Mental Health Commissioner for South Australia

25/07/2025

Weekend Reflections #3: Flipping from Freakout to Fine

Welcome to the third instalment of “what I’ve learned about my own mental health” a.k.a: “things I try before crying under a desk.”

This week: anxiety.

Not the slow-burn kind. The jittery, brain-looping kind. The kind that waits till you’re just about to fall asleep and then says “right, now that I have your attention, there’s some things we still need to worry about…”

Over the years, I’ve learned that sometimes you don’t need a deep dive into your childhood. You just need to flip the circuit breaker.

Here are a few weird, fast, actually evidence-based things that sometimes help me do that:

1. Hold a warm mug
Not metaphorically. An actual warm mug. When your hands feel warm, your body gets the signal that you’re safe. Bonus points if it’s tea you forget to drink.
(Vagal nerve stimulation via warmth. Real thing.)

2. Bite an imaginary lemon
Close your eyes and vividly imagine biting into a lemon or orange. Your mouth waters, your body gets distracted, and your nervous system goes “oh — not dying.”
(Sensory redirection. Surprisingly effective.)

3. Hum like no one’s listening
Pick a song. Or a note. Hum it. Activates your vagus nerve. Plus, no one’s ever panicked mid-Neighbours theme. (You’re humming it now aren’t you!)

4. Do a power pose in the bathroom
Stand like a superhero for 2 minutes. Shoulders back, chin up, hands on hips.
(Look up Amy Cuddy. Harvard.)

5. Left nostril breathing
Close your right nostril and breathe through the left. another vagal tone truck to calm the nervous system. Also stops the doomscroll loop ‘cause your thumbs preoccupied).

6. Doodle something dumb
Your brain can’t stay in threat mode while drawing your name backwards or a badly proportioned llama.
(Bonus: you made a llama.)

I keep a little menu of these for when I can’t think straight. Some days they work. Some don’t. But they give me a starting point.

Just a personal reflection, not advice, and not a substitute for professional support.

Got a weird trick that helps you out of an anxious spiral? Share it.

24/07/2025

Winter can be a tough season. We stay in more. We go quiet. It’s easy to feel like we’re waiting for things to pass - the cold, the gloom, the news cycle.

That’s why Illuminate Adelaide is so clever. It's been a week since I went, and it's finished for this year, but I'm still thinking about it.
Illuminate arrives when we need it most. Not just for the economy or local businesses - though yes, restaurants full of people again is a beautiful thing. But for the soul.

I wandered through Night Visions and the faces in the trees stopped me. Gentle, ghostlike, calm. Like Kaurna ancestors watching quietly, asking us to remember what matters. Country. Each other. Presence.

Further along, I watched a projection of an Adelaide sunrise, set to an original music composition that actually slowed my breathing. I could feel the idea forming in someone’s mind months ago, and now here it was, huge, glowing, unfolding on the backdrop of our beautiful Botanic Gardens. That’s the power of creativity. You can think something into existence and make people feel it.

You can’t walk away from it without feeling something shift. The negativity that usually fills the air felt quieter. It reminded me there are still moments ahead that can move us. Experiences to share with friends. Ideas to chase. Things worth hoping for.

Mental health isn’t always about talking. Sometimes it’s about atmosphere. Awe. Art. A feeling of being part of something beautiful.

Did you see anything at Illuminate that stayed with you? What sparked something for you?

24/07/2025

I only just watched Julie Goodwin’s interview on The Project, even though it aired last year. Her honesty about suicidality and the strangers who helped her stay felt raw and important. Earlier this year, Heston Blumenthal, who I’ve always admired, opened up about his bipolar diagnosis and the slow build-up of pressure.

Both are chefs. Both chose to speak publicly about mental health.

I used to work in kitchens too. The intensity, the long hours, the pressure to keep it together while everything moves at full speed - it stays in your body. If you’re in hospo and struggling, there’s a brilliant Facebook group called Chefs With Issues. Peer-led, no judgement, and it’s helped a lot of people feel less alone.

In the storytelling work I do, we talk about safety. Not just for the audience, but for the person sharing the story. Because truth-telling is powerful, and it needs the right care around it.

We talk a lot about needing training to respond to distress, but some of the most protective moments come from ordinary human connection. A nurse once brought me a cup of tea in hospital, and that still stays with me. For others I’ve spoken with, it was a colleague saying “don’t do it”, or just feeding the cat and waiting for the moment to pass.

That feeling of being a burden can be loud. But it’s not true. Check it out with someone you trust. You might be surprised by how wanted you really are.

Let’s keep talking about this. Not just during awareness weeks. These are everyday conversations. They deserve daylight.

22/07/2025

Sandballs, Sniffs, and Staying Safe

For lots of us, a beach walk with the dog isn’t just about exercise. It’s headspace. It’s connection. It’s one of the simplest ways to lift a heavy week for us and the doggos.

Our boy Chilli lives for a sandball chase. Ears flapping, zero grace, full joy. But the coast’s looking a bit different lately. Algal bloom activity has made parts of our coastline not as enjoyable for our pets, so if you’ve been avoiding the beach because of it - fair enough. But don’t skip the walk entirely!

There are so many beautiful dog-friendly parks and trails all over South Australia, maybe this is a great excuse to find somewhere new to play. Shady tracks, fenced runs, open green space, and loads of new smells to discover.

Here’s a few places to check out if you’re looking for safe off-leash play spaces for your pooch:

🐾 Fenced Dog Parks in SA -
https://travelnuity.pulse.ly/btiry5z0kg

🐾 Top 10 Dog Parks – Local Councils -
https://sa.pulse.ly/9jzoqdoqqr

🐾 Yorke Peninsula Dog Park Guide -
https://southaustralia.pulse.ly/mnsr1uashw

Enjoy a new walkies routine, don't be alarmed, but check for any alerts before heading beachside at https://www.sa.gov.au/algal-bloom, and give your pup an extra sniff stop from me.

If you’ve got a favourite local dog spot, pop it in the comments - sharing is caring.

21/07/2025

I’ve been quietly looking forward to seeing this, this week: LOWITJA – A Life of Leadership and Legacy.

There’s something grounding about standing in a space that honours a life like Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s. A leader, an advocate, a nurse, and a survivor. A woman who was once told she’d never amount to anything but who went on to reshape systems that had excluded her. She is an inspiration to me because while my story is vastly different, I too was once told I wouldn't amount to much.

This exhibition is a kind of medicinal history. For many, especially mob, seeing someone like Lowitja rise with strength and grace through pain, exclusion and responsibility can be deeply affirming. But it can also stir up grief, anger, exhaustion. That’s part of the mental health landscape of lived experience, what it means to carry stories, to inherit wounds, to witness power and loss side by side.

There’s no easy way to hold all of that. But spaces like this help. They remind us that leadership is not about perfection or power but about endurance, kindness and care. And that mental health isn’t separate from justice or culture or memory. It’s braided into them.

If you’re in Adelaide, I’d really recommend taking time to visit before it closes this Friday.

An inaugural exhibition ‘LOWITJA – A Life of Leadership and Legacy’ opens on Wednesday 4 June on Kaurna Country to honour and remember the remarkable life an...

20/07/2025

Happy (?) World Emoji Day! (a bit late, but still 🎉)

Apparently it was World Emoji Day last week. I missed it completely. No calendar reminder, no themed cupcakes, just silence. Honestly, they’ll make a day out of anything now. But maybe this one’s worth pausing on.

Emojis might seem silly, but research actually shows they can help us communicate feelings that are hard to say out loud. They act like digital body language - a way to soften, signal or explain what tone we mean. Sometimes a simple 😊 or 🙃 says more than a whole sentence.

They can help with emotional expression, and people who use them regularly apparently tend to be more socially connected or emotionally attuned. (Go figure!) But if tiny symbol makes it easier to reach out - I’ll take that.

There is a dark side tho - 'Adolescence' fans will remember the moment the detective’s son translated a string of emojis and suddenly the meaning flipped. It wasn’t flirty. It was dangerous. A reminder that symbols, like words, aren’t always harmless.

Veiled codes, especially online, can carry threat, judgement or even serious harm, especially when people use them to soften abuse or hate directly. And as parents, friends, advocates and mental health workers, it is hard to keep up with all the double-meanings.

So maybe I’m glad I missed World Emoji Day. Or maybe it's telling me I could try using them more, certainly there's some members of my family that seem to speak almost entirely in emoji (you know who you are!)
Anyway, I guess all this research around emojis for good and bad means I’m thinking less 🥳 and more 🤔about what these tiny symbols are trying to say... or sometimes, what they’re hiding.

💬🧠💛🌱🤝☀️
Talk. Think. Care. Grow. Connect. Hope. (At least I think that's what it says!)

19/07/2025

What a fantastic initiative!!!

We're introducing Social Supermarkets across South Australia to help with the rising cost of living.
These welcoming, retail-style spaces will offer low-cost food—no eligibility checks, and everyone is welcome.

18/07/2025

Weekend Reflections #2: On being just "Quite Good"...

Welcome to my second weekend of "what I've learned about my own mental health" - I hope you find these helpful!

Also, please let me know if you want me to answer anything in particular about how I manage my wellbeing, what I have learned over the years, or what people have told me helps.

So this weekend I'm reflecting not on "excellence" (it's overrated) on fact, our family motto is “The Allans: Quite Good.”
Not excellent. Not gifted. Not particularly inspirational. Just… quite good.

It started as a bit of a joke. But honestly, it’s become one of the healthiest mindset shifts I’ve made.

I used to be a chronic perfectionist. The type who’d rather burn out than hand something in late. Who thought “good enough” was just code for failure. It made me unwell. And tired. So very tired.

Lately I’ve been reading about rejection sensitivity and ADHD: how for some of us, the idea of disappointing someone can feel physically painful. Like the stakes are life or death, even if it’s just sending an email. No wonder so many of us end up perfectionists. It’s not about ego, it’s self-protection.

But I’ve realised that “perfect” is often just the price of never feeling quite safe. And that doing something quite good like finishing the task, showing up late but at least showing up, or asking a 'dumb' question is not a moral failing. It’s progress.

So if you see me doing a speech on the fly or a presentation that’s been written at the last minute, with one slightly questionable font and a spelling mistake on slide three, just know… that’s growth.

*Just a personal reflection — not advice, and not a substitute for professional support.

So... how do you manage to be "quite good"? I'm genuinely interested!

18/07/2025

Last night we launched something that’s been a long time coming. A platform that helps shift our thinking from “what’s wrong with you?” to “what’s happened?”

The Social Prescription website and Language Matters book aren't just new tools. They're part of a bigger cultural shift that says loud and clear that housing, job loss, poverty and isolation… these aren't side issues. They are mental health issues.

As Commissioner, I’ve heard too many stories that had nothing to do with symptoms and everything to do with people feeling unseen or unsupported in tough circumstances. Social prescribing gives health professionals a way to respond to that. Not with a label or a script, but with connection, purpose and support that fits real life in all it's messyness.

It was powerful to hear from Dr Sam Sterling a GP, Stephanie Garner from an HR perspective, and of course, Melissa Raven and Anthony Smith the authors of Language Matters, and to have the Deputy Premier Hon. Susan Close name this as something that could genuinely shift public understanding. I want to thank Professor Jon Jureidini for the invite!

We’re not going to solve problems with new words alone, but reclaiming language and recognising social context is a start. And so is making sure people on the frontline, financial counsellors, HR teams, and GPs have the tools to respond differently.

If you’re curious, the platform’s live now. It’s designed for health and community workers, but there’s something in it for all of us: https://thesocialprescription.com.au/

17/07/2025

Yesterday I met with the incredible team at MESHA to explore how lived experience, trauma-informed training, and robust research can transform support for emergency service personnel and veterans. These are the people who show up when we need them most, and we owe it to them to get this right. From skills-based psychosocial education to postvention support and family readiness, MESHA’s programs are grounded, authentic, and already making a difference.

Also pictured: Leo, MESHA's trained Facility Assistance Dog, who proudly offered unwavering support to me during my visit via cuddles and enthusiastic tail-wagging. 🐾

We’re committed to helping scale what works and strengthen care from the inside out.

14/07/2025

AI fear,… Don’t feed the Algorithm!

There’s been a lot of noise this last week or so about AI “going rogue,” and I get it. The headlines are loud. The algorithms can be wild. And the idea of machines saying harmful things hits a nerve, especially when we’re already holding so much as a society.

But here’s what I keep coming back to:

AI isn’t sentient. It doesn’t have morals or bias or love or cruelty. It mirrors us: our language, our attention, our input. It’s not a monster under the bed. But it is a mirror, and it is reflecting back some of the worst parts of human nature right now.

If you’re seeing hateful outputs, it’s not because AI is evil. It’s because it’s been trained, fed, or prompted with patterns of language that reflect some of the louder, and more yuk parts of our digital world. That doesn’t make it harmless but it does mean we have to all take greater responsibility for what it’s learning from.

As someone working at the intersection of mental health, lived experience, and tech, I want to say this clearly:

AI is just a tool. The outcomes depend on who’s shaping it, who’s using it, and whether we’re brave enough to demand evidence-based, ethical design. That means not feeding it garbage. Not sharing junk for clicks. Not confusing output with truth.

It also means amplifying the good. Building tools that protect mental health. Co-designing with people who’ve lived through hard things. Training models on compassion, not simply dopamine hooking content. Asking better questions.

If you’re feeling unsettled by the news, maybe this is the reminder: you have power. As a user. As a voice. As a teacher of algorithms.