Episode 31: How to look after your mental wellbeing – with Mio Yokoi of Life Stuff 101

Episode 31: How to look after your mental wellbeing - with Mio Yokoi of Life Stuff 101

Jeremy Cline 0:00
You might already be taking steps to look after your physical health, whether it's through a combination of diet, exercise, going to the gym, whatever it might be. But do you look after your mental health in the same way? That's what we discuss in this week's episode. I'm Jeremy Cline and this is Change Work Life.

Hello and welcome to the Change Work Life podcast, the show that's all about beating the Sunday evening blues and enjoying Mondays again. My guest this time is Mio Yokoi, who is a psychotherapist and also the host of the Life Stuff 101 podcast. Originally I wanted Mio on to talk about mental health in the workplace, but as you'll hear the conversation quickly broadened to how we look after our mental health more generally. Do make sure you listen to the end because Mio has got some great tips and practices which you can easily incorporate into your daily life to look after your mental health. Here's the interview with Mio Yokoi.

Hi Mio, welcome to the show.

Mio Yokoi 1:09
Thank you so much Jeremy for having me.

Jeremy Cline 1:11
Mio, can you start by introducing yourself and telling us a bit about what it is that you do?

Mio Yokoi 1:15
Sure. My name is Mio Yokoi and I work as a registered psychotherapist in private practice in Toronto, Canada, have been doing so for the last 10 years. And while it's not currently a part of 'making a living', I also host a podcast called Life Stuff 101, and the idea is to inspire people to think about the importance of mental health in the same ways that we think about the importance of physical health. And my goal through all of my efforts - but the podcast is one of the launching points for that - is to inspire 126 million people to think about their mental health needs differently because the way that I imagine it, the more people are intentional and cognizant about their mental health needs - I just think that would just make for a better world.

Jeremy Cline 2:01
I wanted to ask you, how did you get to the figure of 126 million?

Mio Yokoi 2:05
Yeah, it's very specific. Right? [Laughs] I was born in Japan, and I'm a first generation immigrant to Canada. That is actually the population of Japan. So I was thinking about how interesting it would be for a whole country of people to prioritise their mental health in the same ways that they do their other kinds of health and what that would mean to the quality of life for a country.

Jeremy Cline 2:30
Okay, excellent. You mentioned that you'd been practising psychotherapy for 10 years, what was it you were doing before then?

Mio Yokoi 2:37
So this is going to be actually quite interesting, and I was preparing to speak to Jeremy today - I actually did think back to all the different career changes that I've made over my lifetime. So as I mentioned, I have been in private practice now for over 10 years and thinking back had made quite a few big career shifts over my lifetime. When I'd been much, much younger, I wanted to be a journalist, and I pursued that into university, but I quickly learned that it wasn't going to be something that I was going to be able to devote my life to. While I was in the process of figuring things out, I worked in a restaurant and served, which is a very valuable experience for me and I think actually could be a really useful thing for many people - especially younger folks - to have. I come from a family of parents who are skilled and experienced in the art of hospitality, so I also take the work of providing good service and doing hospitality 'right' very seriously, but it was a very valuable experience for me. And from there, I worked in an administration capacity, a music video production company - now we're going back a bunch of years, where music videos were still relevant, I guess! - and then found my way into marketing and eventually to marketing at a startup tech company in the 90s before the tech bubble burst here, and then I ended up working in a more traditional boutique marketing firm. You know, if you follow all of that, I guess, you know, you could say that my career choices and changes were somewhat organic. And I made decisions based on sort of the opportunities were available to me. But having ended up working in marketing, as long as I had, it was actually a pretty big change I decided to make by pursuing to work as a psychotherapist here, where I live in Canada.

Jeremy Cline 2:40
And what was it that sparked the desire to change from marketing to psychotherapy?

Mio Yokoi 4:30
Just to give you a sense of the chronology I guess - all that stuff that I mentioned up until now, that was about 15 years of my working life, and there was a point in my marketing career where I realised that there was a lot of stress and time that was devoted to doing things that ultimately didn't matter. So for instance, I'd be working on a marketing campaign, and I worked as a project lead on for instance bi-weekly or monthly flyers for some larger retailers here in Canada, and there'd be so much pressure, and sometimes, you know, really unnecessary time stressors and things like that - it'd be so intense. But once the flyers would all be delivered, it was just - nothing happened. And apart from stores and those companies hopefully making sales from those flyers, and the company I worked for, who were able to continue the contract so that I would continue to be paid, you know, looking at the bigger picture - these things weren't enough for me for it to be meaningful. And so all the stress and all this pressure and all this resource and all the care that I was putting into these kinds of projects, I would step back and think, you know, this doesn't really ultimately have meaning for me. And then that's what sort of got me to start looking at myself and wondering, what would be that thing?

Jeremy Cline 5:44
And so what led you specifically out of that to psychotherapy?

Mio Yokoi 5:49
There's a number of things, but I think that when I started to realise that just making a certain salary and being able to live a certain lifestyle wasn't fulfilling enough for me. It's just a very interesting thing, that growing up - whether it's family or whether it's the outside world - in my case, my family didn't necessarily have this kind of a narrative, but you couldn't see outside of yourself and especially I live in a place like Toronto where people are very much status oriented, and 'you want to have a certain kind of salary,' and 'you want to live in a certain place' and 'you want to be able to live a certain kind of lifestyle'. When I realised that those things didn't fulfil me, I just started looking for an answer or just ways of trying to resolve this conflict that I had internally. I guess one specific thing - and this is true to this day - which has made and still makes a significant difference is deciding to engage in psychotherapy. Because I had this sense of not knowing, and I figured, well, maybe somebody who is outside of me, somebody who could maybe give me some objective feedback would maybe provide me with an answer, or a sense of a different way of thinking and feeling about things. And I was very lucky to find a therapist who's been an incredible fit for me and just working with her, like all these years - I still do - has allowed me to keep growing and evolving in all areas of my life.

Jeremy Cline 7:13
It was working with someone else who was a practising psychotherapist that made you think, Oh, you know what, I'm getting something out of this, this is something that I'd like to do myself as well and help other people in the same way?

Mio Yokoi 7:26
Well, that's certainly it. For what I was able to gain and how much I felt that I was able to change and to evolve and to grow from my experience, I wanted to pay it forward. I knew if I was feeling that way, my sense was that there were others who were feeling similarly to me. And if there are ways in which I could support other people to have a better way of being or to feel differently or to feel as though they have different choices or not feel stuck, then I felt like that would be work that would be more meaningful for me.

Jeremy Cline 8:02
Fantastic. And just talk briefly as to how that's led you on to starting the podcast.

Mio Yokoi 8:09
So initially I was very content or fine with or just thought that I would work one-on-one with folks. I didn't really want to do family therapy, didn't necessarily want to do couples therapy - where I found my groove I guess or my niche is in working with adult individuals. And as much as I feel so privileged to be able to do that work, that people are open and that they share their lives with me and that they want to work with me - and that is still true to this day, I feel very much that way, I'm so grateful - but over time, you also realise, people come to therapy when they're their most distressed or when they're often at a place where they don't have a sense of where else to turn. A thought that kept kind of germinating over time of what if it is that we thought about mental health from the perspective of if we were to take care of ourselves, just like we do our physical health on an ongoing basis that when something does happen -because inevitably it does - we'll be in a more strengthened or a more resilient position to be able to manage these either, like hiccups or curveballs, or sometimes the car crashes that can happen in our lives metaphorically and also literally. And so it's from that feeling and that belief of 'what if I can be a part of that conversation for people to think about mental health differently' that the podcast was born.

Jeremy Cline 9:45
Fantastic. That sounds brilliant. One of the reasons that I wanted to specifically invite you onto the podcast was to talk about mental health in the workplace, which now I say it, sounds like it could be a huge topic and we could probably do an entire series on it, but maybe we can just do a bit of a an introduction and some tips into the whole idea and the concept here. I guess one of the reasons I was interested to talk about this is one of the comments that I sometimes see on careers discussion boards and that sort of thing is 'I don't necessarily want to do a job that I particularly like, I just want to do something that I can put up with, you know, I don't mind being bored. I don't mind if my colleagues are not great, I just want something easy that I can just get by on.' My instinctive internal reaction to that sort of thing is that can't be a good idea because you're just going to grind yourself down with this mediocre, and to me, it just sounds like that's almost asking for trouble when it comes to mental health. Now, I'm not a trained psychotherapist so I'm hoping that either you're going to tell me 'Yeah, you're right. That is going to be a problem' or you're going to shoot me down and tell me that I'm wrong and you're going to give me good reasons for that.

Mio Yokoi 11:01
I'll give you a different kind of an answer. People come across those kinds of answers or that kind of statement. You think, okay, there is a hope or a wish that this person has, and this reaction is maybe coming a contrast of where they are currently, or something like that. It's a hope that if only I were able to be in a situation where it didn't cause me too much distress, but it's something that I would be able to manage over time, that should be fine. Actually, the reality is there are some folks who are okay with that. For those folks, then that's really great to be able to find those kinds of working situations for them, but that's not true of everybody. And for those folks who do find that they're looking for something that is more fulfilling for them work wise - because work for a lot of people has a lot of personal meaning, a lot of personal value - and if it's something that is important to some people that they have a more ideal working situation that works best for them and that that's also going to be a part of their overall fulfilment, then if someone like that is saying that kind of a comment, it could be that they're a) in denial or b) that the grass seems greener on the other side, right - that we often will want something other than what we currently have, if something that we currently have isn't working for us. I know that this is a bit of a jumbled answer. But there are people who are perfectly fine to just have a situation where they just go in and just kind of put up with whatever it is, their circumstances, and just be able to go home and have sort of a life outside of that that's maybe fulfilling for them. For some people it's just like the routine, this is fine, I don't want to have any more than this or don't need any more than this. But then there are other individuals who are very different from that, especially to the audience that you speak to Jeremy - that your audience is more of the people who are 'oh, like something doesn't feel quite right. And I don't know what ways to manage that or how to move toward something else'.

Jeremy Cline 13:13
One of the things I see with that kind of approach is a risk of kind of believing that mediocre is all available. The kind of 'work is always going to be work' mentality. It's not possible really to enjoy yourself at work. And so I guess if people are coming from a bad place, you know, be it something like they have terrible relationships with work, or they just really don't enjoy their job - people kind of want to look for an escape. And because they have such a damaged perception about work, they kind of just think 'you know, I'm just going to shoot for mediocrity.' Is that right? Is that the way that some people approach it? And how can people make sure that they're going for what they want to do and what they're capable of, rather than just going for a mediocre escape route.

Mio Yokoi 14:09
That's a very multi-layered question, in the way that I hear it anyway. I don't like to think in absolutes, and one of the things that I learned through my experience and work and working with so many people, and also with my own work over time, there's a judgement there, right, about mediocrity. And perhaps it could be that you and I might look at someone's situation, and we might be listening to someone's perspective on their working life and think, Oh, this person is settling for 'mediocrity.' But that is a judgement that maybe we're placing, or I may be placing on this particular person's experience. There are some people who would be able to name, wow, this is all I can do. This is all that's available to me. And so therefore, this is what I've got to figure out how to put up with. If I'm hearing something like that, then I would think, Oh, this person wants something different, this person isn't content, or feels as though there is something that's possible, that's outside or they would like something to be possible outside of their current reality. Whereas there are some people who talk about their working lives in such a way where maybe from my perspective, I was maybe feeling like, oh, that's not something that would necessarily work for me. You know, often there are a lot of people who are not in their mind settling. It's something that for them, it's this is what works for me. So I think that first of all, there is sort of making that distinction between the people who are feeling like I don't know that anything else is available for me, to have that awareness of themselves versus folks who are like, nope, this is fine. I'm content. Maybe there's other things out there for me. I'm not really that driven or it doesn't bother me so much to think about the fact that it could be different.

Jeremy Cline 16:02
I love the fact that you're talking about self-awareness there actually. And I think that's completely right about the distinction. I'm certainly in no way saying that everyone settles or that someone may judge mediocre is not what's the person who's actually doing it judges it, and frankly the only person who matters is the person who is doing the job and whether or not they gain satisfaction. So I think that what you said about self-awareness is absolutely the key point here. And I just wondered, what steps can people take to develop their self-awareness around this sort of thing so that they can start perhaps to question their own internal narrative and determine whether they do fall in the category of Yes, actually, I really am happy doing this, or that they are in the category of I might say that I'm happy with this, but reality is that I'm settling and in fact, I'm one of these people who needs something different. How does someone take steps to make themselves more aware of where they sit?

Mio Yokoi 17:11
It's such a fascinating question. And I think if I had an answer to that, honestly, I could be become one of the top self improvement gurus: 'I have the answer to be able to tell you how to be more self aware!' I think that it's such a complicated and multi-layered question because again, some people just innately have that sense of curiosity, are innately thinking about themselves from the standpoint of 'Hmm, something is unsettled in me, I just have this desire for things to be different.' Or sometimes when it can happen is for loved ones - trusted ones around you for that individual - to say, you know, 'You've been really cranky' or 'You used to be more of a happy-go-lucky type of person who would be open and spontaneous and connected, and all these other kinds of more positive ways of being. And it doesn't seem like that is who you are anymore. What's happened?' I mean, that's a big one. And if someone is able to take that kind of feedback on board to say, 'Okay, I feel this way. I feel this way in which I don't feel as maybe that sense of vitality that I used to have at a different time in my life before I started down this career path, before I started this particular job', and to have somebody, maybe other people, say 'You've been different for the last little while.' And if people begin to kind of put those things together and say, 'Hmm, do I want to be curious about this? What does this even mean for me, the fact that I feel this way and I'm getting this kind of feedback, or that my life feels differently than I remember it feeling at a different time in my life?' Having a curiosity - and for somebody to want to have that curiosity about themselves - is really the first step to creating or cultivating self-awareness. And sometimes it can happen also situationally, you know - certain things like a relationship breaking up, or you know, a big life event happening or even like losing a job or starting a new job - all these kinds of things, and sometimes really get people to a place of 'why am I feeling not great about this?' 'Why is it that there are a lot of big feelings in relation to this thing that's happened?' That can also be an entry point, I think there are so many different entry points, but at the end of the day, it has to be that certain individual who decides that it's possible for something to be different or to be curious about why it is that that's what they're experiencing, or that they found themselves in a place in life that they didn't necessarily expect to be.

Jeremy Cline 19:55
Okay. And once someone has got curious, with anyone that you work with, do you have a sort of a framework or a practice that people can use to help themselves with their curiosity? So they start off with 'I am curious', but they're not necessarily sure what questions to ask themselves.

Mio Yokoi 20:16
Like I mentioned, what I found over time in my psychotherapy practice is that there's a very small minority of people who may start therapy or pursue therapy because they are curious - most people start therapy because they're in distress. And when they are in a state of distress, they're trying to solve a problem, which is a very different approach. And sometimes there are people who come in, and they're curious about, why have I followed all the things that I was supposed to do in life, and I'm at this place where I'm just not happy. So in some ways very similar to how maybe where I started from. But I also had a level of distress I think at that time as well. I think it's a very multi-layered thing. I think that it really helps that there's much more conversation globally about - as much as people who misalign this idea of self-help - but that people are curious about themselves. So I think generally speaking, the entry point might be something like YouTube videos or articles online or through doing Google searches, because they just have a curiosity about something. It's not exactly answering your question I understand, but I think that what does happen for most folks is that the entry point is often when they have a curiosity, they go to maybe social media or online or do a Google search or YouTube or something like that, which then maybe leads to books and things like that. And then eventually, it could be that they come in and they're like, Oh, I just need you know, a coach or a different perspective or something like that, which then provides almost like a playground. So the way that I work anyway - I'm a psychodynamic therapist - what I do is to say, all right, so where are you at? And what's going on for you, and let's really lay down. So I'm quite visual in terms of the way that I work. I think of things as maybe a lot of people are coming in as sort of like a crumpled up map, like that there are so many different places and areas of their lives, but it's all sort of like crumpled up into one, it's difficult to know what's what and what can happen in therapy and I think that therapy is a resource is to help my clients open that map up and smooth that map out and to be able to see where the different places are and what areas need more work or attention or clarity. The way in which I work is to figure out what they want the map to ultimately look like and where are the areas that they have passion for, or what areas that they would like to visit or to be a part of or to live even and that's actually a very different process for every person that I work with.

Jeremy Cline 23:00
I really like that visual analogy of smoothing out the map. I can really see that. You mentioned at the start of the episode your podcast is about kind of getting people to be aware of mental health in the same way that they're aware of physical health before the distress happens. So if I want to find out about physical things I can do, I can go and look online, all sorts of different exercises I can do and all that sort of thing. In terms of mental health, and I'm sure the answer to this is let's go and have a look at your podcast because you cover all this in a lot more detail, but are there any particular practices which are kind of low barrier to entry - you can start these with a few minutes and without doing any massive sort of preparation or anything like that, just maybe one or two things that anyone can start which will over time have an impact and help their general mental wellbeing?

Mio Yokoi 23:59
Yeah, and I think that that's a really good question, in that to first figure out what the entry point is. One of the things that I'm still I think trying to get my head around with my podcast is the way that I think about it. I think about it as if I talk about a lot of different ways and insights and people's experiences, perhaps something will resonate with that particular individual. And that could be the entry point. But that said, it can also be really helpful to get very specific about what those entry points could be as well. I think one of the things that is much more openly discussed and accepted at this point is meditation, mindfulness meditation, mindfulness practices. And because with apps and technology, there's less of a barrier to entry, because something like the two apps that I often talk about one is called Headspace, and it's great and it's from a guy that's based in the UK and his accent and the way in which he speaks - he resonates with me and the people that I have suggested it to pretty unanimously have gotten very good feedback about it. And with Headspace, I haven't checked it out very recently, but there is a 10 day trial, at least there used to be, and if it works for some people, you can just play the 10 day, 10 minute trial programme over and over and over again. And what I've also found with a lot of folks is that they might do it three or four times, maybe even over a six month period and realise, you know what, I'm ready to go to the next steps with meditation. So as human beings, what's really phenomenal about who we are, is that we're always I think, looking to strive in some way. So to have that entry point is very important. So whether it's an app like Headspace, or another one is - there's a guy named Dan Harris and he has Waking Up is also an app, and his app is a little bit more expensive I think when it comes right down to it, but the ways in which he talks about meditation is a lot more nuanced. And it's something that if you're happy to be a little bit more cerebral, it might be something that might resonate for you more. But then if we were to put that aside for a moment, it could be a second thing to potentially consider is there's something called the Five Minute Journal. The Five Minute Journal is a really fantastic five minutes of your time in the morning and in the evening, and it asks you questions or prompts, and you do it every day. And again, it provides you with an opportunity to just be mindful about your day maybe to write down the things that you're grateful for the things that you would like to maybe do action wise and so forth. And it just kind of keeps you mindful of the different things that are going on. And I think that for a lot of people to get into that practice would be really helpful as well. In terms of like the lowest barrier to entry, I would say, just going out for a walk 10 minutes a day, and you can do it alone or you know, with the trusted person, but just to get yourself moving and I guess this also dovetails - this idea that physical health and mental health is a very well connected thing - but even going out for 10 minutes and just going for a stroll and just thinking about your day, just reflecting on your day and just giving yourself that time and space to just slow down and not have some kind of electronic device or to be thinking about your next thing or whatever it is. It allows for the brain to just chill out for a little bit, which can actually be really helpful for mental health.

Jeremy Cline 27:31
One of the things I find when I'm walking - I mean, this might just be me but hey it's my podcast so I'll ask what I want - most of the time when I'm walking, I'm actually listening to podcasts, I use it to get to do education and that sort of thing. When I'm not doing that, I sometimes find that I end up kind of getting gnarled up in my own thoughts whilst I'm walking. Have you ever come across any kind of like meditative practice whilst walking that kind of forces you just to focus on what you're doing and not start thinking or particularly worrying about all the other things which can go through your head, when you've not got something else going in there, like a podcast or music or whatever?

Mio Yokoi 28:14
So I don't have something specific in mind. But my understanding is that there are also apps that have walking meditation programmes. So that could potentially help, if you are listening to somebody guiding you through that walk so that it's focusing your attention on that particular prompt or that particular guidance that you're getting from the app. Another potential thing to consider is that as much as we like to think of ourselves as multitaskers, our brain actually really likes to focus on one thing at a time. So if it is that you're looking to maybe just have like a 10 minute walk where you're just wanting to not find yourself spiralling are not lthought cycling, that kind of thing, there are certain things like music that could be more ambient music that doesn't necessarily have a harmony or lyrics and things like that, that you can focus your mind on. Actually - this is interesting - there is this song called Weightless, which is a song that was developed or written specifically, to help calm. They made the song along with this band that is meant to be the calmest song that's ever been created. And it's called Weightless. And it's by a band called Marconi Union I want to say, and it's available. I think someone told me it's on Spotify and I know it's on Apple Music, like that kind of thing, where you can just have that on and you'll just notice that it allows you to just have that being sort of the ambient presence in your head for those few minutes. And and for me actually, I use that particular piece of music if I'm trying to write or if I'm trying to focus on a very specific thing and I find that it kind of keeps the other stuff away keeps the other thoughts or you know, whatever else might be distracting me. That's one possible thing to consider.

Jeremy Cline 30:19
I will have to check that out. Mio, this has been a really fascinating conversation. Where can people go to find out more about you and what you're doing and your podcast?

Mio Yokoi 30:31
First of all, Jeremy, thank you because I felt like we had a really great conversation today as well. So thank you very much. At this point, the best place to find me is lifestuff101.com. One of the things that I'm in the process of pivoting toward in my private practice is to be working more with folks who have and possess sensory processing sensitivity, or some people know that as being highly sensitive and that's something that I will be doing more work on and there'll be some information about that on my podcast, but there'll be maybe more information about that in the future. But all of that you can find at lifestuff101.com, which is the name of my podcast as well.

Jeremy Cline 31:13
Fantastic. I will put a link to that in my show notes. Mio, thank you so much for joining me.

Mio Yokoi 31:18
Thank you, Jeremy. It was great.

Jeremy Cline 31:20
Thanks. Bye bye. As I've interviewed more people, there's been some interesting patterns emerging. One of them is the fact that people often seem to end up changing into a career where it's something which has helped them in the past. So for example, Mio needed some help in the psychotherapy space. She got that help and then decided that that's what she wanted to do. We also had Michelle Smith back in episode 6, where she was looking for a solution to pilates. Adrian Muxlow also, our hypnotherapist who used hypnotherapy to help him give up smoking and then decided to become a hypnotherapist himself. I guess it goes to show that experience matters. And what I mean by that is that you just don't know whether or not you're likely to enjoy something unless and until you've had experience of it. Now, it's almost impossible to get experience of everything. But it definitely does show that it's worth having an open mind and trying to experience as many things as possible. All that aside, I really love the fact that Mio is talking about taking steps before there's a problem. She mentioned that people go and see a psychotherapist or a counsellor because there is a problem and they need help dealing with it, whereas what she's talking about is taking steps to maintain mental health in the same way that we take steps to maintain physical health. So in other words, we do exercises in order to avoid problems coming along down the road. She also gave us some ideas as to what you might do. There was the example of meditation, journaling, or even just walking. And I guess it's a question of finding which one's right for you and which one you can easily build into your daily life. Really the only one which I do routinely is walking. I've had a go at meditation, did it for a couple of weeks, haven't really tried journaling. I think definitely meditation is something I'd like to get back into. But it's creating the habits, and I think that is key really to any of these practices is building in a habit. And I think that's something I'm definitely going to cover in a future podcast episode. You'll find the link to Mio's podcast and all the other things we talked about on the website that's at changeworklife.com/31 for this episode, and I'd really love to hear from you and you can get in touch in two ways. First of all, there's the changeworklife Facebook group. So if you go to changeworklife.com/facebook, then that'll take you there. You can leave any messages, comments, queries there, ideas for future episodes - I'd love to hear what ideas you've got. Alternatively, there's the contact page, which is at changeworklife.com/contact. Again, if you've got ideas for episodes or feedback on what episodes you've enjoyed in particular, I'd really love to hear from you because this show is for you, and it's your views that are going to guide who I'm going to be interviewing. So please do get in contact. There's more to come with another great interview next week, and I can't wait to see you then. Cheers. Bye.