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 Have you ever found yourself wishing that someone in your life would change, thinking it would make everything so much better? Many women experience stress, mental and emotional strain as a direct result of the other people's behaviours and actions. "IF ONLY he/she would do THIS, then everything would be OK!"
If they would just make "this change" then our life would greatly improve, and I could stop worrying. I know, how amazing would it be if the people we cared about would do what we want them to all the time!! But here's the sad truth: You can't force anyone to change.No matter how much you want it for them or love them, what you say or do for them... only they can DECIDE to make changes in their life. You cannot control their choices or outcomes. And all that pushing will ultimately cause you more resentment, heartache, stress and pain. Which I know is a super hard to hear. I've been there too. I have multiple people in my life today I would LOVE to see change their ways - but a decade of trying to change them broke me and I had to learn to let it go. I've also seen this frustration in a few of my past coaching clients' relationships. Where women who have journeyed on the path of self-discovery for themsleves now want the same for their partner, sibling, child, or partent. However, in attempting to push them to "see the light" and change their habits and behaviours, they've ended up causing themselves angst. This is what I can share: You can't change them, but you can be the inspiration for their change. Perhaps even a catalyst, by showing them what is possible. The decision for someone to change their life has to be their own, otherwise the transormation may be fleeting or won't stick long term. If you can't walk the path for them, what can you do? Continue to focus on your own personal growth and well-being. Be the light in their life. From my experience it takes patience, but in time you may notice small shifts and improvements both in your life and theirs. Here are 5 actions you can take:
True power is found in changing ourselves and inspiring the change we wish to see in others. 
About the Author: Janel Briggs is a NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner on a mission to support women across Australia and Singapore in overcoming their professional anxieties, imposter syndrome, fears and insecurities to build unwavering confidence and self-belief. Mindset Coaching is about learning how to become fearless and level up your life and career! Connect with Janel on social media via Linkedin or Instagram.
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 *TRIGGER WARNING* In honour of World Suicide Prevention Day (Sep 10th 2023) This email talks about grief in losing a loved one to suicide, and how you can support someone you love through a mental health crisis. Three years ago, I tragically lost my dearest friend to suicide. A beautiful fun-loving soul, the kind of woman who had a smile and laughter that lit up the room. We connected on a deep level, even though she was 12 years younger. I think it’s because we shared similar personal, life and spiritual values. We had an interest in so many of the same things, from learning and travel, to cooking and our love for animals. We loved nothing more than to go for lunch in a cosy cafe and sit chatting for hours over cups of tea. Her tragic death taught me many lessons about life, the world, the medical system and myself. I've come to realise the hardest part of grief, in losing someone you love to suicide - is the guilt. Could I, should I … have done more? The answer in the mind is always yes. If I had my time again of course I would do so many things differently. But, in my heart I know I did the best I could at the time. Part of the healing process has been to look at my actions and reactions in this event with my mentor and she taught me something extremely important: Hindsight is a beautiful thing, but no amount of overthinking it will bring peace or bringher back. Acceptance is the key to healing. I’ve come to realise that my fear of “losing her” in her mental and physical health battle kept my mind clouded and captive. My voice of fear said: “What if I say the wrong thing and she dies? I don’t know the answers for how to help her in THIS pain”. Instead of tuning into my voice of wisdom: “You can never say the wrong thing when it comes from a place of love. What if you say the right thing and she lives?”. This is why I am so passionate about helping women with anxiety to learn how to quiet their voice of fear and tap into the loving kindness of their intuition, their voice of wisdom. By encouraging, understanding, reaching in, and sharing experiences with others, Suicide Prevention Day is about giving people confidence to take action to prevent suicideGrief, as you probably know if you've experienced the it, has this way of stripping your heart bare to the darkest depths of your soul. And somehow over time your heart begins to slowly mend the cracks. I guess is the power of healing and love. But, you are for sure never the same person again. The anniversary of her passing each year coinciding with World Suicide Prevention week every September I know as a message for me to remember to, and not be afraid to, tell her story. I will continue to bring light where I can to the darkness. She is worth it, and so are you.  This is a message for anyone who has a loved one or friend who struggles with their mental health.  HOW YOU CAN HELP SOMEONE YOU LOVE IN A |
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Your Mental Health Matters.
My first (and biggest!) mindset shift was recognising that I was the only person who could actually change that situation.
No one was coming to fix me. No one was coming to save me.
I had to be the one who decided enough was enough, it was time for something to change.
My wish is that I can empower you with 5 Simple Questions for Checking in on Your Mental Health so that your life doesn’t get to its lowest point, before you decide it’s time for something to change.
Let's get into it:
1. How am I feeling emotionally right now?
Checking in on your emotional state is an important step in assessing your mental health. Ask yourself:
“How am I feeling in this moment?”
“How long have I been feeling this way?”
In times of external stress, we often deny our emotions, push them down and say, “I’ll deal with that later, I don’t have the time for this”.
The funny thing about emotions is… we have to feel them, to heal them. Our emotions will continue to arise, in small or big ways, until we do.
And at some stage they could even become super overwhelming - anxiety, anger, frustration, sadness – derailing you from every day life.
2. Am I taking care of my basic needs?
Mental health is closely intertwined with our body’s wellbeing. Your body may begin to show symptoms of poor mental health before you even realise it consciously. Muscle tension, pain, feeling restless, headaches, insomnia, appetite changes are all key symptoms. Ask yourself:
"Are you getting enough sleep, skipping meals, eating balanced meals, and engaging in regular exercise?"
Neglecting your body’s basic needs can contribute to fatigue and the body’s stress. If you are not well slept and nourished, the mind has less resilience and finds it harder to process stress and emotions.
3. Am I managing stress effectively?
Are you feeling overwhelmed and constantly under pressure?
Take a look at your coping mechanisms and self-care practices. Health stress management can be as simple as making time to move your body, meditate, journalling your thoughts or connecting with a friend – after a rough day.
4. How are my relationships influencing my mental health?
Our relationships and the people in our life play a crucial role in our mental health. Ask yourself
“Do you feel supported, valued, and respected?”
“Do the people you spend time with uplift you, or drain you?”
“Is this connection healthy for me right now”?
Perhaps it’s time to create a healthy boundary and/or take some time away from the people who maybe feeling toxic right now, to recoup your energy.
5. Am I engaging in activities that bring me joy and fulfilment?
When our external stress is at capacity, we forget about the simple act of doing things that bring us joy. If you are giving out all your energy to work, or other people’s problems – life is going to feel bleak really quickly. Ask yourself:
“When was the last time I did something just for the fun of it?”
“What is one thing that I could do, to bring more joy into my week?”
If you’re looking for ideas for spending quality time with yourself, perhaps try one of these:
Remember, checking in on your mental health is an ongoing process. It’s essential to be honest with yourself and seek support if you notice any persistent concerns or challenges.
There is no downside from ever working on your mindset or making some simple chances to your daily habits!
No one was coming to fix me. No one was coming to save me.
I had to be the one who decided enough was enough, it was time for something to change.
My wish is that I can empower you with 5 Simple Questions for Checking in on Your Mental Health so that your life doesn’t get to its lowest point, before you decide it’s time for something to change.
Let's get into it:
1. How am I feeling emotionally right now?
Checking in on your emotional state is an important step in assessing your mental health. Ask yourself:
“How am I feeling in this moment?”
“How long have I been feeling this way?”
In times of external stress, we often deny our emotions, push them down and say, “I’ll deal with that later, I don’t have the time for this”.
The funny thing about emotions is… we have to feel them, to heal them. Our emotions will continue to arise, in small or big ways, until we do.
And at some stage they could even become super overwhelming - anxiety, anger, frustration, sadness – derailing you from every day life.
2. Am I taking care of my basic needs?
Mental health is closely intertwined with our body’s wellbeing. Your body may begin to show symptoms of poor mental health before you even realise it consciously. Muscle tension, pain, feeling restless, headaches, insomnia, appetite changes are all key symptoms. Ask yourself:
"Are you getting enough sleep, skipping meals, eating balanced meals, and engaging in regular exercise?"
Neglecting your body’s basic needs can contribute to fatigue and the body’s stress. If you are not well slept and nourished, the mind has less resilience and finds it harder to process stress and emotions.
3. Am I managing stress effectively?
Are you feeling overwhelmed and constantly under pressure?
- Is the stress from X (work, family, relationships) causing you to reach for sugary foods, alcohol, cigarettes etc, more often?
- Do you find yourself staying up later binge-watching TV or scrolling your phone to “zone out”.
- Are you isolating more often from friends and loved ones?
Take a look at your coping mechanisms and self-care practices. Health stress management can be as simple as making time to move your body, meditate, journalling your thoughts or connecting with a friend – after a rough day.
4. How are my relationships influencing my mental health?
Our relationships and the people in our life play a crucial role in our mental health. Ask yourself
“Do you feel supported, valued, and respected?”
“Do the people you spend time with uplift you, or drain you?”
“Is this connection healthy for me right now”?
Perhaps it’s time to create a healthy boundary and/or take some time away from the people who maybe feeling toxic right now, to recoup your energy.
5. Am I engaging in activities that bring me joy and fulfilment?
When our external stress is at capacity, we forget about the simple act of doing things that bring us joy. If you are giving out all your energy to work, or other people’s problems – life is going to feel bleak really quickly. Ask yourself:
“When was the last time I did something just for the fun of it?”
“What is one thing that I could do, to bring more joy into my week?”
If you’re looking for ideas for spending quality time with yourself, perhaps try one of these:
- Take off on an adventure, go on a bike ride
- Go to see a funny movie
- Grab a good book and go on a picnic
- Spend time in nature
- Baking or cooking (for no particular reason!)
- Puzzles, painting or crafting
- Organise dinner with a friend who always makes you laugh
Remember, checking in on your mental health is an ongoing process. It’s essential to be honest with yourself and seek support if you notice any persistent concerns or challenges.
There is no downside from ever working on your mindset or making some simple chances to your daily habits!
About the Author: Janel Briggs is a NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner on a mission to support women across Australia and Singapore in healing their professional anxieties, insecurities and imposter syndrome to build unwavering confidence and self-belief. The goal is to level up your life and career by learning how to to live fearless and anxiety free! Connect with Janel on social media via Linkedin or Instagram.
Back to Blog
About the Author: Janel Briggs is a NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner on a mission to support women across Australia and Singapore in healing their professional anxieties, insecurities and imposter syndrome to build unwavering confidence and self-belief. The goal is to level up your life and career by learning how to to live fearless and anxiety free! Connect with Janel on social media via Linkedin or Instagram.
As you probably know by now, our LIFE is a journey filled with countless ups and downs, twists and turns, and unexpected challenges within our story.
Along this path, we often encounter mental and emotional roadblocks that hinder our progress, cloud our judgment, and leave us feeling stuck.
Whether it's confusion about the next step, anxiety about making the right decision, hitting a creative or career block, a lack of motivation, or crippling self-doubt, the mind spins:
Where am I going? Am I happy? What am I doing? When will I be happy?
These obstacles can be frustrating and overwhelming, making it very difficult to move forward.
Previously, before experiencing mindset coaching, I personally would have notched a roadblock up as failure. My mind had been programmed from a young age, that anything less than 100% was failure.
I would be totally stressed out, spiralling into anxiety overthinking all the WHY's and WHAT IF's... ultimately not feeling good enough.
Which never EVER helped the situation! When negative emotions and fear rule the situation - it makes EVERYTHING harder.
What I've learned since then is that hitting a mental or emotional roadblock does NOT mean I am a failure, or it’s the end of the road.
It's actually a fork in the road, a good check in point.
Here's why:
An emotion in itself is a feeling, and feelings are not facts.
The study of NLP (Neuro-Linguistics-Programming) tells us that we experience our first negative emotions in early childhood, typically 0-7 years old.
If the negative emotion that we felt for the very first time (like fear, anger, hurt, guilt or sadness) was too confusing for our young mind, or left unresolved, the memory of that experience (and our reaction or response to it) is stored within the unconscious part of our mind.
The part of our mind where our habits and patterns are formed, that essentially runs on auto-pilot.
The mind then uses this past experience as a reference point for each time that specific emotion is arises in future. Unconsciously filtering new information coming in and present-day experiences on that past trigger point, even though we are no longer a child.
The mind unconsciously in a split second says “remember that time you felt scared about X when you were young? This is JUST LIKE THAT”. When in 99% of circumstances it is not.
So, our response as adults now to the fear is bigger and can often be out of proportion to the context of the situation in front of us.
Have you ever wondered “Why am I so fearful of X, when other people are not? Why do I get so angry and frustrated about X, when so-and-so doesn’t even care? Why can’t I let go of it?”
This is why, shown in my example above, I continued to notch up every “No” in my life as a failure. My mind had unconsciously stored an experience of failure when I was 7yo. From that moment I learned to react and respond with fear in a specific way any time there was a possibility of failure. This inhibited me in many ways throughout my adult life.
The specific coaching that helped me to realise all of this and release my fear of failure and reprogram the self-limiting belief I had formed that I was not good enough, was the transformational process of TimeLine Therapy®.
You can watch my video below to learn more about TLT or read about it here.
Now thankfully, when a roadblock presents itself, I like to see the situation as a unique opportunity for inner growth and self-reflection. I am no longer trapped by fear of failure.
And this is what I want for you too. It is the reason why just 6 months after working with a Mindset Coach myself in 2017, I went on to retrain and become a NLP and TimeLine Therapy® Practitioner – so I could pay this gift forward to other women just like me.
Where do we start when we hit a mental roadblock?
Absolutely, we need to honour our emotions and express them. There is a saying I like to remember:
“What we resist - will persist”.
You can only deny emotions for so long. We must begin to unpack the emotion and the trigger, and find healthy ways to release the emotion. The most powerful way to do this for me is to journal my thoughts.
And instead of falling to pieces I stop and ask 3 simple questions to check in:
1. What emotions am I feeling? Why is this situation causing me to feel this way?
2. What are the options in front of me?
3. What is this situation trying to teach me? Or, what can I learn from this?
When you are learning you are growing, and you are NOT failing.
It's during these challenging moments that we have the chance to zoom out, look for higher perspectives, and tap into our intuition to find the solutions to move forward with ease.
Conquering the fear of failure always begins with a process of self-discovery. The inner work for emotional healing may require patience and perseverance, but please know you are not alone! There is guidance and coaching available to support you, whenever you are ready.
Along this path, we often encounter mental and emotional roadblocks that hinder our progress, cloud our judgment, and leave us feeling stuck.
Whether it's confusion about the next step, anxiety about making the right decision, hitting a creative or career block, a lack of motivation, or crippling self-doubt, the mind spins:
Where am I going? Am I happy? What am I doing? When will I be happy?
These obstacles can be frustrating and overwhelming, making it very difficult to move forward.
Previously, before experiencing mindset coaching, I personally would have notched a roadblock up as failure. My mind had been programmed from a young age, that anything less than 100% was failure.
- If I received a NO from someone - this was a failure
- If I heard criticism (even if it was constructive) - this was a failure
- If I saw an outcome that was out of my control - this was a failure
- If something didn't live up to the expectation in my mind - this was a failure
I would be totally stressed out, spiralling into anxiety overthinking all the WHY's and WHAT IF's... ultimately not feeling good enough.
Which never EVER helped the situation! When negative emotions and fear rule the situation - it makes EVERYTHING harder.
What I've learned since then is that hitting a mental or emotional roadblock does NOT mean I am a failure, or it’s the end of the road.
It's actually a fork in the road, a good check in point.
Here's why:
An emotion in itself is a feeling, and feelings are not facts.
The study of NLP (Neuro-Linguistics-Programming) tells us that we experience our first negative emotions in early childhood, typically 0-7 years old.
If the negative emotion that we felt for the very first time (like fear, anger, hurt, guilt or sadness) was too confusing for our young mind, or left unresolved, the memory of that experience (and our reaction or response to it) is stored within the unconscious part of our mind.
The part of our mind where our habits and patterns are formed, that essentially runs on auto-pilot.
The mind then uses this past experience as a reference point for each time that specific emotion is arises in future. Unconsciously filtering new information coming in and present-day experiences on that past trigger point, even though we are no longer a child.
The mind unconsciously in a split second says “remember that time you felt scared about X when you were young? This is JUST LIKE THAT”. When in 99% of circumstances it is not.
So, our response as adults now to the fear is bigger and can often be out of proportion to the context of the situation in front of us.
Have you ever wondered “Why am I so fearful of X, when other people are not? Why do I get so angry and frustrated about X, when so-and-so doesn’t even care? Why can’t I let go of it?”
This is why, shown in my example above, I continued to notch up every “No” in my life as a failure. My mind had unconsciously stored an experience of failure when I was 7yo. From that moment I learned to react and respond with fear in a specific way any time there was a possibility of failure. This inhibited me in many ways throughout my adult life.
The specific coaching that helped me to realise all of this and release my fear of failure and reprogram the self-limiting belief I had formed that I was not good enough, was the transformational process of TimeLine Therapy®.
You can watch my video below to learn more about TLT or read about it here.
Now thankfully, when a roadblock presents itself, I like to see the situation as a unique opportunity for inner growth and self-reflection. I am no longer trapped by fear of failure.
And this is what I want for you too. It is the reason why just 6 months after working with a Mindset Coach myself in 2017, I went on to retrain and become a NLP and TimeLine Therapy® Practitioner – so I could pay this gift forward to other women just like me.
Where do we start when we hit a mental roadblock?
Absolutely, we need to honour our emotions and express them. There is a saying I like to remember:
“What we resist - will persist”.
You can only deny emotions for so long. We must begin to unpack the emotion and the trigger, and find healthy ways to release the emotion. The most powerful way to do this for me is to journal my thoughts.
And instead of falling to pieces I stop and ask 3 simple questions to check in:
1. What emotions am I feeling? Why is this situation causing me to feel this way?
2. What are the options in front of me?
3. What is this situation trying to teach me? Or, what can I learn from this?
When you are learning you are growing, and you are NOT failing.
It's during these challenging moments that we have the chance to zoom out, look for higher perspectives, and tap into our intuition to find the solutions to move forward with ease.
Conquering the fear of failure always begins with a process of self-discovery. The inner work for emotional healing may require patience and perseverance, but please know you are not alone! There is guidance and coaching available to support you, whenever you are ready.
About the Author: Janel Briggs is a NLP and Timeline Therapy Practitioner on a mission to support women across Australia and Singapore in healing their professional anxieties, insecurities and imposter syndrome to build unwavering confidence and self-belief. The goal is to level up your life and career by learning how to to live fearless and anxiety free! Connect with Janel on social media via Linkedin or Instagram.
