S01 Ep26: How Your Mental Health Impacts Your Ability to Dream and Do (Part 1)

EntrepreneurshipHealth

May 7

Written By Melissa Wesner

May is mental health awareness month. As a therapist, it just wouldn’t feel right to let this month go by without talking about how our mental health impacts our ability to dream and do. In this episode in particular, I’ll be talking about how our mental health has the ability to impact our ability to dream.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
• Stats related to mental health
• Ways that our thoughts and feelings impact our ability to dream
• Specific thought patterns that show up when our mental health isn’t doing as well
• Ways that we can address our unhelpful thought patterns in order to access a more expansive state
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Melissa Wesner, (she/her) LCPC (00:23)
Hi there and welcome back to the Dreaming and Doing podcast. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and as a therapist and entrepreneur, I couldn't resist but take advantage of this opportunity to talk with you about how your mental health impacts your ability to dream and do. Today, I'll be talking with you specifically about how our mental health impacts our ability to dream and
If you're the person who's ready to skip past this episode because you think that this does not apply to you, stop right there. I hope you'll stick around and take a listen because it does actually apply to you and it applies to everyone around you. Even though we've heard people talk about mental health nonstop since the start of the pandemic, there are still a lot of misconceptions about it. And if I'm being completely honest,
I've asked myself whether or not people actually care about mental health or if they just like talking about it because it's the new buzzword. And sometimes I think it's just the new buzzword. Everyone's talking about it, so everyone wants to have an opinion about it. But sometimes I wonder, are people actually taking action around this, the companies that are talking about it? Are they actually taking action around it or are we just
We're just yapping about it. So before we dive in to how your mental health impacts your ability to dream, I want to make sure that we're clear on a few things. You should know that it is estimated that one in five people meet criteria for an actual mental health diagnosis. Now think about the size of your family or your workplace or even a place of worship.
and think about how many people there are in your family, workplace, or place of worship who likely meet that criteria for a diagnosis based on that one in five statistic.
During the pandemic, it was believed that that number was even higher with some sources citing that possibly one in three people were meeting the criteria for a mental health diagnosis. But even more significant and important than that, it's important that you understand that five in five people have mental health, meaning we all have mental health, just like we all have physical health.
whether you have a diagnosis or not, there are times where your mental health is okay, and there are times when your mental health is not, right? Similar to your physical health. Sometimes your physical health is in good shape, sometimes it's not, sometimes you have a cold, or sometimes you have a flu, or sometimes you have this annoying, chronic, pesky issue that keeps showing up. The same thing can be true for our mental health. But that's really important to know because...
Every now and again, I run into someone who seems to think that only some people in the world experience mental health or have mental health issues, and that is definitely not the case. So if you're well -versed in mental health or if you work in this field, those stats are certainly not new for you. But I also think that that information is not common knowledge.
because there are still so many people who don't realize that we all have mental health. And also because the reality that we all have mental health, that is not backed by our systems or our healthcare practices and systems. So for example, we all have physical health and so there are healthcare practices in place to ensure that we are taking care of our physical health.
For example, you might see your primary care doctor for a physical and lab test at least once a year, right, to check up on your physical health. And you probably see your dentist once or twice a year as well for checkup, cleaning, maintenance. But have you ever seen a standardized process in our healthcare system to make sure that we're doing a mental health checkup? I don't think so.
Like maybe after you've had a baby, there's a process for asking about your mental health. And maybe you've had a screening form for depression or anxiety that doctor's offices are starting to use now. But has there ever been a time where the doctor's like, well, it's time to go see your therapist for your annual checkup. We just want to make sure that everything's good in the mental health world. No, because that is not even a thing. So even though everybody has mental health,
we do not have systems in place to be checking up on people's mental wellbeing. People are not regularly being encouraged to see therapist. So all of that to say that as we're starting this conversation today, we need to recognize that we all have mental health. It applies to all of us, not just to some of us. And I'm gonna cut myself off right there because if I don't, I'm gonna be going on a whole other tangent.
And today's episode is not about that. Today's episode is about how your mental health impacts your ability to dream. But before we can do that, we have to acknowledge that this applies to all of us. So you, me, the person next to you, people you live with, just remember, we all have mental health, right? And it impacts how...
all of us are able to dream or maybe we have difficulty tapping into it. So let's get started. Rant over. When I think about dreaming, I think about a process that is big, inspiring, expansive, exciting, limitless and full of possibilities. When we're struggling with our mental health, however, that is not the case.
inspired, expansive, excited, limitless, and full of potential is not how we feel. And those things are not reflected in our thoughts. One of the things that we pay really close attention to as therapists is thoughts. We pay attention to our own thoughts, we pay attention to our clients' thoughts, and sometimes we're aware of our clients' thoughts because we hear the words that are coming out of their mouth and because they tell us. So,
As therapists, we understand that there is this very important relationship between our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions. When we are not feeling great, our thoughts reflect that and our thoughts follow the not feeling great. And when we're engaged in negative or self -critical thought patterns, we in turn often feel bad.
So let's talk about this expansive process of dreaming, right? It's easy for us to think big and dream big and to think expansively when we're feeling good and life is good, we can just go ahead and dream. Thinking expansively and excitedly when our life circumstances are a little rough and when we're not feeling great though.
is a little bit more challenging, right? Like if life is really hard and you're down in the dumps, it's really hard to be able to dream of life being different or better at that time because it feels like maybe I'm just never gonna get out of this. So when our mental health has taken a hit, one of the things that starts to go downhill is our thinking. And as you'll soon see,
It's really important that we are paying attention to the thoughts that are showing up for us, being mindful of the thoughts that we're entertaining. And we need to be the guardians of the content that we allow to take up space in our heads. At my counseling practice, we work with a lot of people who are dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, or difficult life transitions. And I'm going to talk a little bit about...
Ways that our mental health impacts our thoughts and therefore our ability to dream. Sometimes when we're feeling sad or down, like when we're depressed, we might focus on the past. We're thinking about past regrets, past decisions, past mistakes. And during this time, we might also engage in negative or self -critical thought patterns.
We're thinking negatively about ourselves. We're thinking negatively about others. We're thinking negatively about our circumstances. And we might also feel hopeless or think that circumstances are hopeless. The problem with this is that our power does not lie in the past. We have no control there. There's nothing that we can do about things that are done and over. We can't go back and correct things that have been done or said.
our power lies in this very present moment. The other problem is that our negative thought process does not allow us to access the hope and belief in the possibilities for the future that we need when we're trying to dream. When we're feeling stressed and anxious, we often catastrophize by making situations out to be a lot bigger than they really are.
We make a mountain out of a molehill or we're waiting tensely for the next shoe to drop. We experience a lot of what ifs about the future. Like what if this happens? What if that happens? And we have a tendency to predict negative outcomes. Sounds like anyone you know? When we dream, however, we are not dreaming of a future filled with negativity or terrible things for ourselves.
When we're dreaming, we're dreaming of things that are hopeful, exciting, and good. Someone shared this fantastic quote with me by Walt Disney, who said, worry is a waste of imagination. And when our mental health isn't doing well, our imagination tends to focus on the negative. It makes up all kinds of interesting stories. It doesn't help us engage in the type of dreaming that we've been talking about.
Some other common patterns of thinking that show up when our mental health isn't doing so well are things like minimizing the positive. We might have difficulty accepting compliments. We might have a really hard time seeing the good in situations while simultaneously amplifying or magnifying the negative. It's almost like we can't help but see the negative in the situation.
And so just be mindful of any time you catch yourself minimizing the good, pretending it's really not that big of a deal. And any time that you find yourself just focusing on the negative. I tell people that if you look for the negative, you will find it. And you've heard other people probably say that what you focus on expands. If you're focused on the negative, that will expand too.
Other times when our mental health is not doing so well, we engage in what therapists call black or white thinking. And this kind of thinking is limited. It's also really rigid. It doesn't see possibilities. It doesn't see or acknowledge the gray areas. It's either or thinking. It's either this or it's that. There's nothing in between. There's a lot of flexibility that's missing.
And so during this time, we might focus on limitations rather than on possibilities. And we need that ability to focus on the possibilities, limitless possibilities when we want to engage in that dreaming state. And when our mental health is not where we want it to be, we might also use negative labels to describe ourselves. We might also use negative labels to describe others.
or even our circumstances. And so this obviously doesn't feel great for ourselves if we're using negative labels on ourselves, like I'm a failure, I'm so lazy, I'm so worthless. And if you apply those labels to other people, that's certainly not going to feel great for them. But many times I find that some of the labels and phrases that we use when we're talking to ourselves or about ourselves, we would never in a million years.
say those things to a friend because it wouldn't be okay. And if we heard a friend talking to themselves the way that we're talking to ourselves, we would certainly take issue with it. So understand that if you would not say something to a friend, something that sounds really harsh is probably not a good idea to say to yourself. And it doesn't matter that you're saying it to yourself. Like I'm allowed to, I'm saying it to myself. It is still not kind and it's still...
will not land as something that is kind to your body. So if any of these things are resonating with you, maybe you recognize that when you're not in a good space, when life is hard or things are getting stressful, your thinking just kind of goes down the drain, kind of negative, self -critical, or maybe you engage in a lot of worry and what ifs, or just any of these other things.
that I had mentioned, you wanna pay attention to that. If any of these things sound very familiar, if you were listening and you're like, oh, that one is me right there, right? So we don't need to judge that. If you resonated with anything that I said, this is not your opportunity to judge yourself or to blame yourself or kick yourself in the pants. That's not why we're having this conversation, right?
But we are saying is that we want to be able to recognize the ways that our thought patterns impact our ability to dream and ways that our mental health can impact our ability to dream, right? Because if our thoughts aren't great, we're also probably not feeling great emotionally, but those two go back and forth. We don't feel great, we don't think great. So.
At the same time, we wanna make sure that we are not the people who are just talking about mental health or we have an awareness of mental health, but we're not doing anything about it, right? With awareness means that at some point we need to do something with that awareness and with that knowledge and information. So we don't want you to just be the person who's talking about mental health. If any of this resonates with you, we want you to be able to do something about it so that you are empowered.
to take action that's gonna be helpful for you. So you can be the person who actually meets with a mental health provider to say, I don't know, I heard this thing on this podcast and I'm just coming in for a checkup. I just wanna see if this is anxiety I'm dealing with, it's this depression where I've been going through a really hard time in life. Maybe I just got out of a breakup where I just had this really big loss in my life.
I just want to come in and see how I'm doing because I have some questions about how I'm doing. You can be the person who takes action. And if it is something that's mental health related, if you would meet criteria for a mental health diagnosis, there's lots of help for mental health. There's lots of support. There's a lot of great therapists, medication management. But if you need to be able to dream for yourself because you love being someone who can dream and think big.
then that is something that you can do for yourself. If you need to be able to dream because it's part of your job, maybe you are a visionary or a leader at your company or in your own business, right? We want to be able to do whatever is needed to help you access those creative juices and big ideas, but they shrivel up and they, it's kind of like where, where are the creative ideas anymore? Because they seem like they go away when we're not in a great place.
So we want to make sure that you're able to do whatever you need to do so that way you can get back to a place of thinking, feeling, and showing up more expansively. So in the meantime, right, here are some things that you can keep in mind to help you just be aware of your thoughts and some things that you might be able to say to yourself. One thing I often talk with people about is remembering.
just because I think it doesn't mean it's true. So many times we think that if we had a thought then it therefore must be true because why would I lie to myself? Well, just because you told yourself you're stupid doesn't mean that that's true. So that's a prime example. So sometimes we have to remind ourselves that just because I think it doesn't mean it's true. The other thing that sometimes we need to remember is that feelings are not facts.
If something feels hopeless, that does not mean that it is actually truly hopeless. If you feel unworthy, that does not mean that you are truly unworthy. So remember, feelings are not facts. And if you suspect that you have some thought patterns that have become habitual for you, there's a little strategy you can use called the three C's.
Catch it, check it, change it. So we can work on catching our thoughts. If we recognize that that was a thought that maybe I need to look at, we can catch the thought, then we can check the thought to say, hey, is that thought helpful, accurate, or true? If I think that I'm a loser,
and I'm going to check it, is that thought helpful? Well, no, it's not really helpful to tell myself that I'm a loser. Even if your critical part was like, well, but it's true, it's, you know, one, I'm sure it's not true, and two, it's not helpful. And so then we want to work on changing it into something that is more helpful, accurate, and true. So just remember, if you have some thoughts that you want to...
work on reframing as we call it, you can catch it, check it and change it. And the other thing that you can do is change the channel in your head, right? So if you just have a lot of negative chatter, a lot of chatter in your head that is not really helpful, I like to visualize a remote just like for the TV and change the channel. You don't wanna listen to this channel, you don't wanna watch it, change the channel and move it onto something different. So.
Again, there is no need to judge your thoughts. And one of the reasons for that is that you don't have control over what pops up into your head, right? But you do have the ability at some point to become more aware of the thoughts that you're experiencing. You can be more aware of the fact that negative thoughts pop up when you're not feeling great or maybe when life gets stressful.
And once you recognize that you're experiencing these negative or self -critical thoughts or engaging in these unhelpful thought patterns, then you have a choice about what to do with them, right? You can say, I am choosing not to entertain these thoughts. I am choosing not to latch onto them. I am not gonna entertain them, right? But just remembering that you don't have to judge yourself for the thoughts popping up because you don't have control over the thoughts.
popping up in the first place where your control lies is in recognizing the thought patterns and then working to change them. So an example that I often give people is don't think about a fuzzy white bear. I just told you not to think about a fuzzy white bear, but my guess is that your brain won ahead and thought about a fuzzy white bear, even though I told you not to do it, right? So this is a prime example.
Sometimes these thoughts just pop up even when we're not trying for them to come up. So we're not gonna judge that. We're just gonna say, okay, now that I realize this is here, what am I gonna do to make sure that I am not entertaining this idea and that I'm not feeding into it? I'm not watering my fears. I'm not watering negativity and I'm not watering this self -criticism.
And when you work with a therapist, they'll teach you tons of strategies that you can use in addition to the ones that I've just talked about. So that way you know how to manage these thoughts when they do pop up. So as you know, we are all about dreaming here on this podcast. And I want to make sure that we can work through whatever obstacles are preventing you from being able to access your ability to dream.
If you've listened to previous episodes, you might also know that I'm a certified brain spotter and a brain spotting consultant. With brain spotting, we can help people access a state of expansiveness with something that we call expansion brain spotting. In the brain spotting world, however, we know that before we can help people access a state of expansiveness, right? We sometimes need to clear out the hard stuff that's
getting in the way, the hard stuff that's preventing you from accessing a state of expansion or from helping you access more of like a dream state. And that's basically what we're talking about today is that sometimes there's some stuff that gets in the way of our ability to dream, to dream big, to feel inspired. And so sometimes we've got to be able to clear that out. And so if you have not been able to dream,
or if it feels like it's been a really long time since you've been able to, it might be time to address whatever it is that's been keeping you from accessing your ability to dream big for yourself. So I'm aware that there's been a long history of stigma and shame tied to getting mental health treatment. And I get so excited when I see evidence of this shifting in our culture.
I don't always get to see that sometimes I'm like, this is the same old baloney. Come on, this is so old and outdated. But every now and again, I get to see these little glimmers that say, okay, something is shifting. So one of those moments where I got to see the shift and feel like, oh, okay, like these are my people and I'm seeing a shift was when I was in a mastermind.
I was in this mastermind with super successful female entrepreneurs who are running these seven figure businesses. And in that mastermind, one of the conversations that would come up regularly was therapy. People would talk about their therapy, when they had their appointment with their therapist, whatever progress they were making in therapy, what things they have worked on in therapy, how that related to their businesses. And these women were not afraid to talk about
their experiences. So if you're the person who isn't a part of a community where therapy is spoken about or spoken about freely, I do want to reassure you that there are some really freaking awesome people who go to therapy. And you know, those can be your people too, right? Sometimes we just might need to make sure that we're in the right circles. Because as I've said, I've also interacted with business owners who
Clearly are uninformed about mental health. They're uninformed about therapy and it's clear to me that these are not my people But the people who are like yes, I have an appointment with my therapist and yes I'm working through my past trauma and yes I want to make sure that that does not impact it me and my business Those are absolutely my people and those are the people who are doing awesome things, right? That's part of self growth personal growth
And so when I see that I am just so excited for people to be like I am not into this whole idea of stigma I am into working on myself though and I am into living a great life so I'll like to say that I hope you too find your people and I hope that if you are someone who's in the market for finding a therapist I hope that you find a therapist who is a great fit for you And if you realize that you've got some self work to do
then to give yourself permission to do that so you can tap into your ability to dream again. And if you are in Maryland, know that the therapists at my counseling practice are always happy to help. Our office does accept insurance and we have great therapists who take their work very seriously. So I will include a link in the show notes if that's something that you wanna check out. But in the meantime, I wanna encourage you to seek support if you need it.
and to start paying a close attention to the thoughts that you're engaging in. This week, let's do whatever it takes to clear out the stuff that's preventing you from accessing your ability to dream. Next week, I'll be talking with you about how your mental health impacts your ability to do, because on this podcast, we want to be dreaming and doing. We want to do both. I'll talk to you soon.