Emotional Health Check

Public exams are over. Speaking to an eighteen year old who had sat his last exam this week, he shared his feelings of relief but also worry. He was already thinking about results day; wondering if he could have done more, if he had failed.

I have experienced my own failure this week. The knowledge that nothing had really changed as a result was not as comforting as it should have been. There’s a horrible feeling that comes with failure, that sense of stupidity, of being a fool for thinking you could do better or even for trying in the first place. The feelings triggered memories of failing my driving test (a number of times) and the disappointment I felt seeing my A level results. Neither of which has prevented me from doing anything I wanted to. Those small feelings of defeat this week evoked strong feelings of inadequacy.

It is easy to find motivational quotations to help move on from failure. As a teacher it was fairly regular practise to educate pupils in the short comings of other ‘Greats’ in order to inspire and comfort. Examples like ‘I have not failed 10,000 times. I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will work.’ (Thomas Edison)

In order to adopt a positive perspective one must first acknowledge the distortions that failure often brings. Guy Winch, a psychologist, thinks that it is time that we close the gap between our physical and mental health. He makes the point that we spend more time taking care of our teeth than our minds.

When we experience emotional pain like rejection, failure and loneliness we are likely to go into our default setting, which for most of us is a negative place. We start to re-live past hurts and somehow convince ourselves that this current hurt is no surprise; we probably deserve it. Our inner voice is often so negative, if we spoke out loud those thoughts to a friend, they would be shocked. We are mean, hurtful and rude to ourselves in a way we would never be to a friend. One step towards emotional health is speaking to yourself with compassion. Take a step back and see yourself as a friend you care about, what would you say to them?

 

Another common response to emotional pain is rumination – going over and over the situation and dwelling on the consequences and feelings. This can easily spiral downwards and out of control. It is effectively like having a fall and cutting your knee, only to get a knife and start stabbing at it. We would never do this to a physical wound, why do we do it with our emotional ones? Distraction is one way of dealing with over-thinking. Guy Winch reckons just two minutes of distraction is enough but we have to keep making that choice when the negative thoughts come to do something distracting. It takes time and practise.

A quotation that I have found helpful this week is: ‘Failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.’ (Zig Ziglar) It has been helpful to separate myself from the process and to acknowledge that event was in the past. Today is a new day, with new opportunities and challenges.