{"id":2447,"date":"2023-02-03T11:13:12","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T00:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2023-02-03T12:01:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T01:01:31","slug":"real-heal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/real-heal","title":{"rendered":"You must be real to heal"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do you start your day?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to be said for discipline, sacrifice and hustle, especially in business and for your mental health. But understanding balance and sustainability is just as important. I\u2019m not a morning person, so I usually wake up around 7am after snoozing my alarm twice. I take my medication (a low-dose SSRI first thing so I don\u2019t forget), have a shower with at least one minute in cold water, do some breathing exercises, say a prayer, repeat my mantra, and head off to work without breakfast
\n(I fast until midday). My maximum creativity window is 9am to 12pm, so I do my best to block meetings until the afternoon and reserve this window for ultimate productivity.<\/p>\n

How has ambition shaped who you are today?<\/p>\n

I would say I have an unhealthy level of ambition or what most would call obsession. Partly because that\u2019s how I am hard-wired; I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) at eight years old so that tendency is in my biology. And partly because I am insanely passionate about mental health. Anxiety, depression, and other wellbeing struggles have almost taken my life \u2014 and has affected so many people I love \u2014 so there is an infinite store of \u201cwhy\u201d gasoline in the cylinders to come back to when things get hard for me. Which they do every day \u2014 especially in the space I work in. It\u2019s tiring on a good day and heartbreaking on a bad day \u2026 but it gives back more than it takes.<\/p>\n

What are your three tips for someone when experiencing a low point in their mental health<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Courage<\/strong><\/p>\n

You must be real to heal. You can do all the meditating, green juice cleanses and yoga retreats in the world but until you are ready to face your demons, I personally don\u2019t believe you progress \u2014 you just band-aid and maintain your current state. Going towards the hard parts, such as talking about your feelings and usually in the context of professional therapy, and processing hard truths is not only difficult, but also in direct opposition of our hard-wiring to avoid pain. But, in my experience, the only way around is through. Emotional freedom lives on the other side of courageous action.<\/p>\n

Connection<\/strong><\/p>\n

Learning how to be loved, and love others sustainably, is a science and an art form. So much of mental health is influenced by our relationships \u2014 for better and for worse. Boundaries are at the heart of human bonding \u2014 and when we work on our attachment style and learn to feel seen, heard and understood, we find a level of resilience that just can\u2019t be accessed on our own.<\/p>\n

Cognition<\/strong><\/p>\n

The stories you tell yourself about who you are are often false. They are more likely just a familiar train of thought. Beliefs systems become embedded after years of \u201cevidence\u201d that your brain views as easier to process if you don\u2019t have to challenge the stories. Things like \u201cI\u2019m a failure\u201d, \u201cI\u2019m crazy\u201d, \u201cI\u2019m too much\u201d, \u201cI\u2019m ugly\u201d are almost never true, you\u2019ve just believed them for too long in the absence of a more helpful perspective. Learning how to challenge your thoughts and reframe things in a healthier way is the key to unlock inner peace.<\/p>\n

What are some of the challenges young people face today?<\/p>\n

Comparison (and subsequently isolation) would have to be the biggest challenge facing young people. It\u2019s impossible to say \u201cdon\u2019t compare yourself to others\u201d because we are animals at the end of the day, and are naturally inclined to do so. The dangerous reality is that: reality is no longer comparable. We see unrealistic curated versions of people\u2019s lives and think that unless we stack up to that image, we are \u201cless than\u201d. It\u2019s like young people are standing on a platform of quicksand and expected to build a life-long castle of self-worth. We need to give our youth a stronger base to build from by showcasing people who are valued for who they are (their character) not what they do, or what they look like on social media.<\/p>\n

Your incredible goal is to inspire one billion people towards better mental health. Tell us in what ways are you doing that \u2026<\/p>\n

I want whatever I do to be as scalable as possible. That\u2019s why I try and bundle everything I create \u2014 whether it be a training course, a peer support service, or a product offering \u2014 into a model that can reach as many people as it can. Having a background in business and marketing has been incredibly beneficial as a lot of people like me have the desire to give back and help others but haven\u2019t been afforded the privileges I have in terms of education and career to know how to operationalise that for impact. I don\u2019t take that for granted. Some people can build houses for the underprivileged, others can cook for the undernourished. I wasn\u2019t blessed with many practical skills. My \u201chammer and spanner\u201d or tools of the trade (so to speak) is entrepreneurship and communication \u2014 so I leverage those things in the area that\u2019s near and dear to me.<\/p>\n

Please share more about your mental health movement and company, Heart On My Sleeve \u2026<\/p>\n

Heart On My Sleeve was born after I shared a story of my own journey that went viral and saw people all around the world tattoo and draw hearts on their arms and share their story. Now it\u2019s a global movement around living with authenticity and not pretending everything is OK when it\u2019s not \u2014 because putting on a brave face is often the most painful part. Our programs have been adopted by the likes of KPMG, PwC, AMEX and many others with great success in helping people connect in real ways. I couldn\u2019t be prouder in how we are helping people take a complex\/intimidating topic like mental health and normalising that in communities across the globe.<\/p>\n

What do you do to blow off steam \u2026<\/p>\n

Even though I do lots of presentations in front of lots of people, I am a big introvert at heart. Alone time is the way I recharge. It\u2019s not uncommon to find me binge watching a tonne of Netflix comedy specials, watching random things on YouTube and speaking as little as possible. That said, a night out with mates, a day of the golf course, or riding my motorbike is also a treat. But I don\u2019t do a lot of chilling \u2014 I spend a lot of time at \u201cwork\u201d which for me means doing what I love \u2014 building content, companies and services that help people with their mental health.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for you professionally \u2026<\/p>\n

I am just getting started. I was at Microsoft for seven years before
\ngetting into the space of emotional wellness, so as much as I feel I\u2019ve been able to accomplish a lot in a few short years, I am only warming up. People I look up to as my idols, one day I would like them to be my peers. The Brene Browns, Jay Shettys and Steven Bartletts of the world. We have amazing things in the pipeline for Heart On My Sleeve, I\u2019m also working on three books at the moment, building new talks, working on a few new social ventures, and feeling grateful for the team behind me who will make it all possible.<\/p>\n

For more information or to connect with Mitch, contact management@mitchwallis.com or find him on socials @mitch.wallis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do you start your day? There\u2019s a lot to be said for discipline, sacrifice and hustle, especially in business and for your mental health. But understanding balance and sustainability is just as important. I\u2019m not a morning person, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,73],"tags":[162],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2448,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions\/2448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wellbeing.com.au\/curious\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}