It’s the middle of winter and a lot of people can start experiencing seasonal depression or their already poor mental health can get worse. The recent great weather gets my bones excited for spring and summer!
I’m no professional at mental health and I’m not qualified to answer any questions but what I can do is share my personal experiences and offer a safe space for discussions. There are so many people out there more qualified than myself to help with this, don’t do it alone. Ask for help. You’re not made to do life alone, you were meant for more.
I know the construction industry is tough. You don’t show weakness, you don’t show feeling, you don’t show emotion. But do you know what’s even tougher? The toughest thing you can do is face those inner demons, face the issues that your mind wrestles with, and face the person looking back in the mirror. One of the hardest things you can do is to become self-aware.
Before we move on I’d like to share a couple of my darkest moments so far in my life. I don’t share this for your sympathy but rather in hopes that you might feel less alone in your daily inner struggles.
Before our first child, my wife and I went through a tough miscarriage. As a relatively emotional guy, I was devastated. A couple of years later between my son and daughter, my wife got pregnant with twins. Very soon after finding out, we lost them both. Working through these things was extremely important. And then again recently enough we went through another miscarriage. It leaves a deep feeling in your soul of emptiness, regret, and even a small amount of shame for an unexplained reason. And that's where a lot of the mental health challenges can keep you down. Right in that pit, right in the emptiness for years on end.
It’s mind-boggling how deeply interconnected we are with ourselves. Our minds, bodies and souls all process things together. The sooner we can become aware of the groaning in our soul, the sooner we can reach out for help. Don’t be afraid to ask. Be kind to your mind.
Another rough go is something some of you may be more familiar with, financial stress. I remember building our house in 2020. We were in over our head in debt, contractors continued to call asking for their money and the bank refused to give us extra money even considering the skyrocket of material prices in the pandemic. I remember getting a massive cheque from the bank one day and within 2 hours it was all gone and I was back to 0 in the bank account, still not being able to pay everything off. This caused a lot of financial stress and seeped over into marital stress. To this day my wife and I have successfully gone through 2 rounds of couples counselling working through some of these topics.
Mental health struggles can look very different from person to person. For example, some people might struggle with wellbeing: stress, grief, loss. Others might be tackling addictions with drugs, alcohol, gambling, even tobacco or video games. Still others might be struggling with debt, not having enough for retirement or even a recent divorce or separation.
The point is this- we all struggle in some way whether we admit it to ourselves or not. The first step is to admit we have something going on and the second step is to accept it and the third step is to work to improve it. I don’t like the idea that mental health can be fixed overnight.
The reality of the situation is this idea I got from Andy Stanley. Not all problems have solutions but are tensions that are meant to be managed. I’m going to repeat it one more time because it’s extremely important.
Not all problems have solutions but are tensions that are meant to be managed.
I’d like to share the below chart from a company we sometimes work with. I found it very helpful and to the point of checking where your current mindset is.
These charts make me think about a question I’ve never heard from another tradesperson. “Are you burnt out?”
We often pride ourselves on how much we work or how we missed this event or that event to be at work. The reality is burnout can creep slowly into our lives before we even realize we are red-lining and in crisis mode.
I’ve been nearing the edge of burnout 3 different times in my life. Let me walk you through a couple of common symptoms and see if they resonate. It feels like you can’t rest enough, it feels like daily life is repeatedly kicking you in the head. It feels like the joy in life has been sucked right out of your lungs, it’s a tough season to go through.
“Time off won’t heal you when the problem is how you spend your time on”- Carey Nieuwhof
Stop living with a low-grade fever all the time. Stop living in constant denial or pain or dealing with your pain through different addictions or distractions.
Challenge for the week- If you’re struggling, talk to someone.
If you’re not struggling, check on someone who you suspect is struggling, your feeling might be right!
Take care of yourselves out there, take care of each other out there.
See you in the pit! (The mosh pit… not the pit of despair!)
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