4 Strategies for Better Mental Wellbeing

It's finally May! The best month of the year because for 31 days everyone is talking about our favorite subject: mental health awareness (not to be confused with wellness, fitness, or dieting–we’re talking mental and emotional health).

To celebrate mental health awareness month we are sharing some of our favorite easy, accessible strategies for mental well-being:

1. Understand the difference between stress + stressor: The stressor is the workplace conflict. The stressor is an unmanageable workload, caregiving, an unsolvable problem, racism and microaggressions that wears you down day after day. The stress itself is your body's reaction to that stressor. Influencing the stressor isn't always possible, we might not be able to make our boss a great leader or eliminate the conflict with a coworker, but there is something we can do to influence the physiological stress! 

2. Complete the cycle: To influence the stress we have to complete the cycle–allow our bodies to cycle through the cascade of hormones and physiological responses activated when we’re in fight or flight. While there are lots of ways to do this, the ones that get the most attention are movement and mindfulness. Just a few minutes of movement and a few rounds of breathwork can start to down-regulate our nervous system and help us move out of fight or flight.

3. Get vulnerable: We get it, everyone is talking about vulnerability, but every time we speak publicly about our struggles and our wins around mental health there is, inevitably, at least one person that comes up to us and says, "I thought I was the only one that deals with this." And mental health often works that way. For so long we’ve kept it in the dark, locked behind closed doors, dealing with it alone. But naming something gives you power over it. You can start small by talking to friends or family, but keep in mind that you get to set the terms of that conversation because people will respond to you with their own internal dialogue, biases, and experiences. If you don’t want advice let your loved one know at the onset of the conversation that you want to share your experience and are working through it but you’re not looking for advice. If you do want advice ask for it specifically: do you want experience shares, recommendations, or anything else! If talking to loved ones feels scary a neutral third party like a therapist can be an incredible asset. 

4. Grief, Grief Everywhere: “Grief Everywhere” is the title of an Atlantic article that popped up in our Apple News feed last month. We clicked on it immediately because we resonated with it so deeply. Grief has been everywhere. On a personal level we have lost loved ones, friends, and pets, as a society many of us feel like we have lost time and opportunity, as a community we have often felt disconnected and alone. Grief is, in fact, everywhere. The line that stood out to me most was this, “We must not mistake a return to ‘normal’ life as the end of someone’s pain.” As we move through the rest of this month we encourage you to check in with the way grief plays on your mental health and to be aware that those around us may look fine but truly be struggling. Check in with each other and as we often say, “if you need the help, get the help.” If you don’t know where to start you can find a list of resources here.

Mental well-being is an incredibly complicated, difficult, and unique-to-you conversation to get started. Taking care of your mental health can include setting boundaries, investing in self-care, engaging with your community, practicing vulnerability, and seeking professional help. It's your journey and you get to decide how you embark on it. Our hope is that you know you're not alone, that there are resources available to you if you need them, and there is no shame in seeking the help you need.

To get started on your stress management journey join our course here. If you’re ready to jump right into therapy check out our resources here.

Mental Health Awareness Month

May is mental health awareness month.

Mental health is the health we prioritize at TRILUNA because it's the health at the center of it all. Without mental health we cannot prioritize ourselves, our movement practice, or our habits. It all starts with mental well-being. As a culture, we've had a pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, toxic positivity approach to mental health for too long. We have moralized mental toughness without ever offering resources for understanding our brains and our chemistry. We have suggested that we are one green juice away from health. We've been told to toughen up, be professional and not show emotion, or just deal with it. But TRILUNA wants to turn that on its head. 

Let's be clear though, we are not therapists or counselors. In this space, we are students and fellow humans. But we have also done a lot of personal work in this space so we are going to offer you some resources.

We understand that not everyone is comfortable with therapy and that there are people who think therapy isn't for them. We also understand that therapy has a lot of work to do in decolonizing itself. For more there check out Dr. Han Ren (we lover her IG account @dr.han.ren). There is a way to care for your mental health at every level of interactivity and price. If you're new to this space and would rather just start by exploring on your own you might start with CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) which helps identify and change underlying thought patterns. As part of her mental hygiene routine, Elizabeth uses an app called Bloom. 

One of our primary goals at TRILUNA is to be vulnerable and transparent about our own struggles with mental health and to share what has worked for us (and what hasn't). We hope that as a result of our work more people feel comfortable seeking help with their mental health. There is absolutely no shame in seeking out therapy. You do not need to be in emergency mode to go to therapy. Couples counseling doesn't mean your relationship is bad or wrong or doomed to fail. Needing therapy doesn’t make you weak. You can find a therapist that fits your needs (finding the right fit is critical and it may take you a few times before you land with the right one). You can have a faith-based therapist or one that is not. You can do telehealth or go in person. You can have therapy that's focused on: family, LGBTQIA, sex, race, trauma, eating disorders and body image, and/or relationships. You get to set the terms of your work.

Prioritizing your mental health is a gift you give yourself. It's a gift you give the world. You don't have to put on a brave face every day to get through it. You are not alone. 

Some mental health resources we really love: 

Traditional Therapy - 

The Gaia Center For Embodied Healing

Therapy For Black Girls

BetterHelp (telehealth)

Cerebral (telehealth that can prescribe medications)

If you're looking for therapy in your area and worried about cost try searching "sliding scale therapy." 

If you're looking for a therapist be very clear about what you want. You can get specific, "I want a Black, faith-based therapist that identifies as a woman." 

There are many types of therapy so you can investigate which works best for you. There are five primary types and many different ways those types are executed against*: 

• Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapies

• Behavioral therapy

• Cognitive therapy

• Humanistic therapy

• Integrative or holistic therapy

*Learn more here.

Apps & Education - 

10% Happier Podcast + App

Bloom CBT

Hotlines & Crisis Numbers - 

Many options available here.

Stress Management Series: Know Your Limits

Stress management lesson for the day: Know your limits.

TLDR; If you’re feeling close to your limit maybe avoid the Sprint store and do your favorite mindfulness thing whether that’s running, or resting, or having a cold beer in the sun with a good friend.

Today I was reminded of a hard lesson: know your limits. In the last 30 days, I have lost my grandmother and my beloved pet friend. TRILUNA is entering our busy season. I have two side projects actively in the works. The house is a disaster. It’s a lot. Right now my stress cup is pretty full. I know this. I can feel it in my body like a lump in my throat. But today I ignored it and I went to run an errand that I should have known would put me over the edge.

Our fellow stress management teacher Rosa Castano reposted an image from artist Maiseie’s Ghost “burnout can look like” where 6 signs are listed: 1) little to no motivation 2) insomnia 3) emotional overwhelm 4) amplified anxiety 5) exhaustion 6) easily triggered. Burnout is caused by chronic stress, unchecked stress, and or intense periods of stress. Grief, stress, and even excitement about projects/future have me caught in a really intense emotional period.

When I’m in these really intense spaces it doesn’t take much to trigger overwhelm in me. In scenarios like these, I try to stay ahead of the little things that can build up and push me over the edge. I clean the house, I make food for the week, I make lists, but I should have known that a fourth trip to get my phone fixed would be too much for me today. But I didn’t listen to the signs and when things went wrong again I was short with the person helping me (not a good look) and abandoned the project. In the car I felt the dam break. The most comfortable emotion for me is and always has been anger and so that’s where I went. I got home, slammed some doors, threw on my running shoes, and cried my way through the neighborhood.

When I started running again last month I had no idea that it would see me through so much loss–but it has truly been a gift. Having a movement practice that I genuinely love that isn’t in service of weight loss has been life-changing. Nike’s Coach Bennett feels like my best friend in the world right now (IFKYK). As teachers people often suggest that we should have figured out the secret sauce to a stress-free life. Two things: 1) BORING 2) ridiculous. We all have stress, experience loss, have too much on our plate.

The work we do is about identifying the right mix for your secret sauce—awareness that helps you identify patterns that keep you stuck in the cycle, tools for managing the inevitable, and strategies for getting ahead of it next time. My secret sauce is knowing my limits, not ignoring them once I do, and running when I need to manage the physical stress response in my body. Knowing your limits isn’t about not pushing yourself to be better, it’s about recognizing where to push and when to rest.

The Great Reprioritization: Reduce Stress, Nurture Talent, and Boost Retention

This article was originally featured on The Nashville Business journal. To read the article in its original format click here.

For perhaps the first time, “burnout” has entered the cultural zeitgeist and it appears to have some sticking power. The rise of burnout is not simply an increase in the number of employees leaving their jobs (though certainly, that is part of it) but it is also a rise in our cultural ability to finally speak with some vulnerability and openness about mental health and well-being. We have been burning out our employees for much longer than we have had the terminology or self-awareness to identify it.

At TRILUNA we work to help organizations keep their employees connected, engaged, and well. So when Arianna Huffington wrote on LinkedIn, “What do you think companies can do to help their people be more connected and engaged?” we had some thoughts. Her post quipped about how the “The Great Resignation” is actually a reevaluation of workplace culture. “What people are resigning from is a culture of burnout and a broken definition of success. In quitting their job, people are affirming their longing for a different way of working and living,” she writes. We agree.

When left unmanaged, stress creates a vicious cycle. It leads to less effective time management and decreased work quality, leading workers to require more time to get their work done — culture puts more pressure and stress on them. And the loop continues, reaching critical mass until employees either burn out, fall into ill health, move on or all of the above. On all fronts, unmanaged workplace stress costs us employee happiness as well as time and money.

So much of what we think is a fact about work and stress is just a default mode we’ve gotten used to. The world is evolving. The way we work is evolving. We were handed a workplace culture that glorifies production at the expense of mental health but we can choose something different. Through our work with companies as large as LinkedIn and as small as local yoga studios, Triluna has identified five areas that must be addressed to prevent burnout and reduce stress:

1. Divest from hustle culture: Culture happens from the top down. We must ask ourselves, "in what ways are we encouraging unhealthy habits at the expense of the mental health of our team?" Anonymously survey teams and leadership to ask them what they need and where they feel they need support.

2. Encourage deep self-care: Our idea of wellness has to evolve to truly care for our people. Wellness is not the same thing as fitness. Stress management, mental health care, and honoring on and off time will do more for your people than pushups and fitness challenges ever will.

3. Commit to your community: Community plays a huge role in employee wellbeing. To build community there must be communication, transparency and vulnerability. Additionally, for that community to have a real impact it must also be inclusive. There must be a genuine interest in understanding the lived experiences of co-workers, employees and friends and a space for people to show up authentically.

4. Support personal growth: A happy or even stress-free workplace would still not be enough for our people. They need purpose, freedom and direction. A workplace that encourages personal and professional development will inspire more than productivity. It tells employees and teams that we care about their progress and we are invested in it.

5. Redefine and offer opportunities to structure productivity: Having time and having capacity are not the same thing. Often productivity is cyclical. When outside stressors are high it is unrealistic to expect that productivity levels will remain the same. We can encourage better work in less time by allowing employees freedom around where and how they work while clearly communicating expectations and offering support. When creating productive teams we follow five rules:

• Set actionable goals and record them

• Use frameworks for structure

• Zone your time for focus

• Delegate where you can

• Understand your rhythms

We can work hard but with boundaries. We can engage with our passion but use productivity frameworks to get better work in less time. We can work to live without living to work. We can “never give up” by learning to pivot and allowing our goals and mission to evolve with us and our desires. We can flex into business times by resting deeply when you have downtime. All these things together will move us toward a new vision for the future of work that redefines what it means to be successful for both employer and employee.

Why We're (Kind Of) Dropping Wellness

We started this company because an insane amount of stress forced us to seek a better way. We spent our careers in marketing and recruiting, often sacrificing time with family and loved ones, removed from our passions, and stuck in the stress cycle because that’s what the world had always told us to do: “work hard, never give up, hustle.” 

We worked our day jobs, we worked our side jobs, we taught yoga, we read books, we took courses. And we got sick. Ashley ended up with crushing, month-long migraines. Elizabeth suffered from anxiety that led to gut issues and panic attacks. And yet we worked. We ignored it. Pushed it down. Blamed ourselves for not being good enough, or working hard enough, not wanting it enough. 

The reality was that we were burned out. Burnt to a crisp. Refused to do it anymore. We gave up on hustle culture to seek alignment. 

In the process of figuring out who we are and where we can have the most impact, we have tried many things. We have taught yoga, cooking classes, meditation, anti-racism, and stress management. We have been an events company and an e-commerce company. We’ve done retreats, festivals, corporate workshops, and speeches. 

But the last three years have taught us so much. The last two years, in particular, have been incredibly difficult but also incredibly enlightening. What has often been behind the scenes is that our primary service has always been corporate workshops. Because of where we came from and why we started, stress management has always been the area we felt most confident about. It has also always been our most popular and consistent service offering. 

As we grow and evolve as women and as a business we’ve had to make some hard decisions about the direction of our company. As much as we love cooking, as passionate as we are about allyship, it’s our decision now to move away from traditional wellness and towards an area of wellbeing that feels both poignant and timely: mental wellbeing via stress management and burnout prevention. 

Our revised mission is: To reduce stress and burnout by changing the way we work and think. 

So much of what we think is fact or accept as “the way it is” about work and stress is actually just a default mode we’ve gotten used to. The world is evolving. The way we work is evolving. And we believe we can have the most impact while protecting our own mental health and practicing what we preach by shaping the future of work. 

The heart of who we are is not changing. If you are experiencing fatphobia, racism, and hustle culture at work you will also be experiencing stress. Work is a huge part of the ecosystem of our lives and we cannot address issues with individual stress until we address the culture of the communities we spend so much time in. 

We hope you’ll continue to join us on this journey. We are so grateful for all your support over the last three years. We need you now more than ever to help us grow.

Our services now include: 

-workshops around stress management, productivity, and workplace culture

-the stress management series, lectures/speeches

-the stress management box with our workbook

As always, encouraging difficult conversations that move the needle and change the way we think will be at the core of all we do.  

We were handed a workplace culture that glorifies production at the expense of mental health but we can choose something different. We can work hard but with boundaries. We can engage with our passion but use productivity frameworks to get better work in less time. We can work to live without living to work. You can “never give up” by learning to pivot and allowing your goals and mission to evolve with you and your desires. You can flex into business times by resting deeply when you have downtime.

Hustle culture had its day but being burned out is miserable. We know because we were there and we’re here to help prevent that fate for others.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to describe us in this new form, here is our official company bio:

TRILUNA is a stress management company dedicated to reducing burnout and increasing conversation around mental health. Co-Founders Elizabeth and Ashley each left their careers burned out and seeking a better way. Through their individual journeys they each came to the conclusion that in order for work to work it would need an overhaul. After health coaching and yoga certifications, self-study, and three years of running workshops for companies as large as LinkedIn and as small as local yoga studios they've developed a program that helps organizations keep their teams productive, connected, and well.

Thank you, 

Elizabeth, Ashley, + Team TRILUNA