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In a world flooded with global disasters and mental health conditions like eco-anxiety on the rise, author of the bestselling self-help book, Slow, Brooke McAlary, unveils the pitfalls of neglecting personal care in her new book, Care.

Brooke McAlary’s own experience with post-natal depression was the catalyst for her self-care journey and marked the beginning of her career change from business woman to self-help author. After the overwhelming success of her 2017 international bestseller Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World, Brooke returns to share her latest tips to live a slow and joyful life, through her latest book, Care: The Radical Art of Taking Time, published by Allen & Unwin.

After receiving her post-natal depression diagnosis following the birth of her second child, it was Brooke’s therapist who first recommended slowing down. This wake-up call prompted Brooke’s change of pace and her ensuing move to the Southern Highlands with her family. Burned out by her past career running a jewellery business, along with raising two young children and juggling excessive commitments, the self-care author reveals how she knew something had to change.

Brooke says, “Looking back, I can see my mental health started to take a dive…I write about slow, because I need slow, it’s not something that comes naturally.”

Self care is important for mental health
Photo Credit: Nikko Macaspac on Unsplash

In her book, Brooke tackles the exploitative nature of the wellness industry. The industry has high stakes in profiting from the growing market for self-care, reeling in nearly $4.5 trillion and representing 5.3% of global economic spending.

With increasing mediums for internet users to be inundated by advertisements and marketing campaigns, it is becoming easier for corporations to exploit the rising population of people seeking solutions to stress and burnout. Brooke says, “If you are buying into certain elements of self-care because you think there’s something wrong with you, you become vulnerable to that marketing message.”

Wellness services have flooded the market, many of which have been accused of charging exorbitant fees and exploiting desperation. Brooke challenges the exclusive tactics of self-care corporations, and offers a more accessible path to wellbeing in her guide.

“Everything I write about needs to be accessible to everyone, regardless of finances, geography, abilities,” Brooke says.

It helps if you’re already well, you’re slim and you’re 25, that kind of mentality is what has attached itself to self-care.

“In keeping with the idea of accessibility, I really wanted it to be achievable for people who are busy, which is a lot of people. If you’ve got thirty seconds, you can spend those thirty seconds looking out a window at a green view, you can write down one lovely thing that you saw today or you could hold the door for a stranger.”

Walking outside is a form of self care
Photo Credit: Юлія Вівчарик on Unsplash

Brooke unpacks the ideas of ‘Big Care’ and ‘Small Care’, and their significance in the past year where ‘Big Care’ has had a major global impact of “upheaval and collective grief,” with the climate change crisis and the COVID19 pandemic. While she acknowledges that these two types of ‘care’ don’t exist in a vacuum, she also identifies why we need to prioritise the ‘Small Care’ sometimes.

Brooke says, “I realised I had spent so much time and energy caring about all of these big, important global collective issues like climate change, COVID, the national grief we’re all feeling as a result of last year’s bushfires, but what I had neglected was the other end of the spectrum of care, the small acts of care.

“That is the genesis of the spectrum of care I talk about in the book. The reason we need to start spending more time on the smaller end of the spectrum.”

Brooke’s call for greater self-care and mental health awareness is all the more pertinent, with stress and burnout rapidly increasing among the population. Asana’s global study found that 4 in 5 Australians in white-collar jobs suffered burnout in 2020.

While a variety of symptoms are reported, the main signs often include:

  1. Fatigue
  2. Brain Fog
  3. Maladaptive Daydreaming
  4. Lack of Motivation
  5. Sleep Issues
  6. Frequent Illness

With smartphone users clocking in 3 hours and 15 minutes a day and technology infiltrating all aspects of people’s lives, Care brings to light the role technology plays in exacerbating burnout and stress.

Fighting the temptation to keep scrolling on social media is hard when “it feels good in the short term because it releases dopamine”, Brooke says, but she maintains the need to substitute internet usage with more fulfilling activities.

Our phones, our laptops, our screens can be viewed much more like a tool… something you use for a job and then you put it away.

Brooke advises people to partake in hands-on activities outside of technology, suggesting that physical activities like yoga can positively affect the brain and even just “looking into the eyes of animals can release oxytocin”, also known as the love hormone.’

Looking into the eyes of animals produces oxytocin
Photo Credit: Nachelle Nocom on Unsplash

Brooke says, “If there’s an opportunity to go for a walk, or to sit and do something tech-related, I use that information for motivation.”

In her own life, Brooke has implemented this concept for her family, with her children creating a technology-free ‘slow room’ to help reduce outside sources of stress. She says, “I started experimenting and started to declutter and was astounded to find the impact it had on my mental health.” It was this realisation of how switching off can bring joy that inspired Brooke to share this practice with her children.

Practising self care as a family
Photo Credit: Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

Brooke also outlines how ‘Small Care’ can affect our perception of time, revealing how anyone can harness the ability to “bend timeand alter their experience of its passage.

“As I get older, as my kids get older, I feel like time speeds up. That made me curious about why there were times in my life where time seemed to feel like more,” Brooke says.

Research shows that our perception of time changes as we grow older. When we’re a child everything is new.  As a result, time feels like it goes on for longer… That is the simplest way to bend time.

Brooke says when people’s lives become monotonous and repetitive, the brain doesn’t hold on to those memories, thus creating the illusion of time passing quickly. In Care, Brooke encourages individuals to embrace the sense of play and wonder from childhood, to slow down their perception of time and make space for ‘Small Care.’

Featuring Brooke McAlary, author of Care: The Radical Art of Taking Time.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Brooke’s work, watch our exclusive interview with her below.

Doctor Elise Bialylew, author of The Happiness Plan, explains the benefits of parents developing a ‘beginner’s mind’ while trying to engage with their child’s world.

As humans we have a unique evolutionary advantage, with minds that can project into the future, solve complex problems and generate creative ideas that transform what is possible. However, this unique talent comes at a cost. With minds that are free to time travel between past, present and future, we get excessively caught up in future thinking that creates unnecessary worry in our lives.

But, in its most cultivated form, the mind can be a resource for our deepest happiness, and for the flourishing of all humanity – and the planet. We are only just beginning to understand the potential impact that meditation can have on the brain, but what is clear is that mindfulness, when practiced regularly, can lead to long-lasting transformation.

One key attitude in the practise of mindfulness is the ‘beginner’s mind’. This is the ability to bring a freshness to your experience, seeing things ‘as if for the first time’, which allows you to drop your assumptions, ideas and desires, and instead be completely open to your experience. I’m often reminded of this quality by my two-year-old daughter. When I took her to the snow for the first time, she became completely absorbed in her exploration. In mindfulness, we’re invited to bring this quality of attention and curiosity to our meditation practice.

Through beginner’s mind, the fog of ‘ordinary’ starts to lift, and we see our lives with freshness and delight. Rather than seeing what we think is there, we see what is actually there. This new way of seeing opens us to new possibilities as we step out of our self-limiting assumptions, beliefs and habits.

Imagine how bringing a beginner’s mind to just one day of your life could change how you experience your family, friends, work and the many aspects of your day.

Life can get so busy that it’s easy to take the people closest to us for granted, and not be truly present to them. The ‘beginner’s mind’ that we practise through mindfulness reminds us to wake up and experience the preciousness of those around us.

“The fog of ‘ordinary’ starts to lift, and we see our lives with freshness and delight. Rather than seeing what we think is there, we see what is actually there”.

Beginner’s mind helps me cut through the sometimes monotonous daily routine of motherhood and experience precious moments where my full presence meets my daughter’s, and I’m moved to tears. Looking into the deep, dark-brown eyes of this little girl, I’m overwhelmed by her purity and innocence, and the complete miracle of her existence. I’m aware that she is still very close to an original, non-separate consciousness that connects all living things; the incomprehensible intelligence of life is peering out at me, the intelligence that has transformed itself from an embryo into a complex human being.

Children are a potent source of mindfulness. These days my daughter is my main teacher as I navigate the extended, not-so-silent mindfulness meditation retreat that is motherhood. Some nights after book time, I lie with her and we meditate together. I’ve introduced her to the concept of meditation, experimenting with how much she can understand of the practice. We watch a teddy move up and down on her belly as she breathes, and she giggles with delight. Then we do a few Om chants together – there is nothing religious in this chant, we’re just enjoying the sound of singing in unison. We chant, ‘Om, Om, Om,’ as we gaze into each other’s eyes. To enjoy this stillness with a toddler feels almost holy, a rare moment, as we manage to maintain eye contact for a few minutes.

“These days my daughter is my main teacher as I navigate the extended, not-so-silent mindfulness meditation retreat that is motherhood”.

In these moments it often occurs to me that my partner, my parents, all the people in my life and the strangers I walk past in the street are also mysterious living, breathing expressions of consciousness. Yet somehow, as we get older, it gets harder to maintain this wonder about one another, this beginner’s mind. Somehow the complete innocence of my daughter seems to be a direct line to presence and pure consciousness. It’s this exact quality of being that we try to return to through the practice of meditation.

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love they bloom life flowers.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

Here’s an exercise to practice stepping into ‘beginner’s mind’ with your child, amplifying your presence as a parent. This practice can be explored with toddlers as well as older children. 

1. Decide on a time of the day when you have 20 minutes and dedicate this time to being fully present to your child and activating your curiosity.

2. Ask your child what they would like to do and follow their lead over this 20-minute period without suggesting other options (assuming of course what they are suggesting is safe).

3. As you engage with your child see them as if for the very first time. Notice the tone of their voice. Notice whether or not they make eye contact. Notice the different facial expressions as you engage in this activity. Notice your tendency to want to suggest something other than what they are suggesting. Bring awareness to your own emotional state: notice if there is joy, impatience, a tendency to think about all the things you need to do, then bring your attention back to your child. Notice all the details of their physical appearance as if you were going to draw them.

4. After the exercise find sometime later in the day to journal about your experience. Reflect on these questions:

  • What was it like to engage with your child in this way?
  • How was it different to how you normally interact with your child?
  • What did you notice about your child?
  • What did you notice about yourself?

 

DR Elise Bialylew is the author of The Happiness Plan (Affirm Press, $24.99) and the founder of Mindful in May, the largest online global mindfulness fundraising campaign that features the world’s leading experts and raises funds for clean water projects in the developing world. A doctor trained in psychiatry, and a mindfulness expert, she’s passionate about supporting individuals and organisations to develop inner tools for greater wellbeing and flourishing.