Having spent over forty years in therapeutic conversation with thousands of people, I’ve come to the conclusion that wellbeing comes down to just two things. Get these in place and mental health will follow.

1. A sense of agency, or that things are under control

Most of the time, we scarcely give a thought to whether things are under control or not. We go about our day moving from task to task with less friction than we have time to appreciate. When we get thirsty, we turn a tap and out pours water. When it gets dark, we flick a switch and, presto, on comes the light.

As Goldsmiths professor Maria Cristina Cioffi puts it, when all is well with the world we experience, “a fluent natural flow from our thoughts, to our actions, to the consequences that our actions produce.”

Without even realising it, we are continuously controlling the movements of our body and we feel that we are in charge of those. In other words, we have a ‘sense’ of our agency… a feeling of control towards our actions and their effects in the outside world.
- Maria Cristina Cioffi

But what about when things are going less smoothly? We all know how it feels to turn a tap and the water not come out; to flick a switch and light not to follow. These are the frustrations of life. We also know how a few of these small disruptions can soon get the better of us, even when we are coming from a place of emotional strength and resilience.

Noticing how we feel when our sense of agency falters in small ways can be really useful and instructive - a kind of spot test for our emotional wellbeing, or mental health.

If, when the lights don’t come on, you sigh deeply, mutter a bit and go to see if you have a spare bulb, you’re probably ok. I say probably because it’s incredible how some of us are able to hold up to challenge-after-challenge when we feel anything but fine.

If, on the other hand, you feel such lapses of control deeply, painfully and personally, you may be experiencing a reduced sense of agency in the wider world.

What to do when things feel out of control

Over the course of the past year, our sense of agency has been challenged. Things have not just felt outside of our control, they have been out of our control.

What we can do at times like this is look at where we do have agency, the areas of our life that remain under our control. One of those areas, perhaps the most significant, is our emotional landscape: our feelings.

We cannot change what happens to us, but we can change how we respond, which in turn will impact how we feel. By recognising that we have agency in our emotions, we experience a greater sense of calm and can return to a more fluid way of being.

It would be unrealistic and unreasonable to feel in control of the divergence in strains of coronavirus. What we can do is pay attention to how we feel about the threat, and the limitations and disruptions it may cause us. We might choose to communicate our feelings to other people, to write them down in a journal, or to express them in some other way: perhaps through movement, art or music.

Like all change, it is best to start small. Next time you stub your toe, break a cup or spill something, notice how you feel, take a breath and either inwardly or outwardly articulate your feelings. You might be surprised by how difficult it is to label your emotions, which are generally messy. Perhaps you’re angry at yourself for making a mistake; feel guilty about the effect the mishap may have on someone else; you may even fear the consequences or experience deeply-instilled shadows of shame, especially if you’ve been criticised in the past as ‘clumsy’ or ‘careless’.

Now think about how you can reframe the situation. Can you fix the cup? Or perhaps choose a new one as a gift to the person who liked it most? Perhaps banging your toe can be an opportunity to sit for a few minutes; the spill a prompt for a more satisfying deep-clean.

As you take control of the situation, notice how your feelings shift from the hotter, faster, messier ones, to quieter shades of compassion and gratitude.

Choosing to respond consciously - rather than to react hot-headedly - can restore our sense of agency and control in moments of powerlessness.

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2. Feeling valued - self-esteem and self-worth

What others think of us, and whether we feel they value and appreciate us, can have an enormous effect on our sense of self. Social psychologist Mark Leary calls this “relational value”, and believes it is the ancient root of self-esteem. Put simply, his evolutionary theory suggests that early humans who were more highly valued in their community - perhaps because they were particularly skilful hunters, path-finders or storytellers - were safer.

We measure relational value instinctively and in many ways. We weigh up positive and negative feedback, the amount of attention we receive, and how willing other people are to do things for us. In modern times, the balance can be quickly and dramatically affected by social media, where we can get lots of self-esteem-boosting ‘likes’ one day, and, inexplicably, none the next.

Psychologist Dr Greff Henriques says relational value “is the single most important factor in mental health problems today.” and I’m inclined to agree.

Although we in the US have access to more material goods than ever before and have greater control over our environment, we are seeing higher and higher levels of depression and anxiety. I think this is because in our high paced, economically driven, highly complex society, we have inadvertently created a society that has many, many cracks for people to fall through. People who feel devalued and who don’t know how to change and who don’t know what to do with their feelings that result. Perhaps, instead of measuring and attempting to maximize economic variables like GDP, we should be keeping our eye on a more fundamental human need, the need for relational value, and work toward developing a society that maximizes it.

- Dr Geoff Henriques

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Transforming your own sense of agency and value

As a business leader who is also a therapist, I make it a priority to ensure that the people I work with have agency in their work, but also feel supported and valued. This is a culture that nurtures other people’s skills, that flexes according to each individual’s need for independence and everyone’s need for respect, kindness and compassion.

But I haven’t always been a therapist. I’ve worked in many sectors and heard thousands of stories about other people’s experiences of working in settings and tasks where they have little or no control of the day-to-day or their professional development.

In Dr Henrique’s utopia, we would measure our culture’s success in relational value. But until that day, we have to accept that no-one else is going to create a sense of agency and value for us and that we must do this for ourselves.

Goals can be useful here, and it may be appropriate to work with a counsellor to give you both the support and accountability that many of us need when we attempt to change ways of thinking, feeling and being.

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Contact a Lifetime counsellor

We’re able to offer face-to-face sessions at Lifetime Therapy, Truro and Falmouth in a covid-safe way, thanks to our spacious rooms. We’re also working hard to support people through what is a really difficult time online and over the phone. To make an appointment, or to find out more, get in touch.