Your Better Mental Wellbeing Podcast
Episode 10: Live Your Values, Accept Yourself and Let Go
How do you want to behave as a human being? How do you want to treat yourself and others, and the world around you? When you live according to your values you can have a rich and meaningful life.
Join Neera and Soen for Episode 10: Live Your Values, Accept Yourself and Let Go.
We discuss how we can find fulfilment in different ways, including valuing honesty and contributing to society. We acknowledge our personal imperfections, and the importance of setting boundaries and valuing personal time, as well as letting go of things that aren’t helpful to us. And we consider the benefits of being ourselves.
Your Better Mental Wellbeing is a weekly podcast helping you to manage stress and build resilience with easy evidence-based tools.
Dr Neera Dholakia is a GP for Boots Online Doctor and the NHS. She is an expert in mental wellbeing and has extensive experience designing mental health services whilst working for NHS England, Healthy London Partnership and mental health trusts. As well as promoting self-care, she also works to improve mental wellbeing in the workplace.
Soen Trueman is a full stack developer with Boots Online Doctor, specialising in graphics design, user experience, and user behaviour. Soen’s interests in behavioural analysis extends to psychology and further to neuroscience, which he is currently studying at Harvard University.
Links to this week's discussion:
00:57 Understanding the Importance of Values
01:42 Personal Reflections on Core Values
03:31 The Power of Honesty and Trust
04:28 Accepting Yourself: A Personal Journey
07:09 Letting Go of Negativity and Boundaries
09:11 Making Time for Creativity and Personal Growth
10:48 Enjoying the Moment: A Perspective
Join us next week for an Impactful 10 episode focusing on Mindful Eating and Enjoying Every Bite.
Find our more:
Personal Values - free online test https://personalvalu.es/
The Happiness Trap - Dr Russ Harris. Book and online course: https://thehappinesstrap.com/
For transcripts visit our website: https://yourbettermentalwellbeing.show
For great health, lifestyle and wellbeing information visit: https://onlinedoctor.boots.com
The information in this podcast is not intended to replace your own GP or other doctor’s professional medical advice.
How do you want to behave as a human being? How do you want to treat yourself and others, and the world around you? Live according to your values for a rich and meaningful life. That's what we're going to talk about today on Your Better Mental Wellbeing, helping you to manage stress and build resilience with easy evidence based tools.
Hello and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to episode 10: live your values, accept yourself and let go. I'm Dr. Neera Dholakia, I'm a GP for Boots Online Doctor and the NHS, and my expertise is in mental health and wellbeing. I'm really pleased to be hosting this show, focusing on improving your mental wellbeing.
And I'm Soen Trueman, I'm a software developer for Boots Online Doctor and a neuroscience researcher. I'm going to help you understand the science of mental health and wellbeing.
So we're in the middle of the week between Christmas and New Year, and it's a time when many of us reflect, and especially on our values as individuals, and in our relationships, and how we relate to the world around us.
At the end of every podcast episode, we say that really weird and profound line, live your values, accept yourself, and let go. So, what does that exactly mean?
It's this idea that happiness isn't about having good feelings all the time, as good feelings can come and go. And life is difficult and we can have positive and painful experiences. And if we can live in accordance with our values, then we're more likely to live with purpose and meaning, which is really what contentment is about. So, what does having values mean to you, Soen?
So I find that, um, my values help guide me when things get tough in life, and it's something to fall back on, um, when you're not sure what you want to do.
I think for me, it's a way to help me cope. And I think generally living in accordance with our values makes us more resilient.
Sure. And so what do you think is your most important value?
I think this is an interesting one. So I'd like to say one of my most important values is being a good parent. But actually, if I really think about it and go back to my core values and the things that I developed when I was younger, it would be about actively contributing to society.
And it's one of the reasons I became a doctor. And it's also one of the reasons why more recently I came to a crossroads in my life and realized that one of the things missing was being able to do something for other people that wasn't necessarily related to work. And so I became a trustee of a charity. And yes, it does take up a fair bit of time, but I really enjoy it, and I feel it helps my wellbeing by being able to do something different.
Sure, and quite often when you help other people, that helps lift you as well.
I think one of the five ways of wellbeing is actually to help other people, so it really fits into that idea as well, that by helping other people, you're also helping yourself.
Absolutely agree.
What about you, Soen?
I think my most important value is just to be honest, basically. Even though that can be extremely difficult at times, and that's really the test of your integrity, um, is if you are honest with people, they're honest back to you, and there's a real social reward in that, um, people come to trust you more, and you build up much stronger relationships, um, when you start to value honesty first.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I totally agree with that. And I think it does take time to build up trust though, doesn't it? But once that trust is there, actually your relationships improve and they become more meaningful.
I think honesty is really important for maintaining not just your close personal relationships, but also, I think like a dishonest society falls apart very quickly. It's a two way street. Um, and it's amazing how quickly trust can be lost, um, through, um, not being honest.
And then let's talk about the accepting yourself bit at the end of each episode, but also we do talk about accepting ourselves in other parts of in our podcast so far. So what does that look like for you?
Sure. I think it's trying to be yourself and being comfortable in your own skin and finding your own self confidence without necessarily comparing yourself to others because everyone is different and unique and we need to appreciate that more as ourselves but as a society is that everyone is perfect in their own right.
Yeah, and definitely we've talked a bit already, haven't we, about social media and comparing ourselves and seeing these edited parts of people and not seeing the whole person or all aspects of their life.
For sure. You're only seeing a very small snapshot of their story. And just because the picture is perfect, the story behind it probably isn't.
So thinking about being picture perfect, one thing that I have been trying to accept about myself is that I'm actually a bit messy and it did used to bother me and I used to get quite stressed out by, by the mess. and what felt like chaos around me. But now I've actually realized that by accepting the fact that I'm messy and that there will be some chaos around me and there will be things that I don't get done, it actually helps with my stress and I don't worry about it so much.
We're both very busy with lots of different projects on the go all at the same time and you know sometimes the mess piles up.
And along with that, I think I have, over the years, put pressure on myself to achieve. I think some of that is definitely part of being a doctor, but I think a lot of people have that as well. And I've been learning to accept the fact that I'm only human, I'm not superhuman, and that my time is not infinite, and that's okay. It's okay for me not to do things, or not to do things as well as I might like to. It's okay that I'm good enough. I have to just think to myself, well, everybody's okay, everybody's alive, everybody's reasonably cheerful and people like to spend time with me and I like to spend time with other people. So.
That's really important for, um, your own personal wellbeing is practicing gratitude. And actually we've got a podcast episode later on in this series dealing with the practice of gratitude.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that one, Soen.
So, you're talking about letting go of being messy. Um, what other things do you think you want to let go of?
Okay, this is going to sound a little bit ridiculous, but bear with me. I want to let go of my rage. So, I don't get angry that often, but I do have these surges of rage against motorists and cyclists that don't stop at pedestrian crossings. So if I'm at a pedestrian crossing and they don't stop, I just feel the rage bubbling up. It's like a red rag to a bull. And the reason is because I failed my driving test because I didn't stop at a pedestrian crossing. So whenever I see other people do the same, it really winds me up.
And it's completely pointless. And the only person that rage affects is me. So it's really something that I am wanting to make a conscious effort of to not let it get to me in the first place. But if it does get to me to actually let it go a lot more quickly than it is at the moment.
Sure, it's almost like a paradoxical rage, almost like you're getting angry at yourself for things other people are doing.
Yep, I can't change their behaviour, I can only change mine. What about you Soen, what do you want to let go of?
I think I need to let go of apologising when I have to say no to somebody, because they've overstepped my boundaries. I think that's whether that's time at work, your personal life, money or relationships. It can be so easy, as someone who tries to be accommodating and compassionate, to just accept people's demands on you, but there comes a time when you have to push back, when you've got nothing more to give. And we don't really need to apologize for pushing back and looking after ourselves or putting ourselves first.
So actually you're absolutely right. I've been doing that myself recently and actively making time for myself. One of my values is being creative and so I've been trying to make time for that. Of course, one of them is doing this podcast. But one thing I really do enjoy is, um, going to a saxophone group on a Saturday and I've been doing that for a little while.
I learned as an adult actually, which was a steep learning curve, but it's something that I've recently been more conscious of making time for because otherwise my time is crammed in to every nook and cranny that there is. And on the very first session of this group, the tutor asked everyone what they wanted to learn and get out of the group.
And I was brutally honest and said that I'm doing it to get away from my family for a couple of hours and that I've not got any illusions that I'm going to practice at all, or that I'm even going to improve, but that I'm here to enjoy it and to play music and to listen and just have a nice time. So the group allows me to be creative, but without an end goal or target in mind.
And that's very much what values are. So goals are very much part of living in accordance with your values, but they're not the values themselves. And we can want to get better at something, but we don't have to for it to be a fulfilling experience. So just enjoy that experience in that moment without expectation or judgment.
So, talking about just being there in that moment and really enjoying that experience. I see so many people at gigs just standing there recording the gig on their smartphones instead of just enjoying the gig. But then I realize that everyone enjoys things in different ways and that might be recording a DJ that they love on their phone or whether that's dancing with friends or just being around people that love music.
Every experience is so individual and there's beauty in everyone being different.
So on that note, Soen, let's finish there and enjoy the rest of this year. We'll be back in the new year talking about sleeping better, relaxation, and the infamous Blue Monday. So join us then for some more great wellbeing tips.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Better Mental Wellbeing.
If you like this episode or think it would be useful for someone else, please follow and share. For more information and transcripts, Please visit our website at yourbettermentalwellbeing.show. And remember to live your values, accept yourself and let go.
Music credits: Main theme by AudioCoffee, Impactful 10 by Dream-Protocol, Jingle by Serge Quadrado Music