Depression and anxiety are among the biggest mental health challenges being faced by most young adults right now. Wellness coach and therapeutic art practitioner Penny Jarrett is here to discuss how they can look after themselves better through self-care. Joining Marc Lehman, she discusses how social media and the internet greatly contribute to young people’s toxic self-comparison and limiting beliefs. Penny also underlines how positive affirmations and addressing unresolved dreams and trauma can unleash your greatest potential.
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Young Adults And Mental Health Care With Penny Jarrett
Welcome to the show. This is a show that talks openly about mental health and wellness. We are here to welcome Penny Jarrett. Penny is a mental health and wellness coach, a writer, a speaker, and a therapeutic art practitioner. She’s passionate about helping people overcome their challenges so that they can begin to live fulfilled lives, joy, and free of pain and confusion in the negative effects of trauma.
Penny, welcome. It is very nice to have you here.
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Thank you. I don’t know if that intro did you justice, if there’s anything you’d like to add, or if that covered it well.
It was lovely. I was feeling good listening to you describe me. I was like, “Thank you.”
It certainly seems like you’ve done a lot of different things.
I was about to say that.
Self-Care
You sound busy, which is great. Busy is good. Certainly, everybody that comes to the show comes with a different perspective and a fresh view of things. Our main thrust is to try to talk more openly about health and wellness and try to get a good sense out as much as we can to role model for our young adults out there how important it is to talk openly. When it comes to mental health and wellness, there are a number of offshoot topics that, if it’s okay, I’d love to ask your perspective on, beginning with the topic of self-care. I’m wondering. When you hear the phrase self-care, what does self-care mean to you?
Self-care, to me, is an extension of true self-love. When everyone talks about self-love and self-care, there can be loud opinions when people express things and we cling to it. We don’t dig deeper and personalize it for ourselves all the time. Even the topics being talked about loudly are great. If we think about the fact that love is a verb and it’s something we do and it’s not just something we feel, it’s a beautiful feeling when you feel all that love.
To love ourselves is not always going to be a feeling. It’s not always going to be, “I’m finally accepting myself for my flaws. I love myself. I feel all of this warmth, compassion, and fondness for myself.” Having those feelings towards ourselves is amazing. It improves our self-esteem. It helps us take opportunities and believe in ourselves, but it’s not always the case.
There’s a huge amount of people who don’t naturally feel those ways about themselves. We might feel sometimes that the reasons behind that can be vanity so we feel ashamed to talk about it. It could be something that has happened in our past, a mistake we’ve made, or the way that we view our family. This is coming from my own personal experience, and everything I’m saying here as well.
When you don’t have those natural feelings of fondness for yourself, the least you can do is love yourself because you are yourself. People often go to confidence classes. They want to love themselves. They want to feel a certain way. The way you do it is by loving yourself because it doesn’t always come naturally. I feel like self-care is a way to love yourself, and there are ways to do that.
I speak a lot at different events and stuff. We say, “Self-care is not just face masks, but a big portion of it is.” I, at one point, was completely like, “With self-care, forget the face mask.” As my self-care and my own wellness journey have come I wouldn’t say 360 because it’s not back where it was but has gone a 180 and then loads of sparkles and glitter, I’ve had to come back to the face mask, chilling, looking after my physical body, and resting.
Before, self-care, to me, when I was at the beginning of my journey was setting boundaries, saying no, quitting people-pleasing, and doing all of these things that were showing me that I was always trying to fill everyone else’s cup up and not my own. As time has gone past and those things come second nature to me, and I’ve changed, I’ve had to come back to make sure I’m loving myself with long walks, time alone, time connecting with people if that’s the season I’m in, and spending twenty minutes to do something for my skin and put that first. When you struggle, those are the things that are neglected. In a nutshell, and I am the least nutshell-y person because I’m always going off on tangents, self-care is the act. It’s an extension of self-love.
Self-care is an extension of self-love. Share on XI talk to a lot of young adults. When it comes to things they can control versus things they can’t control, there are so many things they engage with in life that they can’t control. Self-care is one of those things that you can choose to do. You can choose to get enough sleep. You can choose to take those walks. You can choose to be good to your physical self. Setting boundaries is a topic by itself. We could talk about it for hours. It is protecting oneself, making sure that you’re not around toxic people, and you are saying no to people, which is okay to do. I love that. It’s such a big topic.
I try to promote the concept with young people of, “You have these choices. They’re not chosen for you. These are choices you have that you can do.” I’ve done the same throughout my own journey. We’ve learned a lot, and we’ll continue to learn. For young adults, in many ways, they’re almost beginning that journey and trying to figure that part out. Self-care, what a rich topic. I love your tangents. They’re great.
Thank you.
Mental Health
Mental health is such a weird topic. I feel like some people talk about it very openly and some people avoid the topic. Mental health, to me, is something we all have. Wellness is one of those things that fits in and, in some ways, is a solution or something that helps us that we can choose to have. Even seeing a therapist is a choice for many people. I don’t know how much of this you’re aware of, but with the population of young adults that I see in college, the anxiety levels and depression levels are through the roof. I wonder. In your viewpoint, what seems to be causing that?
Everybody who existed in the time when the internet didn’t, you don’t have to be a genius to point it out. If we think about anxiety and depression as an example and get really basic with it, I know it’s not basic or surface-level. I’ve experienced both at varying degrees, at times when I knew what they were and at times when I didn’t. That’s why these conversations are so important because going through something like anxiety and severe depression, not knowing what it is, is wild. These conversations are so important because you get to hear what people describe your experience. You can begin to come out of it.
If you think about anxiety, it is fear, and it’s not always warranted. It’s not always come from something. We often have difficult things we’ve been through or difficult experiences we’ve witnessed or endured, aka a pandemic, trauma in the household, stress, or different things we’ve gone through. We can then become protective and fearful about that happening again when it’s gone. For some people, they don’t. Some people are like, “That’s over. Let’s live.” Some of us become very hypervigilant and protective. We can’t move past that. We don’t always dig deep. That’s why therapy is amazing because your therapist asks you questions that help you to realize, “This fear that I’m holding, I am afraid of losing someone again. I am afraid of losing myself. I am afraid of dying.”
When you get down to it with anxiety, there’s a fear. It’s like, “I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid of not living up to my own expectations or expectations of my parents,” but it’s never that loud. It’s always at the back but it steers the behavior and causes a constant knot. The truth is wellness is a solution but it’s also a destination. It’s a state. It’s a state of wellness, a state of well-being, and a state of joy, which we all have innately but don’t always access.
I go back to talking about the internet. When we’re over flooded with and over inundated with other people’s lives, other people’s successes, or other people’s smiles when we’re not happy, all of these things we compare naturally. We’re not sitting there saying, “Her life is better than mine. His girlfriend’s prettier than mine. His grades seem to be higher than mine.” You’re not doing it loud. It happens because we’re taking in all of this information so naturally. What that can cause is a constant fear that you will never live up to all of these things that you’re seeing. That’s one of the things.
Don’t get me wrong. I suffered from anxiety for years and it came from living in a traumatic environment, living in a dysfunctional home, and experiencing a lot of violence. I knew it was over. I knew nothing would make that lifestyle come back to me but I could not live freely. I had to really speak life over myself. I had to tell myself, “I am free,” regularly. I knew I was free, but my mind didn’t and my nervous system didn’t. I was as tight as a clenched fist for about six years. There are different sides.
If you think of what depression is and you break the word down, it is depressed. You pressed it down. What makes you feel heavy? What makes you feel like you are pressed down? What are these things? A lot of the time, when we dig deep and we get to some of the emotions attached, there’s a lot of bitterness, unforgiveness, and anger. There’s also a lot of grief and resentment for things that didn’t happen, things that we haven’t done yet, or talents that we’ve got inside of us that we’re not bringing out.
There is a lot of grief and resentment for things that did not happen or the talents we are not bringing out. Share on XI coach people. A funny story is I wanted to be a counselor but I found out that I wouldn’t be able to hug anyone. I thought, “I can’t have someone crying in my office and I can’t hug them.” I was like, “I’m going to be a life coach,” at the time. It was like, “You can’t hug and you can’t tell anyone your personal life? Forget it. I’ll be a coach.”
I’ve hugged plenty of clients.
I know. Whenever I tell my friends this story because I’ve got friends that work in the therapy field, they are like, “You can so hug.” I’m like, “You should have told me that in uni.” I work with a lot of people who have ADHD. Common symptoms are depression and anxiety. They go hand in hand a lot. Whenever I dug a little bit deeper in the first few sessions, I’m not kidding you that over the past couple of years, maybe 70% of the people that I’ve worked with that are being treated for depression or have obvious depression have something inside of them that they are not bringing out. It’s usually a hobby that could have turned into a career, a talent, or a skill that they didn’t think would make them money so they pushed it aside, or a dream.
It’s not all the time, don’t get me wrong. I know there are chemical imbalances. I know life happened. I know this stuff. A lot of them are ashamed to even admit that they’ve got this dream. Why? It’s because of the fear of not ever doing it or not ever realizing it. If I was to answer your question after that massive answer in a nutshell, crippling fear from unrealistic expectations and comparison contributes towards a lot of anxiety that isn’t like an anxiety disorder, which can come from trauma. I know sometimes things come out of nowhere and then are related, but this is in my mind and my experience. A lot of depression comes from unforgiveness. That includes not forgiving yourself for your mistakes and also dreams, talents, and gifts that haven’t been explored, played with, practiced, or used.
I’m thinking a lot about that answer because I see that a ton in my office.
I’m not saying these things cause all of it, but a lot of the intensity and severity of the amount of anxiety and depression people are experiencing would be less intense if those things were paid attention to.
I hear that.
They contribute massively.
Young Adults
To take it a step further, I find myself advocating for young adults to get assistance when they need it. What’s fascinating about the age bracket of 18 to 22, which are the college-aged kids, is it’s the lowest age bracket out there in the US for people getting assistance. When you look at statistics, in many cases certainly with anxiety and depression, they’re the highest individuals that have anxiety.
You’ve got this huge disparity. A lot of things can cause that to happen. When I’m working with a young person and they’re heading off to college, talk about ambiguity. They don’t know what’s coming. You really got me thinking about that unresolved idea of, “I have a thought, a talent, or something inside that I’ve been too afraid to go after.”
It could even be an identity.
They’re like, “I’ll move it to the side and not tell anybody.” What a concept. It’s tough being a young adult.
If I am honest, a lot of the people that I’ve had those conversations with are usually a little bit older because time is getting on and that causes more pressure. Even though we know that you are as young as you feel, you can start fresh anytime you want, life begins at 40, and all of those things, there is still that tick-tock that goes on in the back of the mind that time is getting on, they’ve missed the boat, and stuff like that. It does apply. It’s the feeling that you are not living out who you really are. It’s not behind all depression.
As much as I love the internet, with people seeing how quickly someone gets famous, how quickly someone gets this change in life, and with lots of young people being completely addicted to these apps, it’s also like, “That would never happen for me,” or, “That isn’t happening for me.” It’s stuff like that as well. Feeling that sense of purpose and getting an understanding of why you are here or what you want to do while you are here is part of it.
I’m with you on that. A lot of times in therapy, I find myself drawing some of those inner thoughts out from my patients around, “What is it that you want to do in life?” I always feel blessed that I found counseling because I really like helping people and I like coming to work. I work a lot but I enjoy what I do. I want that for all of my patients whatever field they choose to be in. I see so many people who are unhappy with their career choices. To your point, for young people to be thinking about if those things that they’ve pushed to the side are causing symptoms, whether it be anxiety, depression, or both, that they could be considering as an option to take a look at and go after.
Social Media
The internet is an interesting one, Social media in particular. It has certainly had its bad publicity and good publicity. I certainly use it plenty for advertising my services and so forth. For a lot of people, that has become a way to connect with services and try to figure out who’s got what out there. There is so much comparison that goes on, especially for young people. The comparison is never like, “I feel great about myself because I’ve looked at social media.” It’s always negative. It’s always like, “Now I don’t feel as good.” You said the individuals that you work with are a little bit older. I don’t feel like there is an age where that stops.
I don’t.
At 14, 18, or 25, there’s this comparison piece that doesn’t make people feel good about themselves. It makes them feel less. It makes them chase, want more, or feel really bad about themselves. There’s a piece to social media that, to me, is so unhealthy and not helpful for people.
That’s so true. It also breeds this automatic expectation that you are supposed to do things in order to receive validation or an opinion. If you’ve got a social media account and you depend on likes and comments for engagement and that’s all it’s about, then how do you separate that into real life? How do you then say to yourself, “I want to be a singer. No one in my family was a singer. Everyone was a doctor. It’s an easy route for me. I’m already in school, but I want to be a singer. The truth is, my family already thinks this.” It’s not like, “Let me try and maybe I’ll fail.” People aren’t even fully afraid of failing. They’re afraid of people saying bad things about them and not liking them.
Back in the day or not too far back in the day, you’d have to send a demo to an agent or a record label. You keep doing that and see if you’re good enough. Now, before you even get to that point or before you even gather the bravery or the contact to reach out to someone who could help you with your career, you’ve got the whole of the public that have access to you possibly telling you you’re not good enough. These people, you haven’t even got proof whether they can hear or not. They might be a robot who sends the same comment to 100 people a day. That could ruin everything for you. Growing resilience around what people think of you is so vital but so hard.
Growing resilience around what people think of you is so vital but also so hard. Share on XIt’s important to remind ourselves about the false sense that we get from social media. It’s great when someone feels good about those likes and that engagement. That’s wonderful, but it’s such a roller coaster. It’s not real. This is not real life. This is not Mark saying to Penny, “You’re a wonderful person.” That’s real life. That’s a conversation. It’s computers. It’s robotic. With AI, you don’t even know if it’s real.
If someone listens to a type of music I don’t like and they say my song is bad, I’d be like, “I don’t even like the same music as you so it’s bad to you. We don’t even like the same music. Our ears aren’t tuned the same. Talking in that sense of singers, I was saying that as an example of hobbies, it can be something like that. It is thinking that people are going to have opinions about something you are interested in or feeling that you have to post about it anyway. There are certain age groups or certain groups that are like, “You post about your stuff.” You don’t have to.
Exactly. There’s an option.
People don’t have to know every single thing about you. While you explore, try different things, get to know yourself, get to know what you like, and turn down the opinions of others, which is a big task and I know it’s not easy, try everything. Try all the things you’re interested in to see which one lights you up. You don’t have to share it on the internet and see which other people like before you decide.
That’s a great point. That’s the nice connection between mental health, wellness, and social media. Social media is all about other people’s opinions. Pick a topic. You’re going to find plenty of people who agree with you and plenty of people who disagree with you. That tug of war never ends up feeling good. We don’t get self-worth from that. It’s not real as opposed to finding people who care about you, finding friends, or finding people who would say to you, “If that’s an area you want to explore as a person, you should do that. I’m really proud of you. I’m happy for you. I’m this. I’m that.”
Your point about posting is so good. When I say that to young people, they look at me like, “I hadn’t really thought I had the option to not post.” There are certain things in this world that should remain private, in my opinion. When we talk about wellness and mental health, unfortunately, the numbers for young people are pretty ugly. The suicide rate is high. The anxiety rate is high. The depression rate is high.
The one big thing I’d love for people to walk away reading this episode thinking is, “We might need to do things a little bit differently. The way we’re approaching wellness might not be working.” Especially for young people, it might not be working as well as it could be. Maybe we need to have some parameters around social media. Maybe we need to be digging in a little bit deeper and exploring more with self-care. Maybe we need to be doing things a little bit differently to get a better effect rather than saying, “I’m depressed. That’s the way it is. Things will eventually get worse.” There’s a better way. That’s a thought.
I’m dealing with college campuses on a regular basis. I have 2 kids, 23 and 21. From my perspective as a parent, it becomes a little overwhelming to think there are so many kids out there with so many difficulties in the realm of mental health. I would love to help all of them but I can’t. Certainly, I would love for them to be able to take some information about things we’re talking about. I’ve had mentors in my life who along my journey have made suggestions and helped me improve things. I really feel that as much as I love listening to elderly people because I feel like I can learn from them, young people can learn from us and some of the things we’ve been through.
Advice To Young People
Let me ask you in that vein in terms of mentors you’ve had or in terms of suggestions that have been made to you or things that have been said to you along the way that you think would be helpful. Let’s say you were talking to a young person and you wanted them to know something that you’ve learned over time that you think would be really helpful. What would that be?
There are a couple. The first one that had an impact on me during my own mental health journey and moments of crisis was, “Don’t believe everything you think because not everything you think is real. It’s not because it’s a predominant loud thought in your mind that it means it’s real.” It sounds basic, but if you are having a moment where you are catastrophizing everything, where tomorrow feels scary, where your hope for your future spouse and whether you’re going to get married, whether you’re going to do well in your exams, or whatever it might be, whatever’s causing you to get out of this present moment and into the future and start ruminating the worst case scenario, landing somewhere, deciding that’s it, and struggling because of that idea or that thought, catch yourself and say, “Not everything is real.”
That is huge. That’s like half the population of young adults out there. What a great, simple, really important concept for people to know because it is, number one, so truthful, real, and simple.
How many times have we wasted weeks, years, or months worrying about something, looking down on ourselves, or even so much as not enjoying ourselves on vacation because we feel like we don’t look nice? We see the pictures and we look wonderful. We think, “If I knew I looked like that, I would’ve been having a great time.” This is what we go through.
Being present at the moment and saying to yourself, “Not everything is real. The catastrophe that I’m imagining for next year might happen or it might not, so I’m going to live like it won’t,” is powerful. It is that shift. It’s a really present thing to do. It’s not always easy, but there are things that can help. Another thing I would also say is we are not taught enough about the power of our words. Don’t believe everything you think because not everything you think is real. Also, your word is your weapon.
We are not taught enough about the power of our words. Your word is your weapon. Share on XTell me more about that.
I say that because we’ve all heard of positive affirmations. That’s one thing. They have the power to rewire your brain. I’ve got loads of stuff on this. If you’re struggling with low self-esteem or you’ve got some options to make based on your future and you don’t know where to go because you want to do all the things that people your age are doing where you want to have a relationship and you want to have fun but you also want to stay in because you don’t want to be judged or anything to go wrong, have a few phrases that you say to yourself about yourself which are true.
A lot of the stuff we’re worrying about are lies that we’re believing. A lot of them are, “We’re never going to this. We’re never going to that.” It’s always something that has no evidence. Say a few things to yourself, and it doesn’t always have to be at the same time. It’s not a ritual or anything like that. You say, “I’m capable of amazing things. I believe in myself. I love myself.” They’re simple.
You say, “I’m not saying that to myself. I’m going to feel stupid because I don’t love myself. I don’t believe in myself.” Keep saying that to yourself. Do you know why? It is because what you say affects what you hear, what you hear affects what you think, what you think affects what you believe, and what you believe affects how you behave. It is not woo-woo. It is not spiritual. It’s facts. Your words are so powerful. If you keep saying, “I’m never going to be able to,” then you’re not.
This is an example. I had a friend who used to be self-conscious about her weight. Every time we got on a bus or anything like that when we were teenagers, she used to say, “Watch out, fat girl coming through,” to be funny. She wasn’t ever sad. She’s got a good personality. She’s a really funny girl. She used to do that all the time. I thought, “She’s only doing that because she doesn’t want anyone else to think it. She’s saying it.” She was saying, “Fat girl coming through,” to the point where I believed her. I thought she was fat. She wasn’t.
It took for me to see pictures of us as teenagers for me to realize, “This girl used to speak so much badness over herself.” I’m not saying that being a certain weight is bad because it’s not. People are trying to put on weight. People are trying to lose weight. Some people like to be bigger. Some people like to be smaller. I’ve been both and I’ve enjoyed both at different times. It wasn’t because she said it in a bad way. That’s not even relevant. I believed her. She’s a friend of mine. I trust her. I believe her. I know she doesn’t lie to me. When she says that she’s fat, I believe her.
If you were to say to me, “Tell me about your friend so-and-so,” I would say, “She’s lovely. She’s a little bit on the chubby side and a bit overweight. She is beautiful.” I would describe her because it would be what’s in my mind. When I looked back on the pictures, she was as thin as a pin. I believed her. Even walking side by side, I felt like I was walking with a big person. I never was. Her words were so powerful that they convinced me, and I have my own set of eyes.
Words are very powerful, whether it be our inner words or our external words.
Everything. They’re formed. When they leave us, they have energy. They have activity. There was a professor or scientist. He’s a Japanese guy. When I talk about this to people, they’re like, “You have to really believe it.” I’m like, “It would help if you believe what you’re saying because that energy also has a transformative power regardless.” It doesn’t matter who it is. Your words are powerful.
If you want to get down to the basic science of it, this guy was trying to figure out why plants grow better when you sing to them or talk to them. He took all the elements over time. He took all the elements of a plant, put them under a microscope, and spoke. He said loving words over the particles of the leaf, the soil, and the water, figuring out why this is true and why when you talk to or sing to a plant, it grows better.
They get to the point where they put water under the microscope. When they said horrible things to the water, made horrible sounds, and said nasty things, the particles in the water were all jagged. They were spiky. They were bouncing off of each other in a non-peaceful way. When he said lovely things like, “You are my favorite plant. You are growing so beautifully. Look at you,” and sang, the particles were all smooth and they flowed like a wonderful dance with 70% water.
If you don’t want to believe in the power of having to really get into it, look in the mirror, and get all meditative, which you don’t, to speak life over yourself, you don’t have to do that. You have to make a decision. You’re like, “I heard on a podcast that if I want to improve my anxiety, I need to start speaking life over myself. I know it’s not going to change everything but I’m going to try.” If you say, “I am free from fear,” every morning ten times, the strength that rises up in you, you’ll feel it. If you don’t, remember that the water in you, which is loads, will change physically because of that. If your waters are like that, then you are like that.
It’s a great point. I love that. I like simple things, and young people typically do as well. Anything that they’re able to glean from this conversation is beneficial. Anxiety and depression are complex things, but there’s a simplicity to how we view ourselves and the things that we do. It is not hard. Those are not difficult things to challenge yourself with. Wait and see. Do it for a week. Try it.
That’s what I was going to say. They’re not going to solve everything. Don’t get me wrong, I know this. I was diagnosed with ADHD, CPTSD, anxiety, and depression. I was even told there could be other things. I was like, “I’ve had enough. I’ll stick with these ones and keep it moving.” I get it. I’ve had the intrusive thoughts I’ve had. There have been times when if I weren’t alone, I could have gotten sectioned. The way I was feeling and the things I was saying, it was by the grace of God that I didn’t and I was out of it before someone came along.
Episode Wrap-up
I’m so glad that’s the case. I appreciate your honesty and your genuineness. You’re a very kind human being and a caring and considerate individual. Honestly, I feel like in the bit of time we’ve talked, you’ve given us a lot to think about and a lot of really great suggestions. I truly appreciate you taking the time. Can I put you on the spot one last time?
Of course.
As part of the show, I like to ask individuals I interview to nominate somebody, whether it be a friend, a coworker, or a relative, to be interviewed next to keep the conversation moving forward. I wonder. Is there somebody in your world that you think would be helpful to have on the show?
I would say my husband because he has a health management company. It all started because his son fell ill and was going through a mental health struggle. That made him leave his job and put all his time into his son. He could be someone great, but I could list loads.
We’ll get that information offline. I appreciate the suggestion. I look forward to meeting with him. I really appreciate your time and your energy. Thank you for spending some time with us. I appreciate it.
It’s a pleasure. Enjoy the rest of your day.
You do the same. Take care.
Bye.
Important Links
About Penny Jarrett
I’m Penny and I am a woman on a mission to help heal the world by spreading as much joy as possible and encouraging people to truly understand and love themselves.
I am a wellness coach, therapeutic art practitioner, Content Creator, Podcaster, Writer, Speaker and all round Lover of Colour. Attached to each of these titles is an avenue I use to go about my mission.