answer.
Sometimes it would be theanswer, but not always, and
that's a thing too.
I've talked about this in, Ithink, last week's episode where
I was talking to Alison Devineabout this.
But I have a concern that inuniversities they create these
(03:39):
sort of safe spaces so they cango and color in in case they've
been triggered by somethingthat's upsetting.
You're sitting in a universitycourse and you just hear some
information or whatever.
Now I get that there will be avery small percentage of cases
where someone's got PTSD orsomeone's got a really severe
issue and something would beactually truly triggering for
(04:02):
them.
So I get that that exists and Iget that it's real.
But this is just like hurtyfeelings.
I heard something I don't agreewith.
I heard something I don't likeright.
So it's kind of what we've doneis, with a lot of psychology,
we've kind of turned it into ourlanguage and the way we talk
and we just self-diagnose and weall talk in this psycho babble
(04:23):
and what we've done is we'vetaken from something that, yes,
is real and is valid, but thenwe've turned it into an everyday
language and we use it insituations where it's completely
inappropriate and we use it asa shield to avoid having hurtful
feelings or having… discomfortor being challenged on an
(04:46):
opinion or being you know all ofthose things like sitting in a
just uncomfortable feeling,whatever it is, where.
Now what we're doing is we'reusing a lot of this psychobabble
language as an excuse to checkout of the world and not face
realities and not manage anddeal with relationships, because
(05:08):
most of the relationships inour lives are worth managing and
challenging managing whatever,but just doing the things you
need to do to repair or keep itin a way that works for you,
right?
And instead of doing that,we're just kind of like oh no,
I'm looking after my.
It's all about self-care andit's all about boundaries, and
(05:30):
we're using a lot of thislanguage to really shut
ourselves off from the world,avoid reality, avoid having any
discomfort or anything thatchallenges us.
And that's not self-care andthat's not helping you build
capacity.
What it is, it's just youdisengaging, withdrawing and
(05:50):
avoiding.
And if you know anything abouttherapy or therapy tools or
mental health, using the toolsto do that is not what they're
made for.
The tools are actually made tohelp you build capacity.
So you might need to take timeout and practice self-care and
sometimes put up walls oravoidance or whatever.
(06:11):
You might need to do that inmoments and then times to heal
and to, like I said, build upyour capacity, build up your
strength, go back into asituation.
But they're not meant aspermanent sort of just get out
of jail, freak out, avoid life,avoid challenge tools, because
that's not building capacity.
That's actually making youreally kind of weak and really
(06:34):
vulnerable, right, because theslightest thing can affect you
because you haven't builtcapacity.
All you've done is avoid thesituation.
And what can happen with therapyis, when you do go into any
kind of therapy, it can bring upa lot of grief, it can bring up
a lot of resentment.
You kind of suddenly have anawareness around how you've been
(06:54):
abandoned or how you've beentreated badly or what's gone
wrong in your life, and so again, you can kind of understand
that stuff and feel that processand move on.
Or you can kind of live thereand sort of start building up
your uh ideas of who your nextenemy is and where you know, uh,
who you're going to blame forthe way you are or the way you
(07:17):
feel, as opposed to kind of justgoing oh okay, I understand
what's happened, right, uh andum, then that's what people are
doing right.
So we're kind of, um, we'rekind of over adjusting things
and even things, even just theidea of needing peace, like
anything for peace.
And you know, or you even seethis language in when you look
(07:42):
at I was talking previously inother episodes about the trans
ideology and you see it a lot inthat ideology where if someone
doesn't affirm you or use yourright pronoun, apparently it's
destroying to you and that thesechildren, or even just not just
children these people are toldthat if someone doesn't use
(08:05):
their pronoun, that will, willdestroy them or that might make
them want to end things, andthey're kind of told that this
is the truth and that's kind oflike a type of genocide.
When someone doesn't use yourpronoun or whatever, that's not
building capacity.
Need the world to completelysort of run around?
(08:32):
Put us in, you know, uh, youknow, walk on eggshells and put
you in you know foam wrap orsomething, and make sure that
nothing harms you and make sureyou don't ever hear a word that
you don't like or that someonedoesn't misrepresent you or say
a bad thing or say somethingthat you just find hurtful but
that person didn't intend ashurtful.
And that's the thing with thepronoun thing as well.
It's like it's turningsomething that is someone kind
(08:56):
of just identifying someone wholooks like probably what they
were born as into.
It's this horrible, terriblething that that person wants you
gone and wants to destroy youand is trying to destroy you.
And you know, and reeling fromthis event, like, why set people
up like that?
I think, in telling people thatthe world has to change the way
(09:16):
they talk, the language they use, the way they respond to you,
the way they see you and andeverything you hear has to be
affirming and this isn't justfor that situation, but this is
just in general that, going backto the just general mental
health thing, is that you haveto affirm me and my trauma and
the trauma is another one, right, obviously, most people
(09:40):
experience some level of trauma,but there's different levels of
this, right.
But what we're doing now is,you know, hearing something you
don't want to hear is trauma,right, and it's triggering and
trauma and you know you can'tdeal with it and you need, you
know you need mental health timeand a lot of it's just life,
right?
So, again, there's real traumasand there are real issues and
(10:02):
there's real PTSD and all ofthose things.
However, what we're doing iswe're translating it into the
everyday stuff in life thatisn't real trauma or not to the
level of I need mental healthspace and I need to retreat.
It's just like, oh, that wasn'tfun, oh well, I'll be okay,
kind of thing.
So what we're doing is we'reusing a whole bunch of mental
(10:27):
health and sort of psychobubblelanguage as a way as a crutch
and as a way to avoid things inlife, as a way to justify our
behaviors and justify ourstances and as a way to really
kind of not grow up and notbuild capacity, and so you can
(10:47):
see why you know that's notparticularly healthy if you're
approaching life from that place.
It's, it's not.
Things aren't going to go sowell for you.
It is really important that welearn to have capacity, and I
had this sort of argument withsomeone once on online wait,
what was I doing?
(11:07):
But anyway this you know thesethings happen and you know she
was saying oh, I want to createthe world that is better for my
three children and I don't wantthem to ever hear these things
or go through this and look hey,it's a great idea, you want to
create a better world.
Good on you.
However, the reality is thebetter option and you can still
be fighting for the great world.
(11:28):
Wonderful, good on you.
But the sensible option isactually to build the capacity
of your children so they candeal with the real world.
And then if, in the meantime,you save the world and change
the world, well good on you,well done.
But just in case you're notable to do that or you're not
able to do it in your children'ssort of lifetime or as they're
(11:49):
growing up, maybe build somecapacity with them about dealing
with reality and dealing withthe real world.
And the world doesn't end whenthey have a disappointment or
when they hear the word no or,you know, when something doesn't
work out for them or whenpeople don't affirm their idea
of who they are, you know.
So I think building capacity isthe far more sensible option
(12:14):
than retreating.
So please be aware, like if youfind yourself, if you notice
yourself, using a lot of thispsychobabble language, be aware
of that, because the other thingthat we do is we use it as a
way of well, all these thingshave happened to me, and also
(12:35):
it's all the names, right.
So now I'm a all the labelsthat people use on themselves,
and some of them are related towords, words, fiona, words,
fiona.
Look, some of them are relatedto things like mental health.
So there might be diagnosisabout add or adhd or those kinds
(12:59):
of things, um, spectrumy things, whatever, neuro, neuro, spicy,
all that kind of stuff, andsome of them are related to
gender and sexuality and allthose things.
But but it's just like you seethese young people introducing
themselves and it's like oh, I'mthis, I'm that, I'm something
and I'm a survivor of trauma andblah, blah, blah, and it's just
(13:22):
like man.
So you start your whole day withall of this sort of stuff that
you carry around with you, somesort of armour and some sort of
um, I don't know the way thatI'm not saying all those things
are negative by the way of beinglike be whatever, you are
whatever, but it's just the waythat it's used and the way these
(13:42):
things are all carried around.
We're just avoiding doing liferight.
So and I've talked about thisbefore, I've talked about this
um in another episode where Isaid that your identity, who you
are, who you are as a humanbeing, who you are in the world,
that is forged, and is forgedby going out there and being in
(14:03):
the world.
It does not come from watchingTikTok videos and deciding that
you think you're a fox orwhatever.
It just does not work that way,right?
So when we kind of what we donow and I suppose because we've
I suppose COVID must have madeit worse because we had all that
time at home and too much timealone and I think having a
(14:24):
mobile phones and TikTok andthings like that have made it
worse because we spend so muchtime staring into the abyss of
either doom scrolling or likelooking at ourselves through
filters and things like that.
A lot of young people spend ahell of a lot of time looking at
themselves in the mirror,whereas when we were younger it
really wasn't a thing.
(14:44):
And so what's happening now iswe're living our life so much of
it just like in our head and inour little echo chambers of
groups of people that weinteract with online.
And the thing is these days isthat, because of the way
algorithms work, you can verymuch be in an echo chamber and,
(15:06):
look, most people are in avariation of an echo chamber.
There's just different levelsof it, and there's levels at
which you know that you're in anecho chamber, but you still
know about the real world, andthere's levels at which you are
in an echo chamber and you'vegot no idea about other opinions
in the real world and otherthings.
So there's kind of differentlevels, but essentially the way
(15:27):
algorithms and things work, theyjust keep pumping to you the
things you want to see, thethings you believe in, and then
you join the groups of friendsor the online groups or whatever
, who all agree with you and allaffirm whatever your idea is,
whatever your thing is right.
And so then what happens is weare not dealing with the real
(15:48):
world.
So the reality is, you know,when I was growing up is you
kind of went out and you got ajob and I was out working full
time when I was 16.
I was working full time in thecity in Sydney, and I just
learned.
I learned how to catch a trainto work on my own, and it was a
long way from where I lived aswell and I learned how to manage
(16:09):
how to get around the city andhow to get around the streets
and how to find my way around.
And I learned how to manage howto get around the city and how
to get around the streets andhow to find my way around, and I
learned how to manage differentsituations with different
people or different situationswith work colleagues, and there
was no safe space or safe roomwhen people were mean to me and,
believe me, a lot of peoplewere mean to me.
That's the reality of the world, but also the reality of being
a woman in the 80s and 90s andso forth.
(16:32):
Working in, I did a lot ofsecretarial type roles and
support roles, so things werequite different in those days.
So I experienced a lot ofterrible things, but I don't
like.
I also experienced a lot ofreally good things, a lot of
really useful things, and Ilearned a lot and I grew as a
person and I grew my capacityand I became more and more of
(16:54):
who I am.
And then I had some healthissues, which is kind of what
led me to down the track ofdoing the health stuff right.
But life, life happened to meand I engaged in life and I got
involved in life and that's howI.
That's how I became who I amand I'm still becoming and still
learning and still growing andwhatever.
(17:16):
And the same, as you know, I'vetalked about before my
experience with losing my mum afew years ago and spending a lot
of time with her and palliativecare, that sort of thing.
They're not things like as muchas that.
There was traumatic moments inthat, absolutely, and it was
very difficult.
That it is also life and it isnormal life and is what most
(17:37):
people experience and uh, soit's not kind of some trauma
that need it needs to be avoided.
A lot of it is stuff that youneed to do and and a lot of
experiences in life are rites ofpassage, like being dumped by a
boyfriend or losing a parent orlosing a job or being bullied
(17:58):
or whatever.
I'm not saying I know there'sextremes of this and I'm not
making light of the extremesinvolved in this, and the
dollies of the world the younggirl who ended things in regards
to bullying are not makinglight of any of that at all.
All I'm saying is that theresolution or the solution to
(18:21):
mental health issues is not tofall down a well of psychobabble
labels and kind of saying, well, I don't have to do it because
I'm this or I'm a victim, so Idon't have to.
(18:41):
Nothing's expected of me, or Ineed a safe space because I
don't like to hear things.
I need to be kept safe from theworld and safe from anything
that's scary or bad, that's nothelpful.
So, to live a healthy lifehealthy mentally and physically
a lot of it involves capacitybuilding, mentally and
physically, and we do notcapacity build by avoidance and
(19:03):
by making all sorts ofjustifications of why we don't
need to engage, just using wallsand and things, but just using
it all in psychobubble language.
So it's very justifiable andit's very okay and it's
perfectly acceptable, and Ithink that's where I'm sort of
trying to get to.
So a lot of these tools are verygood tools in their own way,
(19:26):
used appropriately and you knowlabels and all the rest of it.
A lot of it, you know it's.
The thing about a lot of thesethings is that there's something
in these things that's true andvaluable and all of those
things.
Problem is what we do is weextract from that and then go
over correct and then turn itinto things that are not true,
(19:48):
not helpful, not beautiful, notsupportive, not capacity
building, and then we wonder whywe're all such a mess, right?
So just something to thinkabout.
I just think it's worththinking about whether or not
you know.
It's worth thinking about howyou use language and how you use
psychobabble and how you are.
(20:12):
You capacity building or areyou reducing your capacity?
And same with your children andjust have a reflection on that.
Anyway, thanks for listening tome today.
Look, please like, subscribe,share rate, review all those
things, and I will talk to youagain next week.
Okay, thank you, and don'tforget, this is Real
Conversations About Things thatMatter.
(20:33):
Bye.
Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast
.
I'm your host, Fiona Kane.
Today I'm going to be talking alittle bit about mental health
and some of the things that Ihave seen coming up that I feel
like some of our awareness aboutmental health and our
acknowledging that we needsupport, those sorts of things.
(00:22):
A lot of it has actually beenreally beneficial and really
good, but some of it's gone toofar and some of it has actually
now become a crutch that isdamaging for our mental health,
in my opinion.
So I'm just going to talk alittle bit about some of those
things and some of the thingsthat I see that are concerning
me, and some of this is that areconcerning me and you know, and
(00:47):
some of this is, you know, it'san evolution for me as well,
because some of these things,you know they're tools that I've
used or I will use and they'reuseful tools, but it's like then
it kind of there's a point atwhich it's not useful anymore,
put it that way.
So the first thing to rememberis that when we're looking at
building, you know a strongmental health and you know when
we're looking at building astrong mental health and when
we're looking at any physical,mental health, whatever health.
(01:09):
When you're looking at buildinghealth, you're looking at
building capacity and buildingstrength and being able to cope
with life and deal with life andhave a certain amount of
resilience right.
So, whether it be mental orphysical health, it's kind of
the same idea that we want thisresilience and we want this
capacity, and so that's whatwe're looking at.
(01:29):
The problem with mental healthis we've gone a little bit the
other way, where we're actuallyencouraging people to be afraid
of their own shadow, and it'sall about safe spaces and about
avoiding any pain, and that isnot helpful.
So I'll just talk a little bitabout some of the things in
(01:49):
regards to this that I'm talkingabout.
So one of those things is inregards to boundaries.
So boundaries are reallyimportant and they're a strategy
that I talk to my clients about, and it is really really
important to understand whatboundaries are and what they're
not, and they're certainly notjust walls.
Uh, they're not walls, and butsome people believe that that's
(02:10):
what they are.
They just believe they're 20foot wall.
Put up this wall and then theydon't have to deal with any pain
or difficulty or challenge and,like I'm not saying, there's
never a situation where youmight need to put up a wall like
that.
Obviously, in life iscomplicated and there might be
some reasons in some situationswhere that is appropriate for
you, between you and a certainsituation or a certain person or
(02:31):
something.
But largely what the point ofboundaries is to help you build
capacity.
So what you might do is youmight say, all right, I'm
struggling to deal with that, mychallenging parent or my
challenging whoever it is inyour life, I do need to take a
bit of time out, because I justneed to recharge and recalibrate
and then I'll be stronger andthen I can manage this a little
(02:54):
bit better and I've built up mycapacity and I can manage it
better.
And sometimes that's a moreappropriate answer than just
saying you should never talk tothat person again.
Obviously, there are situationswhen that is appropriate, but
in general what I'm seeing is alot of people are they're
destroying relationships,they're spitting off from their
family, they stop talking totheir parents, and sometimes
(03:15):
it's over politics, it's overall sorts of things, and more
often than not that does notneed to be the answer.
Sometimes it would be theanswer, but not always, and
that's a thing too.
I've talked about this in, Ithink, last week's episode where
I was talking to Alison Devineabout this.
But I have a concern that inuniversities they create these
(03:39):
sort of safe spaces so they cango and color in in case they've
been triggered by somethingthat's upsetting.
You're sitting in a universitycourse and you just hear some
information or whatever.
Now I get that there will be avery small percentage of cases
where someone's got PTSD orsomeone's got a really severe
issue and something would beactually truly triggering for
(04:02):
them.
So I get that that exists and Iget that it's real.
But this is just like hurtyfeelings.
I heard something I don't agreewith.
I heard something I don't likeright.
So it's kind of what we've doneis, with a lot of psychology,
we've kind of turned it into ourlanguage and the way we talk
and we just self-diagnose and weall talk in this psycho babble
(04:23):
and what we've done is we'vetaken from something that, yes,
is real and is valid, but thenwe've turned it into an everyday
language and we use it insituations where it's completely
inappropriate and we use it asa shield to avoid having hurtful
feelings or having… discomfortor being challenged on an
(04:46):
opinion or being you know all ofthose things like sitting in a
just uncomfortable feeling,whatever it is, where.
Now what we're doing is we'reusing a lot of this psychobabble
language as an excuse to checkout of the world and not face
realities and not manage anddeal with relationships, because
(05:08):
most of the relationships inour lives are worth managing and
challenging managing whatever,but just doing the things you
need to do to repair or keep itin a way that works for you,
right?
And instead of doing that,we're just kind of like oh no,
I'm looking after my.
It's all about self-care andit's all about boundaries, and
(05:30):
we're using a lot of thislanguage to really shut
ourselves off from the world,avoid reality, avoid having any
discomfort or anything thatchallenges us.
And that's not self-care andthat's not helping you build
capacity.
What it is, it's just youdisengaging, withdrawing and
(05:50):
avoiding.
And if you know anything abouttherapy or therapy tools or
mental health, using the toolsto do that is not what they're
made for.
The tools are actually made tohelp you build capacity.
So you might need to take timeout and practice self-care and
sometimes put up walls oravoidance or whatever.
(06:11):
You might need to do that inmoments and then times to heal
and to, like I said, build upyour capacity, build up your
strength, go back into asituation.
But they're not meant aspermanent sort of just get out
of jail, freak out, avoid life,avoid challenge tools, because
that's not building capacity.
That's actually making youreally kind of weak and really
(06:34):
vulnerable, right, because theslightest thing can affect you
because you haven't builtcapacity.
All you've done is avoid thesituation.
And what can happen with therapyis, when you do go into any
kind of therapy, it can bring upa lot of grief, it can bring up
a lot of resentment.
You kind of suddenly have anawareness around how you've been
(06:54):
abandoned or how you've beentreated badly or what's gone
wrong in your life, and so again, you can kind of understand
that stuff and feel that processand move on.
Or you can kind of live thereand sort of start building up
your uh ideas of who your nextenemy is and where you know, uh,
who you're going to blame forthe way you are or the way you
(07:17):
feel, as opposed to kind of justgoing oh okay, I understand
what's happened, right, uh andum, then that's what people are
doing right.
So we're kind of, um, we'rekind of over adjusting things
and even things, even just theidea of needing peace, like
anything for peace.
And you know, or you even seethis language in when you look
(07:42):
at I was talking previously inother episodes about the trans
ideology and you see it a lot inthat ideology where if someone
doesn't affirm you or use yourright pronoun, apparently it's
destroying to you and that thesechildren, or even just not just
children these people are toldthat if someone doesn't use
(08:05):
their pronoun, that will, willdestroy them or that might make
them want to end things, andthey're kind of told that this
is the truth and that's kind oflike a type of genocide.
When someone doesn't use yourpronoun or whatever, that's not
building capacity.
Need the world to completelysort of run around?
(08:32):
Put us in, you know, uh, youknow, walk on eggshells and put
you in you know foam wrap orsomething, and make sure that
nothing harms you and make sureyou don't ever hear a word that
you don't like or that someonedoesn't misrepresent you or say
a bad thing or say somethingthat you just find hurtful but
that person didn't intend ashurtful.
And that's the thing with thepronoun thing as well.
It's like it's turningsomething that is someone kind
(08:56):
of just identifying someone wholooks like probably what they
were born as into.
It's this horrible, terriblething that that person wants you
gone and wants to destroy youand is trying to destroy you.
And you know, and reeling fromthis event, like, why set people
up like that?
I think, in telling people thatthe world has to change the way
(09:16):
they talk, the language they use, the way they respond to you,
the way they see you and andeverything you hear has to be
affirming and this isn't justfor that situation, but this is
just in general that, going backto the just general mental
health thing, is that you haveto affirm me and my trauma and
the trauma is another one, right, obviously, most people
(09:40):
experience some level of trauma,but there's different levels of
this, right.
But what we're doing now is,you know, hearing something you
don't want to hear is trauma,right, and it's triggering and
trauma and you know you can'tdeal with it and you need, you
know you need mental health timeand a lot of it's just life,
right?
So, again, there's real traumasand there are real issues and
(10:02):
there's real PTSD and all ofthose things.
However, what we're doing iswe're translating it into the
everyday stuff in life thatisn't real trauma or not to the
level of I need mental healthspace and I need to retreat.
It's just like, oh, that wasn'tfun, oh well, I'll be okay,
kind of thing.
So what we're doing is we'reusing a whole bunch of mental
(10:27):
health and sort of psychobubblelanguage as a way as a crutch
and as a way to avoid things inlife, as a way to justify our
behaviors and justify ourstances and as a way to really
kind of not grow up and notbuild capacity, and so you can
(10:47):
see why you know that's notparticularly healthy if you're
approaching life from that place.
It's, it's not.
Things aren't going to go sowell for you.
It is really important that welearn to have capacity, and I
had this sort of argument withsomeone once on online wait,
what was I doing?
(11:07):
But anyway this you know thesethings happen and you know she
was saying oh, I want to createthe world that is better for my
three children and I don't wantthem to ever hear these things
or go through this and look hey,it's a great idea, you want to
create a better world.
Good on you.
However, the reality is thebetter option and you can still
be fighting for the great world.
(11:28):
Wonderful, good on you.
But the sensible option isactually to build the capacity
of your children so they candeal with the real world.
And then if, in the meantime,you save the world and change
the world, well good on you,well done.
But just in case you're notable to do that or you're not
able to do it in your children'ssort of lifetime or as they're
(11:49):
growing up, maybe build somecapacity with them about dealing
with reality and dealing withthe real world.
And the world doesn't end whenthey have a disappointment or
when they hear the word no or,you know, when something doesn't
work out for them or whenpeople don't affirm their idea
of who they are, you know.
So I think building capacity isthe far more sensible option
(12:14):
than retreating.
So please be aware, like if youfind yourself, if you notice
yourself, using a lot of thispsychobabble language, be aware
of that, because the other thingthat we do is we use it as a
way of well, all these thingshave happened to me, and also
(12:35):
it's all the names, right.
So now I'm a all the labelsthat people use on themselves,
and some of them are related towords, words, fiona, words,
fiona.
Look, some of them are relatedto things like mental health.
So there might be diagnosisabout add or adhd or those kinds
(12:59):
of things, um, spectrumy things, whatever, neuro, neuro, spicy,
all that kind of stuff, andsome of them are related to
gender and sexuality and allthose things.
But but it's just like you seethese young people introducing
themselves and it's like oh, I'mthis, I'm that, I'm something
and I'm a survivor of trauma andblah, blah, blah, and it's just
(13:22):
like man.
So you start your whole day withall of this sort of stuff that
you carry around with you, somesort of armour and some sort of
um, I don't know the way thatI'm not saying all those things
are negative by the way of beinglike be whatever, you are
whatever, but it's just the waythat it's used and the way these
(13:42):
things are all carried around.
We're just avoiding doing liferight.
So and I've talked about thisbefore, I've talked about this
um in another episode where Isaid that your identity, who you
are, who you are as a humanbeing, who you are in the world,
that is forged, and is forgedby going out there and being in
(14:03):
the world.
It does not come from watchingTikTok videos and deciding that
you think you're a fox orwhatever.
It just does not work that way,right?
So when we kind of what we donow and I suppose because we've
I suppose COVID must have madeit worse because we had all that
time at home and too much timealone and I think having a
(14:24):
mobile phones and TikTok andthings like that have made it
worse because we spend so muchtime staring into the abyss of
either doom scrolling or likelooking at ourselves through
filters and things like that.
A lot of young people spend ahell of a lot of time looking at
themselves in the mirror,whereas when we were younger it
really wasn't a thing.
(14:44):
And so what's happening now iswe're living our life so much of
it just like in our head and inour little echo chambers of
groups of people that weinteract with online.
And the thing is these days isthat, because of the way
algorithms work, you can verymuch be in an echo chamber and,
(15:06):
look, most people are in avariation of an echo chamber.
There's just different levelsof it, and there's levels at
which you know that you're in anecho chamber, but you still
know about the real world, andthere's levels at which you are
in an echo chamber and you'vegot no idea about other opinions
in the real world and otherthings.
So there's kind of differentlevels, but essentially the way
(15:27):
algorithms and things work, theyjust keep pumping to you the
things you want to see, thethings you believe in, and then
you join the groups of friendsor the online groups or whatever
, who all agree with you and allaffirm whatever your idea is,
whatever your thing is right.
And so then what happens is weare not dealing with the real
(15:48):
world.
So the reality is, you know,when I was growing up is you
kind of went out and you got ajob and I was out working full
time when I was 16.
I was working full time in thecity in Sydney, and I just
learned.
I learned how to catch a trainto work on my own, and it was a
long way from where I lived aswell and I learned how to manage
(16:09):
how to get around the city andhow to get around the streets
and how to find my way around.
And I learned how to manage howto get around the city and how
to get around the streets andhow to find my way around, and I
learned how to manage differentsituations with different
people or different situationswith work colleagues, and there
was no safe space or safe roomwhen people were mean to me and,
believe me, a lot of peoplewere mean to me.
That's the reality of the world, but also the reality of being
a woman in the 80s and 90s andso forth.
(16:32):
Working in, I did a lot ofsecretarial type roles and
support roles, so things werequite different in those days.
So I experienced a lot ofterrible things, but I don't
like.
I also experienced a lot ofreally good things, a lot of
really useful things, and Ilearned a lot and I grew as a
person and I grew my capacityand I became more and more of
(16:54):
who I am.
And then I had some healthissues, which is kind of what
led me to down the track ofdoing the health stuff right.
But life, life happened to meand I engaged in life and I got
involved in life and that's howI.
That's how I became who I amand I'm still becoming and still
learning and still growing andwhatever.
(17:16):
And the same, as you know, I'vetalked about before my
experience with losing my mum afew years ago and spending a lot
of time with her and palliativecare, that sort of thing.
They're not things like as muchas that.
There was traumatic moments inthat, absolutely, and it was
very difficult.
That it is also life and it isnormal life and is what most
(17:37):
people experience and uh, soit's not kind of some trauma
that need it needs to be avoided.
A lot of it is stuff that youneed to do and and a lot of
experiences in life are rites ofpassage, like being dumped by a
boyfriend or losing a parent orlosing a job or being bullied
(17:58):
or whatever.
I'm not saying I know there'sextremes of this and I'm not
making light of the extremesinvolved in this, and the
dollies of the world the younggirl who ended things in regards
to bullying are not makinglight of any of that at all.
All I'm saying is that theresolution or the solution to
(18:21):
mental health issues is not tofall down a well of psychobabble
labels and kind of saying, well, I don't have to do it because
I'm this or I'm a victim, so Idon't have to.
(18:41):
Nothing's expected of me, or Ineed a safe space because I
don't like to hear things.
I need to be kept safe from theworld and safe from anything
that's scary or bad, that's nothelpful.
So, to live a healthy lifehealthy mentally and physically
a lot of it involves capacitybuilding, mentally and
physically, and we do notcapacity build by avoidance and
(19:03):
by making all sorts ofjustifications of why we don't
need to engage, just using wallsand and things, but just using
it all in psychobubble language.
So it's very justifiable andit's very okay and it's
perfectly acceptable, and Ithink that's where I'm sort of
trying to get to.
So a lot of these tools are verygood tools in their own way,
(19:26):
used appropriately and you knowlabels and all the rest of it.
A lot of it, you know it's.
The thing about a lot of thesethings is that there's something
in these things that's true andvaluable and all of those
things.
Problem is what we do is weextract from that and then go
over correct and then turn itinto things that are not true,
(19:48):
not helpful, not beautiful, notsupportive, not capacity
building, and then we wonder whywe're all such a mess, right?
So just something to thinkabout.
I just think it's worththinking about whether or not
you know.
It's worth thinking about howyou use language and how you use
psychobabble and how you are.
(20:12):
You capacity building or areyou reducing your capacity?
And same with your children andjust have a reflection on that.
Anyway, thanks for listening tome today.
Look, please like, subscribe,share rate, review all those
things, and I will talk to youagain next week.
Okay, thank you, and don'tforget, this is Real
Conversations About Things thatMatter.
(20:33):
Bye.
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