LIZ EASTON

This is a talk I gave to the guests of a Fundraising Event for Dolly’s Dream on the 23rd of May 2021 at Jeanne D’Moore, Moora, Western Australia.
Please note that these are my personal thoughts and experiences. If you feel that this information raises issues around mental health for you or your loved one’s please seek professional help, there are plenty of us out there and we are here to assist.
In Love and Light
Liz Easton – attune body mind soul

As you might already know Dolly’s Dream was created by Tick and Kate Everett following the death of their 14-year-old daughter, Dolly, to suicide, after ongoing bullying. Tick and Kate’s goal is to change cultures and behaviours to prevent bullying, by increasing understanding of the impact of bullying, anxiety, depression, and youth suicide and by providing support to parents.
Our family has supported Dolly’s Dream since its inception. So, when Marie asked me to come and talk with you today, I jumped at the chance. Not only because of this connection but also the opportunity to share with you all that I have learnt from my own personal experiences and the knowledge and experiences I have gained through my work as a Kinesiologist.
So, I am the local Kinesiologist. For those who don’t know what that is, essentially, I help people address their stress, stress that can present in their body in all ways whether it be physical pain, emotional and mental stress, learning and behavioural issues and so on.
And it is because of my own stress that I ended up becoming a Kinesiologist. I suffered anxiety for years and it got progressively worse after I had our daughter. I was in a constant state of stress, with fatigue and constriction around my throat and chest areas being some of the worst symptoms. At night I would have to will myself to sleep because it felt like my throat would close over and I wouldn't be able to breathe...I bordered on having a panic attack most nights.
The solution according to my well-meaning doctor was anti-depressants. Now, I am not against medication and these certainly have a place, but I also knew it wasn't going to address the real problem...only the symptoms if I was lucky. I also knew if the cause wasn't addressed it could mean a lifetime of medication. That's when I rediscovered Kinesiology and decided to study it because I knew how effective it was.
Fortunately, the conversation and dialogue around the subject of mental health such as anxiety and depression is increasing and there is plenty of research to show that this is not something that is made up or can be dismissed anymore.
But my question is how did we get here?
- How is it that 9 of us Australians choose to end the suffering every day through suicide?
- How is it that the suicide rate is double in regional areas?
- Why are our children suffering, why do they believe in the cruel words and actions of another?
How did we as a society who is so wealthy (we are in the top 5%), one of the most educated, most supported, democratic nations in the world, the land of opportunity…. How did we get to this point?
We worry about a lot of things – the big issues of having a job, a roof over our head, food on the table, clothes on our backs but if you get the opportunity to listen to people, something I have the privilege to do in my work, we also worry about a lot of other things, often things we are not conscious of such as our self-worth, value, appreciation, status, achievement, acceptance.
Did you know that 83% of people by their 40’s has had, or are currently experiencing a mental health issue? That’s 8 in 10 people. And just to clarify, the researcher who pulled this data together made it very clear that of the remaining 17% there was insufficient data to assess whether they just had later onset. In children they believe it to be 1 in 7.
People aren’t born bullies and aren’t born to be bullied. Anxiety and depression are not a choice.
So, what is mental health defined as? And why is telling people it’s all in their head and to let it go and to get over it not helpful?
I will often define stress as thinking we don’t have a choice, that we may feel like we are backed into a corner. If you are experiencing a mental health issue how you feel, think, behave, and interact with other people is affected. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you lock yourself away, sleep all day, are heavily medicated. It can be withdrawing from social interaction, drinking more alcohol, OCD, emotional outbursts, emotional withdrawal and a becoming apathetic about things. For each of us mental health will look different which can make it hard to see, both for the person experiencing it and for those around them. For me personally, I was completely unaware of how deep a hole I was in until I was out of it and because I was such an independent, strong willed and at times prickly individual it made it very hard for those around me to help.
You may have heard or in fact said yourself at some time “it’s all in your head” implying that all you have to do is not think about it. Well apart from being a very unhelpful implication in some respects, it is true. When we are experiencing these states of stress, anxiety and depression we are experiencing actual chemical and physiological changes in our body and they are complex.
You may be familiar with the flight and flight response. Simply put, when information enters our brain through our senses i.e., sight, sound, touch, tastes and smell is usually sent off to the thalamus where it gets directed off to other regions of the brain for processing. If, however, that information is perceived as a threat it goes straight to the amygdala where we decide whether it is a life of death situation. From the amygdala it is a very short process to the hypothalamus, the gland that directs all physiological responses within the body. If it is a genuine threat, then our hypothalamus prepares our body to respond, the blood gets redirected away from our thinking parts of our brain and sent off to the muscles and organs that are going to keep us alive – muscles to run, lungs to breathe, sweat glands to cool us.
So, when we are faced with a stressful situation, even socially or emotionally, we can lose our breath because we are taking shorter, quicker breaths of air in, we might shake because our muscles are getting loaded up with adrenalin ready to fight or run, we may sweat and our brain executive function declines – we forget things, we lose our words, we make poor choices. Fortunately for most of us we survive these episodes but for some people it is where it can become overwhelming and consequences dire.
So, our brain is a very clever and amazing organ. It keeps us functioning, it helps us make decisions, it stores away memories, it helps us to communicate and very importantly it keeps us safe. How does it do this? Our mind is made up of the conscious and subconscious. And it is not unlike an iceberg - the conscious mind is like the 15% above the water and the subconscious is the remaining 85% below the waterline. Essentially the conscious mind is where we think we are operating from – it is our awareness, it is where process, make decisions and make conclusions. However, the information to enable this is largely taken from the subconscious region of our mind. It is from the subconscious that our body’s function, its where we pump our blood, breathe, move but it is also where the information, the memories, the social and cultural conditioning, the expectations all reside. So, when we are undertaking a task in our conscious mind even a relatively simple interaction such as coming to an event like this, all these factors come into play without us being aware that this is happening. It is almost like we are running a screening programme with everything we do.
Let’s take the example of the guilt emotion (most people, particularly women, are good with that one!). It is programmed in us in a social context before we are capable of rational thought and hence it becomes one of our basic survival programs. When you do something considered outside of the norms of your social group, you are told or made to feel that you are bad in some way or have done something wrong. Children learn from a young age that when they are bad, they are not liked, and love is often withheld. So, children quickly learn to realise that when they do something “bad”, that is outside the social norms, they feel bad. This is the essence of the guilt program…. Sound familiar? Unspoken disapproval can be just as powerful at triggering this survival programme. Gestures, tones, and the energy given out can often have far more meaning that actual words. The power of these signals is that these activate and trigger strong emotions that are linked to similar, negative emotional experiences that have occurred in the past. When this happens, the person is now reacting, not only to the current situation but also to the past experience so much so that the past becomes the now and the past dominates their current state.
To the brain, what it remembers is no different to what is actually happening in real time. A memory that you are experiencing currently, is to your brain, your currently reality. A situation that you are thinking about, even one that
may not occur, can also have the same emotional charge. Your brain responds to real, remembered and imagined impulses in the same way…. as though they are happening right now.
As we grow up and become adults, we learn what is acceptable or not, what rules to play by, the social and cultural norms. So, why is this so detrimental to us? It is because we learn to modulate our emotions, hold them in, store them away, stuff them down, numb them, hold on to them until we erupt and throw an adult tantrum…. and what do you think that does? It contributes to that statistic of 83%, leading to feelings of isolation, anxiety and depression.
A personal bug bare of mine is the strive and reinforcement of resilience in young children – often what others see as resilience; I see as suppression. Children learn to not cry, not express their emotions, put up with behaviours that shouldn’t have to. It is where we have a golden opportunity to teach our children about emotions and why they may feel they way that they do…. but then again maybe that’s because we as adults have learnt to suppress and not understand what we are feeling and why, so how we are able to mentor and support them.
So, what can we do? How can we help others, help our kids, help our grandkids, help our community?
We have to start with ourselves! I have to start with me! You have to start with you!
And if you think that you are okay, nothing wrong with me, I don’t get stressed - medical research estimates as much as 90 percent of illness and disease is stress-related that includes physical pain, gut issues, skin conditions, hormonal issues, sleep and fatigue the list goes on.
So, if you don’t have any physical symptoms, sleep and eat well, have fantastic relationships and are essentially living the life of your dreams then yes, you probably don’t suffer from stress…. But if we are truly honest with ourselves then that isn’t many of us, if any.
So, let’s have an honest look at ourselves because until we acknowledge something then we can’t actually do anything about it. And if we are genuine about helping our kids, we need to be start with ourselves. It doesn’t mean we are broken; it doesn’t mean we have failed. Courage isn’t sucking it up and hiding our true self to the world, real courage is being our own authentic self, growing, learning and adapting.
It is when we come from a place of genuine compassion, care and love we can truly help others and to be genuine, we need to love, care and be compassionate with ourselves. And by doing this we not only do we do this for ourselves, but we also give permission to others to follow suit, by leading by example, to your friends, your family and your children.
So, what are some steps we can take or things we can do for ourselves?
1) Be mindful of our own head chatter, what we say to ourselves, how we interact with ourselves. Are we compassionate, thoughtful, kind in what we say to ourselves? Did you know that our subconscious believes everything we say to ourselves, regardless of how it is delivered? So, if you tell yourself, you are stupid then it believes that, regardless of if you are trying to be funny about it. So, change your internal language, this takes practice, but it can get better and the better you get at it, the better you get at externalizing it, you catch people doing the same and you help them turn it around.
2) Take time out for yourself for some self-care whatever that is for you and don’t make it a chore. Read a book, get a massage, go to yoga, do some gardening, catch up with a friend, see your Kinesiologist. Just make sure you have some sort of relaxation or reward for yourself that you enjoy. Life is meant to be enjoyed.
3) Be aware, and make changes if necessary, of environmental factors that may be affecting you. Alcohol is a depressive, sugar can have the same effect. 85% of our serotonin, one of our happy neurotransmitters is made in the gut so if we are experiencing gut issues or we don’t have good nutrition then that can affect how we feel.
4) Surround yourself with support – friends and family who are on your side, think about the kind of people you want in your life, the work you want to do, the activities you want to be involved in, the knowledge that you seek. Turn off the news, if someone is gossiping or being negative, find something else to talk about or something else to do.
5) Don’t compare and don’t judge, ourselves and others. I often use the analogy of a “bucket of stress” – we all have one and we usually don’t know how full it is, let alone someone else’s. We don’t know other peoples’ stories and we often don’t understand the impact of our own on our health and wellbeing.
6) Expectations is one of the biggest relationship problems we have. The expectation that those around us know and deliver upon what we expect, usually without them actually knowing what is expected from them. We all have different values and priorities. Respect that and accept that it’s not because someone won’t meet your expectations, it is probably, because they can’t.
7) Set and keep clear boundaries. Physically, emotionally, mentally and energetically. Too often pain and hurt comes from us not maintaining boundaries with people in our lives. Decide where your line in the sand is, stand by it and others will learn that they need to respect it.
8) Trust yourself and trust your intuition. One of my most common themes for my clients is to get them out of their heads and into their hearts. We have been conditioned to value thoughts over feelings, thinking things through, making decisions based on pros and cons. Each and every one of us was born with an innate system within us to keep up safe and well, our intuition. So, if something doesn’t feel right, if your kids don’t feel okay in a situation or around certain people, then trust that, don’t force it, talk about it with your kids and grandkids. It doesn’t mean we have assumed that there is something bad and evil, it just might not be right for us or them.
9) Seek assistance if you feel you need to and don’t be ashamed. Remember what I said about courage! There are plenty of health professionals out there including people like myself. Try them and find what works for you.
I could literally talk about this subject for hours, we are complex creatures but, in many ways, simple in our needs – most of us just want to feel loved and appreciated. So, the more you can feel love and appreciation for yourself the more it becomes natural for you to love and appreciate what and who is around you. This then leaves little room for those emotions and experiences that lead to issues such as anxiety and depression. Yes, you are going to come across those in our world who feel so insecure within themselves that they have to belittle, victimize, bully and exclude but when you exude true self confidence through love and appreciation their impact is non-existent.
Thankyou for coming today, thankyou for Marie and Tina and their many helpers for pulling this together. It is truly a worthy cause and may Dolly’s passing be a positive learning for all of us for ourselves, our kids and all future generations.
I am a big believer in what you give is what you get, so be mindful of what you are giving out…. remember to be kind.