The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Building Real Emotional Resilience: Why Self-Care Isn’t Always the Answer | Ep. 119

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 119

Share episode

Send us a text

Emotional resilience is more than bubble baths and boundary talk - it’s about building strength to face life head-on. In this episode of The Wellness Connection, Fiona Kane speaks directly to listeners navigating modern mental health culture, especially those feeling overwhelmed by therapy-speak, social media trends, or pressure to avoid discomfort.

If you're someone who's trying to grow, heal, and show up fully in the real world - not just retreat into safe spaces - this conversation will challenge and encourage you. Fiona explores the difference between healthy coping and emotional avoidance, and why true resilience requires discomfort, not constant protection.

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

Sign up to receive our newsletter by clicking here.

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking a little bit about mental health and some of the things that I have seen coming up that I feel like some of our awareness about mental health and our acknowledging that we need support, those sorts of things. A lot of it has actually been really beneficial and really good, but some of it's gone too far and some of it has actually now become a crutch that is damaging for our mental health, in my opinion. So I'm just going to talk a little bit about some of those things and some of the things that I see that are concerning me, and some of this is that are concerning me and you know, and some of this is, you know, it's an evolution for me as well, because some of these things, you know they're tools that I've used or I will use and they're useful tools, but it's like then it kind of there's a point at which it's not useful anymore, put it that way. So the first thing to remember is that when we're looking at building, you know a strong mental health and you know when we're looking at building a strong mental health and when we're looking at any physical, mental health, whatever health. When you're looking at building health, you're looking at building capacity and building strength and being able to cope with life and deal with life and have a certain amount of resilience right. So, whether it be mental or physical health, it's kind of the same idea that we want this resilience and we want this capacity, and so that's what we're looking at. The problem with mental health is we've gone a little bit the other way, where we're actually encouraging people to be afraid of their own shadow, and it's all about safe spaces and about avoiding any pain, and that is not helpful.

Fiona Kane:

So I'll just talk a little bit about some of the things in regards to this that I'm talking about. So one of those things is in regards to boundaries. So boundaries are really important and they're a strategy that I talk to my clients about, and it is really really important to understand what boundaries are and what they're not, and they're certainly not just walls. Uh, they're not walls, and but some people believe that that's what they are. They just believe they're 20 foot wall. Put up this wall and then they don't have to deal with any pain or difficulty or challenge and, like I'm not saying, there's never a situation where you might need to put up a wall like that.

Fiona Kane:

Obviously, in life is complicated and there might be some reasons in some situations where that is appropriate for you, between you and a certain situation or a certain person or something. But largely what the point of boundaries is to help you build capacity. So what you might do is you might say, all right, I'm struggling to deal with that, my challenging parent or my challenging whoever it is in your life, I do need to take a bit of time out, because I just need to recharge and recalibrate and then I'll be stronger and then I can manage this a little bit better and I've built up my capacity and I can manage it better. And sometimes that's a more appropriate answer than just saying you should never talk to that person again. Obviously, there are situations when that is appropriate, but in general what I'm seeing is a lot of people are they're destroying relationships, they're spitting off from their family, they stop talking to their parents, and sometimes it's over politics, it's over all sorts of things, and more often than not that does not need to be the answer. Sometimes it would be the answer, but not always, and that's a thing too.

Fiona Kane:

I've talked about this in, I think, last week's episode where I was talking to Alison Devine about this. But I have a concern that in universities they create these sort of safe spaces so they can go and color in in case they've been triggered by something that's upsetting. You're sitting in a university course and you just hear some information or whatever. Now I get that there will be a very small percentage of cases where someone's got PTSD or someone's got a really severe issue and something would be actually truly triggering for them. So I get that that exists and I get that it's real. But this is just like hurty feelings. I heard something I don't agree with. I heard something I don't like right.

Fiona Kane:

So it's kind of what we've done is, with a lot of psychology, we've kind of turned it into our language and the way we talk and we just self-diagnose and we all talk in this psycho babble and what we've done is we've taken from something that, yes, is real and is valid, but then we've turned it into an everyday language and we use it in situations where it's completely inappropriate and we use it as a shield to avoid having hurtful feelings or having… discomfort or being challenged on an opinion or being you know all of those things like sitting in a just uncomfortable feeling, whatever it is, where. Now what we're doing is we're using a lot of this psychobabble language as an excuse to check out of the world and not face realities and not manage and deal with relationships, because most of the relationships in our lives are worth managing and challenging managing whatever, but just doing the things you need to do to repair or keep it in a way that works for you, right? And instead of doing that, we're just kind of like oh no, I'm looking after my. It's all about self-care and it's all about boundaries, and we're using a lot of this language to really shut ourselves off from the world, avoid reality, avoid having any discomfort or anything that challenges us. And that's not self-care and that's not helping you build capacity. What it is, it's just you disengaging, withdrawing and avoiding.

Fiona Kane:

And if you know anything about therapy or therapy tools or mental health, using the tools to do that is not what they're made for. The tools are actually made to help you build capacity. So you might need to take time out and practice self-care and sometimes put up walls or avoidance or whatever. You might need to do that in moments and then times to heal and to, like I said, build up your capacity, build up your strength, go back into a situation. But they're not meant as permanent sort of just get out of jail, freak out, avoid life, avoid challenge tools, because that's not building capacity. That's actually making you really kind of weak and really vulnerable, right, because the slightest thing can affect you because you haven't built capacity. All you've done is avoid the situation.

Fiona Kane:

And what can happen with therapy is, when you do go into any kind of therapy, it can bring up a lot of grief, it can bring up a lot of resentment. You kind of suddenly have an awareness around how you've been abandoned or how you've been treated badly or what's gone wrong in your life, and so again, you can kind of understand that stuff and feel that process and move on. Or you can kind of live there and sort of start building up your uh ideas of who your next enemy is and where you know, uh, who you're going to blame for the way you are or the way you feel, as opposed to kind of just going oh okay, I understand what's happened, right, uh and um, then that's what people are doing right. So we're kind of, um, we're kind of over adjusting things and even things, even just the idea of needing peace, like anything for peace. And you know, or you even see this language in when you look at I was talking previously in other episodes about the trans ideology and you see it a lot in that ideology where if someone doesn't affirm you or use your right pronoun, apparently it's destroying to you and that these children, or even just not just children these people are told that if someone doesn't use their pronoun, that will, will destroy them or that might make them want to end things, and they're kind of told that this is the truth and that's kind of like a type of genocide. When someone doesn't use your pronoun or whatever, that's not building capacity. Need the world to completely sort of run around? Put us in, you know, uh, you know, walk on eggshells and put you in you know foam wrap or something, and make sure that nothing harms you and make sure you don't ever hear a word that you don't like or that someone doesn't misrepresent you or say a bad thing or say something that you just find hurtful but that person didn't intend as hurtful. And that's the thing with the pronoun thing as well. It's like it's turning something that is someone kind of just identifying someone who looks like probably what they were born as into. It's this horrible, terrible thing that that person wants you gone and wants to destroy you and is trying to destroy you. And you know, and reeling from this event, like, why set people up like that?

Fiona Kane:

I think, in telling people that the world has to change the way they talk, the language they use, the way they respond to you, the way they see you and and everything you hear has to be affirming and this isn't just for that situation, but this is just in general that, going back to the just general mental health thing, is that you have to affirm me and my trauma and the trauma is another one, right, obviously, most people experience some level of trauma, but there's different levels of this, right. But what we're doing now is, you know, hearing something you don't want to hear is trauma, right, and it's triggering and trauma and you know you can't deal with it and you need, you know you need mental health time and a lot of it's just life, right? So, again, there's real traumas and there are real issues and there's real PTSD and all of those things. However, what we're doing is we're translating it into the everyday stuff in life that isn't real trauma or not to the level of I need mental health space and I need to retreat. It's just like, oh, that wasn't fun, oh well, I'll be okay, kind of thing.

Fiona Kane:

So what we're doing is we're using a whole bunch of mental health and sort of psychobubble language as a way as a crutch and as a way to avoid things in life, as a way to justify our behaviors and justify our stances and as a way to really kind of not grow up and not build capacity, and so you can see why you know that's not particularly healthy if you're approaching life from that place. It's, it's not. Things aren't going to go so well for you. It is really important that we learn to have capacity, and I had this sort of argument with someone once on online wait, what was I doing?

Fiona Kane:

But anyway this you know these things happen and you know she was saying oh, I want to create the world that is better for my three children and I don't want them to ever hear these things or go through this and look hey, it's a great idea, you want to create a better world. Good on you. However, the reality is the better option and you can still be fighting for the great world. Wonderful, good on you. But the sensible option is actually to build the capacity of your children so they can deal with the real world. And then if, in the meantime, you save the world and change the world, well good on you, well done. But just in case you're not able to do that or you're not able to do it in your children's sort of lifetime or as they're growing up, maybe build some capacity with them about dealing with reality and dealing with the real world. And the world doesn't end when they have a disappointment or when they hear the word no or, you know, when something doesn't work out for them or when people don't affirm their idea of who they are, you know. So I think building capacity is the far more sensible option than retreating.

Fiona Kane:

So please be aware, like if you find yourself, if you notice yourself, using a lot of this psychobabble language, be aware of that, because the other thing that we do is we use it as a way of well, all these things have happened to me, and also it's all the names, right. So now I'm a all the labels that people use on themselves, and some of them are related to words, words, fiona, words, fiona. Look, some of them are related to things like mental health. So there might be diagnosis about add or adhd or those kinds of things, um, spectrumy things, whatever, neuro, neuro, spicy, all that kind of stuff, and some of them are related to gender and sexuality and all those things. But but it's just like you see these young people introducing themselves and it's like oh, I'm this, I'm that, I'm something and I'm a survivor of trauma and blah, blah, blah, and it's just like man.

Fiona Kane:

So you start your whole day with all of this sort of stuff that you carry around with you, some sort of armour and some sort of um, I don't know the way that I'm not saying all those things are negative by the way of being like be whatever, you are whatever, but it's just the way that it's used and the way these things are all carried around. We're just avoiding doing life right. So and I've talked about this before, I've talked about this um in another episode where I said that your identity, who you are, who you are as a human being, who you are in the world, that is forged, and is forged by going out there and being in the world. It does not come from watching TikTok videos and deciding that you think you're a fox or whatever. It just does not work that way, right? So when we kind of what we do now and I suppose because we've I suppose COVID must have made it worse because we had all that time at home and too much time alone and I think having a mobile phones and TikTok and things like that have made it worse because we spend so much time staring into the abyss of either doom scrolling or like looking at ourselves through filters and things like that.

Fiona Kane:

A lot of young people spend a hell of a lot of time looking at themselves in the mirror, whereas when we were younger it really wasn't a thing. And so what's happening now is we're living our life so much of it just like in our head and in our little echo chambers of groups of people that we interact with online. And the thing is these days is that, because of the way algorithms work, you can very much be in an echo chamber and, look, most people are in a variation of an echo chamber. There's just different levels of it, and there's levels at which you know that you're in an echo chamber, but you still know about the real world, and there's levels at which you are in an echo chamber and you've got no idea about other opinions in the real world and other things. So there's kind of different levels, but essentially the way algorithms and things work, they just keep pumping to you the things you want to see, the things you believe in, and then you join the groups of friends or the online groups or whatever, who all agree with you and all affirm whatever your idea is, whatever your thing is right. And so then what happens is we are not dealing with the real world.

Fiona Kane:

So the reality is, you know, when I was growing up is you kind of went out and you got a job and I was out working full time when I was 16. I was working full time in the city in Sydney, and I just learned. I learned how to catch a train to work on my own, and it was a long way from where I lived as well and I learned how to manage how to get around the city and how to get around the streets and how to find my way around. And I learned how to manage how to get around the city and how to get around the streets and how to find my way around, and I learned how to manage different situations with different people or different situations with work colleagues, and there was no safe space or safe room when people were mean to me and, believe me, a lot of people were mean to me. That's the reality of the world, but also the reality of being a woman in the 80s and 90s and so forth.

Fiona Kane:

Working in, I did a lot of secretarial type roles and support roles, so things were quite different in those days. So I experienced a lot of terrible things, but I don't like. I also experienced a lot of really good things, a lot of really useful things, and I learned a lot and I grew as a person and I grew my capacity and I became more and more of who I am. And then I had some health issues, which is kind of what led me to down the track of doing the health stuff right. But life, life happened to me and I engaged in life and I got involved in life and that's how I. That's how I became who I am and I'm still becoming and still learning and still growing and whatever.

Fiona Kane:

And the same, as you know, I've talked about before my experience with losing my mum a few years ago and spending a lot of time with her and palliative care, that sort of thing. They're not things like as much as that. There was traumatic moments in that, absolutely, and it was very difficult. That it is also life and it is normal life and is what most people experience and uh, so it's not kind of some trauma that need it needs to be avoided. A lot of it is stuff that you need to do and and a lot of experiences in life are rites of passage, like being dumped by a boyfriend or losing a parent or losing a job or being bullied or whatever.

Fiona Kane:

I'm not saying I know there's extremes of this and I'm not making light of the extremes involved in this, and the dollies of the world the young girl who ended things in regards to bullying are not making light of any of that at all. All I'm saying is that the resolution or the solution to mental health issues is not to fall down a well of psychobabble labels and kind of saying, well, I don't have to do it because I'm this or I'm a victim, so I don't have to. Nothing's expected of me, or I need a safe space because I don't like to hear things. I need to be kept safe from the world and safe from anything that's scary or bad, that's not helpful. So, to live a healthy life healthy mentally and physically a lot of it involves capacity building, mentally and physically, and we do not capacity build by avoidance and by making all sorts of justifications of why we don't need to engage, just using walls and and things, but just using it all in psychobubble language. So it's very justifiable and it's very okay and it's perfectly acceptable, and I think that's where I'm sort of trying to get to.

Fiona Kane:

So a lot of these tools are very good tools in their own way, used appropriately and you know labels and all the rest of it. A lot of it, you know it's. The thing about a lot of these things is that there's something in these things that's true and valuable and all of those things. Problem is what we do is we extract from that and then go over correct and then turn it into things that are not true, not helpful, not beautiful, not supportive, not capacity building, and then we wonder why we're all such a mess, right? So just something to think about. I just think it's worth thinking about whether or not you know. It's worth thinking about how you use language and how you use psychobabble and how you are. You capacity building or are you reducing your capacity? And same with your children and just have a reflection on that. Anyway, thanks for listening to me today. Look, please like, subscribe, share rate, review all those things, and I will talk to you again next week. Okay, thank you, and don't forget, this is Real Conversations About Things that Matter. Bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Fiona Kane

Host