Creating a Culture of Mental Health and Wellbeing Within the Workplace

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

While creating a healthy and mindful culture in the workplace is often an agenda for HR or C-suite executives, you can shift the experience for yourself

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Mental health and wellbeing in the work environment is being discussed around the world in new ways. In these turbulent times, many people suffer from depression and anxiety, which makes the conversation of mental health within the workplace something that must be addressed. Companies that promote self-care and cultivate a culture of wellbeing for their employees, overall experience a workforce with healthier, happier people, which results in greater expansion and success for the business.

If you are on an exploratory path of cultivating self-care in your workplace environment, here are three tips to consider:

A Different Kind of Self-Care

Whether you are the owner of your business, in a position of leadership, or an employee, you can affect change. Regardless of your title and position, your choice goes beyond you and influences others. A great place to start to cultivate a culture of wellbeing is by looking at what self-care means to you.

Have you ever taken a moment to ask, “Who or what nurtures me?” Or do you focus on how you “need” to be, according to other people’s standards and points of view? Do you look at what nurtures you and follow that, or do you give you up to get others to like and accept you?

If you choose things because they are right in other people’s eyes, you cut yourself off which has an adverse effect on your wellbeing. On the other hand, the moment you start to look at what works for you and choose in that direction, your life begins to change, and you recognize that everything around you desires to contribute to you. Relax and receive the nurture and care that are available. When you are clear on what works for you, your way of being in the world changes. People are drawn to you. You become an inspiration.

Enjoy the Journey

Have you heard of the concept ask and you will receive? Are you asking for the things that you desire to have in your life, or are you asking based on what others have told you that you should desire? Or maybe you have decided that there is a particular image that you must maintain so rather than discovering what is true for you, you build your life to hold that image in place. If what you are asking for in your life is not based on what is true for you, it cannot show up.

Start to ask, “What can I ask for that makes me happy?”

This is not a question that you answer with your mind. It’s not about figuring out 3 things that make you happy and then you are done. This is an adventure, an ongoing journey, and the question is about gaining clarity and discovering what is true for you.

Ask this question every day, again and again. Each time you ask, what you discover will change because when you change, your ask changes, your life changes, what you can receive changes and expands. From that new expanded place, ask again, “What else can I ask for that makes me happy?” Remember, don’t stress an answer. Let the question do its job and unfold and you will begin to find clues about what brings you joy.

Let It In

Have you ever had someone tell you how amazing you are, or acknowledge a greatness of you, and rather than receiving their words of gratitude you blocked it? Dismissing gratitude is not caring for you and yet for many of us receiving judgment is much easier than receiving gratitude because it is more familiar. Every day judgment comes our way. Some judgments are spoken, others are energetic, either way, we perceive and are aware of them.

Rather than looking for a way to deal with judgment, which is a detour, you can bring about change more quickly by starting to receive gratitude, acknowledgement, and nurture. Let these things in and judgment will no longer be an issue for you because they will melt the intensity and relevance of judgment in your world, which allows you to be aware of judgment but not at the effect of it. Judgment becomes like an ant crawling on an elephant.

How do you let in more gratitude, acknowledgement, and nurture? By making a choice. You can start now.

Wherever you are, whether you are in the car, at home, at work, in nature, drop your walls and barriers and ask, “What gratitude, acknowledgement and nurture can I now receive?” Everything desires to contribute to you. The chair you are sitting on, the plants, the people, all these things are an energy, and when you ask to receive you start to notice what is available right in front of your eyes that desires to contribute to and nurture you and you can let it in.

A self-care culture in the workplace begins with you. Ask questions and discover what self-care is for you. Explore what makes you happy and add these things to your life. Receive the nurture that is all around you. Choosing these things will empower you and you will get happier. This joyfulness becomes an invitation to others to let them know that they can choose to care for themselves too. This is how we create a greater business and a greater world; one that works for us all.

You may also enjoy reading Radical Self-Acceptance: 3 Keys to Increasing Your Confidence in the Workplace, by Brandon Hawk.