Mind Works

12/01/2025

04/12/2024

It’s day 1 of advent: The Christmas capacity cup. (Image adapted from A toolkit for modern life)

Whether you feel like the grinch, or buddy the elf, Christmas can be a demanding time. So I’d like to introduce you to the Christmas capacity cup.

☕️Grab (or imagine) your favourite cup, mug or glass and look at the space inside- this is your emotional capacity. How full is it? Have you got plenty space, or capacity, left? Or are you near the brim like the cup in my picture, just about to bubble over the edge?

🥛How near to the top are you? The nearer you are to the top, the less emotional capacity you have to deal with things. At these times, even seemingly small triggers can have a big impact as you don’t have enough brain space to deal with them and before you know it, it’s tipped you over the cup brim creamola foam style.

🥃The key is to notice how full your cup is. Ideally we want to spot when you are not quite at the top yet, so you can do something to stop it spilling over. Everyone has individual clues that their cup is near capacity. As you get nearer the top you may became shouty or irritable, notice your shoulders tightening or have difficulty breathing. Often you can feel more stressed, out of control and less rational. These are your clues that you have limited emotional capacity left, and need to do something before the cup overflows.

🍵 there are lots of things you can do to help. Even just stopping to notice your capacity levels and understand what’s in your cup can make you feel in control. You can use this knowledge to identify and problem solve stressors. Letting off steam by connecting or sharing the load, taking time to nurture yourself or finding ways to relax, switch off or feel good can all help. Proactively managing your capacity by chucking things out is always good too (see day two) and trying not to add too much more in if possible.

🍷Christmas can fill your capacity cup up quickly with its multiple demands of nativity outfit making, presents to pick and the quest for general Christmas joy. Stop and notice How full you capacity cup is? Are you are near capacity and what can you do so you don’t overflow?!)

04/12/2024

It’s day 2 of advent for your mind. What do I have to do…. just read the post and mull it over (with some mulled wine if you’d like) and think if it’s something that would be useful in your life to help look after your mind, and how you might make this work in your life. The idea is not to create more pressure or add to your to do list (for you or for me!) but to share simple illustrated ideas to try out in your daily life to look after yourself in the hectic run up to Christmas.

For today’s advent: think about one small thing you can do today to look after your mental health and wellbeing. The depth and darkness of winter can impact on how we feel and what we feel like doing- could you do this one small thing daily to help your emotions? There’s lots of ideas in the picture to pick from, or think of one yourself.

If one idea is not enough, You can also get more tips and ideas in my books including ‘A toolkit for your emotions’ and ‘A toolkit for modern life’. And my illustrated cards ‘An Emotional first aid kit’ I may be biased but these are also the perfect sized Stocking fillers of course!

Please remember if you are concerned about your mental health then please speak to a medical professional for advice. In the Uk, your GP is normally the first point of call. For urgent out of hours concerns, you can also phone 111.

14/05/2024

There’s a logic here about shifting your mind out of the normal processes.

04/05/2024

From a trauma or neurodiversity point of view this can absolutely be true

04/05/2024

Also holding boundaries.