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Dark Coffee Podcast

Starting brave and bullshit-free conversations around mental health and wellbeing.

B O U N D A R I E S are not just for business •

B O U N D A R I E S are not just for business •

Setting great boundaries are important for all sorts of reasons.

Mainly because it helps us protect our energy.

☕️ It can help us say no to people, situations or activities that drain us.

☕️ It can help us draw lines between WORK and REST so that our brain can actually rejuvenate!

☕️ It can also garner respect from people, because they know we are not contactable or available all the time (which is a great habit to pass on!)

To start setting boundaries:

1. SET OUT THE FRAMEWORK - This will be personal to each of us, but you might decide that you want to be uncontactable after 8pm every night.

2. ENFORCE IT GENTLY -

This can be as simple as an email signature outlining your office hours and response times, perhaps following it up with an ‘fyi’ email to anyone who tries their luck outside of these times!

3. BE CONSISTENT - a boundary is only as good as your enforcement of it. Some people will test you or expect you to make an exception. Gently remind them of your boundaries. They’ll learn eventually.

4. BRING IT INTO YOUR EVERYDAY - there are lots of little hacks for automating you’re boundaries or making it part of your daily routine.

My favourite is using ‘do not disturb’ between 10pm and 10am. BLISS!

Boundary enforcement can feel icky at first - like you’re being rude, or a bit of a dick.

But by protecting your energy, you will bring the best of yourself to your relationships, which is something everyone will benefit from.

😉 Trust us.

- Alice x x

🎨 Slide Design: @grace_r_hall

🎙 What part do you play in the mental health di

🎙 What part do you play in the mental health discussion?

You may not be actively speaking about it on social media or sharing sentiments of ‘its ok not to be ok.’

But we can all play an important role in helping other people with their mental health - and it doesn’t always have to be in the ways you think.

Not everyone rates themselves as a shoulder-to-cry-on.

But if their mate is having a difficult time, they can keep them company til 3 in the morning.

Not everyone would be the workplace mental health first aider, or be able to volunteer a Samaritans.

But they regularly text their friends with memes, funny voice notes or unflattering selfies to keep moral up.

Some of the actions we take and words we use feel so small that we don’t think they’ll make a difference.

But they matter.

Because it shows people we’re thinking of them.

That they matter.

That someone wants to brighten their day and cares about them.

Just because you’re not a psychologist or feel intimidated at the thought of crisis intervention, doesn’t mean you don’t have a part to play.

This week’s podcast invites you to think about how you can work with your existing skillset to make a positive difference.

Where do you see yourself getting involved?

What’s your superpower?

I’m always a fan of the person who randomly texts because they were thinking of you 😛 not all heroes wear capes!

☕️ Alice x x

[Ep.69 link in the bio!]

🎨 Slide Design: @grace_r_hall
🎙 Host @alice.lyons.wellbeing
💻 Podcast editing by Lucy Williams and @grace_r_hall

💛 Sending so much love to our friends in the ho

💛 Sending so much love to our friends in the hospitality industry ahead of tonight’s announcement.

As with everything pandemic-related, nobody knows which it’s going to go, but if 2020 has shown us anything about you guys it’s that you’re goddamn RESILIENT.

Full of admiration, respect and love for you. Hope it’s not the total shitshow we’re all dreading 🤞🏼🤞🏼

☕️ Alice

• An alternative World Mental Health Day message

• An alternative World Mental Health Day message •

We love the mental health awareness days. They do an important job of challenging stigma, spreading awareness and helping people find resources they might need.

But too often with mental health conversations, the focus is too narrow and too negative.

Well focus on disorders, conditions, diagnosed mental illnesses and challenges.

But the term ‘Mental Health’ refers to a broad range of experiences, including healthy and positive ones.

Focusing on building our mental health means:

☕️ developing strategies to be able to successfully navigate the stressors of everyday life

☕️ learning about ourselves - our moods, desires, needs

☕️ learning to accept all parts of ourselves

☕️ adopting a growth mindset and moving through the world with curiosity, seeing setbacks as opportunities for self development

☕️ picking up skills and techniques to positively manage our behaviour to improve our relationships

☕️ learning how to manage our energy levels, including setting boundaries to protect it

We’d love people to be able to view mental health as ‘mental wellbeing.’ It’s a lifelong process of navigating the human experience, with all the nuance, variation and weirdness it can bring.

☺️ If you’d like to spread a different kind of mental health post message, we’d love it if you could share this post and nudge people to read the caption.

🙌🏼 Thanks in advance, you badass.

☕️ Alice x x

———————
🎨 Slide Design: @grace_r_hall

🔥Don’t mind us - just swinging by to drop a q

🔥Don’t mind us - just swinging by to drop a quick reminder that you’re a total badass, and a few reasons why.

Bowing down to your greatness and toasting your awesomeness wherever this message finds you 💛

In the run up to #worldmentalhealthday the Dark Co

In the run up to #worldmentalhealthday the Dark Coffee team have been sharing our personal mental health experiences, and now it’s my turn..... (internal screaming)

😰Having had anxiety for quite a few years now, I can attest to how anxiety can change so vastly with how it manifests year to year, and even day to day

🗣 Anxiety is one of the mental health conditions that gets a lot of attention, yet still there are a lot of misconceptions

🤔 There is often an odd correlation between shyness and anxiety - and whilst some anxious people may be shy, not all shy people are anxious. In fact, some of the most outgoing and sociable people you’ll meet can have anxiety and are often driven by it!

🧐 Perhaps it may sound strange, but I’m of the belief that anxiety has also had a positive effect on my life. Small things that other people may not see as accomplishments, I often do, and my anxiety has driven a lot of my development and gently pushed me further than I thought I was capable of!

(Also makes for a very ridiculous sense of humour because you HAVE to laugh at yourself 🤭)

It isn’t always easy to cope with, and in fact, the effect anxiety can have on our bodies is immense; anxiety attacks, drastic changes in eating behaviour and a tendency to avoid uncomfortable situations at the detriment of my social life have also been a part of my anxiety - but it’s normal to still be learning what can trigger my anxiety and how to manage it.

🥳 If I could give you any advice, beyond wrapping yourself up in a blanket and glaring at the ceiling like me (2nd picture as proof of what I look like every day) it’s that it might not seem easy, but the ways in which we adapt to manage our mental health are commendable, so be proud of your anxious little self!

🎙I speak about how my anxiety affected my experiences with disordered eating in Episode 39 of the Dark Coffee Podcast, ‘Eating Disorder Awareness Week’, too!

- Grace 🦦

🎨 Tile by @grace_r_hall

🔦 In the run up to #worldmentalhealthday on Sat

🔦 In the run up to #worldmentalhealthday on Saturday 10th October, the team and I wanted to shine a light on different mental health issues and our experiences with them.

☁️ As many of you will know, I started Dark Coffee off the back of my experiences with suicide ideation, but something I talk about less frequently is depression.

🔊 Largely because there’s already a lot of chat about in the mental health space and I didn’t want to add to the noise.

🤔 But there are still a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes out there, so allow me to bust a couple of myths quickly:

💫 Having depression doesn’t necessarily give you magical artistic abilities a la Vincent Van Goph. There’s a lot of romanticism around depression in art and culture (which is maybe a topic for another day....) but my experience with depression is that it depletes my creative energy rather than contributing to it. Don’t feel bad if you’re the same.

💫 Depression isn’t a fashion statement • Similarly, depression can be glamourised in popular culture - think of the cool, brooding millennial at the party who is all deep and full of philosophical ideas. Not saying those people don’t exist - hell knows I want to be one! But incorporating depression into ‘a look’ is always a weird one for me.

💫 Depression is normal • if you think the examples above are a bit extreme... yes. Yes they are. Another problem with representation is that it’s often woefully lacking in nuance. Everyday people get depression and it manifests in everyday ways. Like being unable to focus, feeling lethargic or feeling an absence of any feelings at all (like there’s a ‘void’ which makes it hard to engage.)

☁️ If you’d like an insight into what a depressive episode can really be like, I recorded an episode of the Dark Coffee podcast one time when I was having one. [Episode 13: Depression in Real Time.]

👆🏼The link is in our bio if you’d like a listen. One of the scariest recordings I’ve done to date, but one I’m massively proud of and get the most feedback on.

🤷‍♀️ Probably because we’ve still got a long way to go in terms of realistic representation.

☕️ Alice x x

With world mental health day coming up, we at Dark

With world mental health day coming up, we at Dark Coffee thought it would be a good idea to showcase why we do what we do and how recognising this day is so important to us. 🙌🏻🧠

In my teenage years I suffered with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Although this is the stereotype and does not apply to everyone with OCD, mine was centred around cleaning things, using hand sanitiser and washing my hands to the point where they would crack and be very painful!

I often had intrusive thoughts that would overwhelm me and cause a great deal of stress. These thoughts were generally surrounding any possible harm coming to myself or people close to me if I didn’t do a certain behaviour, such as closing a door over and over again. 🙄🙄

Thankfully, after receiving Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), I no longer meet the Diagnostic Criteria. However, I still sometimes get intrusive thoughts, but now I can laugh at myself when I hear then in my head!👏🏻

If you’d like to know more about me or my experiences with OCD, you can find my LinkedIn and my episode of the Dark Coffee Podcast (Episode 42, OCD and Me) in our bio 😘. Now excuse me while I go and focus on ignoring my intrusive thoughts🤚🏻
- Lucy x x x - - - OCD tile designed by @grace_r_hall 😘