We all have days when we wake up feeling flat.

The motivation isn't there. The energy feels low. Even the things we normally enjoy seem harder than usual. When that happens, it's easy to assume something is wrong with us or that we need to somehow "snap out of it."

Recent research suggests that more Australians are feeling stressed than they were this time last year. While it's encouraging to see more people reaching out for support, the findings also highlight an important reality: mental wellbeing requires ongoing attention, not just when we're struggling, but every day.

Positive psychology is often misunderstood.

When people hear the term, they sometimes assume it's about maintaining a positive attitude no matter what happens.

There are moments in life when everything feels like too much.

The bills pile up. Work becomes overwhelming. The uncertainty of the future starts creeping into every thought. And before we know it, our minds are racing while our bodies continue pushing forward without rest.

Mondays can feel like standing at the bottom of a mountain. Before the emails, meetings, deadlines, and demands start piling on, there’s often already a mental load we’re carrying into the week.

That’s why I want to talk about your workbench.

Before the week runs away and Monday somehow turns into Friday, here’s a question worth sitting with for a moment:

How are you actually really going?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been fortunate to travel around beautiful South Australia and interstate, working with incredible people through my Workbench for the Mind program.

I want to talk about something many people experience but don’t often say out loud. You can look completely fine on the outside and still feel deeply alone on the inside.

And the truth is, this is far more common than we realise.

One of the hardest truths about rural life is this:

You can be surrounded by people, responsibility, and noise and still feel deeply alone.

Right now, the conversation around the Australian fuel crisis is focused on cost, supply, and logistics. But for those living in rural and regional communities, it’s about something deeper.

There’s a quiet misconception many of us carry—that for something to be truly effective, it has to be complex. That real change requires deep dives, big overhauls, or complicated frameworks.

There’s something about the start of a new week that can feel heavier than it should. Before the day has even properly begun, the mind starts revisiting everything that didn’t happen last week. The unfinished tasks. The plans that slipped. The rest you promised yourself but never quite got to.

Why do we dislike Mondays so much?

Sometimes it is not even Monday itself. It is the thought of it. It creeps into Sunday and starts to take over what should be our time to rest and recharge.

Grief is a fact of life, yet when it arrives, it often catches us completely off guard. No matter how prepared we believe we are for life’s challenges, nothing truly prepares us for the deep loss of someone we love.

I just wanted to share a couple of paragraphs from my book, Grief. Everything I thought I believed in, I began to question.

1% of your day is about 15 minutes.

Not to fix everything.
Not to be productive.
Not to improve yourself.

Just to choose you.

And just like that, the week is gone.
Then the month.
Then you blink and realise the year is already in motion.

It slips out automatically after a holiday, a break, or a year that asked more of you than you expected.

We build up to the Christmas break.
We count it down.
We talk about it.
We anticipate it.

And then it happens.

And just like that, it’s over.

Last year taught you more than you realise. But have you actually stopped long enough to notice?

So often we rush to move on — into a new year, new goals, new expectations — without taking a moment to understand what the previous year was quietly shaping inside us.