How the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' mantra can be harmful to your mental wellbeing
The message of 'Keep Calm and Carry On' from wartime Britain was developed to reassure the masses in order to maintain order. Yet it was popularised in the UK in the early 2000's which suggests that emotional repression continues to be embedded in the British psyche. However, from a mental wellbeing perspective the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' message is less helpful (or even harmful) in situations which are not life-threatening. This is because repressing emotions can limit their important function. For example, anxiety plays an important role in motivation and keeping safe.
The 'Keep Calm and Carry On' approach to the management of emotions also links with stoicism which is still prevalent in British culture today. Stoicism is often reinforced by phrases like "I was feeling sorry for myself" (suggesting that feeling sad for one's circumstances is not okay) or "She never complained" in reference to someone who was terminally ill. All of which allude to ideas of emotion as being a sign of weakness or undesirable, which is not universal, because the expression of emotions are normalised within many other parts of the world.
A 'Keep Calm and Carry On' mindset can be harmful to your mental wellbeing because it creates a barrier to processing emotions i.e. letting the emotion come, not fighting it, not dismissing it, but accepting it, and feeling it so that it can be let go of, once it has served it's function. Any blocks to this process can be problematic and can even end up intensifying the unpleasantness of difficult emotions. To summarise, what goes on around us and the mantras we internalise, have a strong influence on our self-talk, our ability to process our emotions in a healthy way and whether we are able to ask for help when we need it.
Discussions about cultural ideologies like 'Keep Calm and Carry On' are an untapped source of explanation for many of the mental health challenges that affect us all today. Consequently, many of our beliefs about how we should live our life, how we should behave, what we can and cannot do, what is possible or impossible and what we can share or keep to ourselves, have become 'taken for granted' assumptions. Basically, we rarely think about why we really do what we do. But one of the great opportunities that good therapy can offer, is a space to open up from just one or two limited (and possibly unhelpful) perspectives to a whole range of them through exploring the influence of cultural factors on mental wellbeing. I relish the times when my clients breathe a sigh of the relief at the idea that they don't need to be stuck with the problem they find themselves in and that in fact there may be another way to see it. And more importantly, we establish a deep understanding of where their assumptions came from e.g. their family, class or patriarchy, to name a few. Therefore, therapy can be a place to look both externally and internally to make sense of thoughts, emotions and behaviours.
Something to try out:
I invite you to consider the following during your every day activities when something makes you frustrated, or disappointed or uncomfortable and especially if you find that you are blaming yourself.
Try to identify the thoughts running through your mind in your self-talk e.g. "I expected more from myself" or "I should have done better than this"
Consider if you have these same expectations of others? or are you more forgiving? or are you more harsh? and where might these expectations come from?
Consider if these types of thoughts help you? Do they leave you feeling energised or flat? Optimistic or deflated?
Remember:
Variety is your friend in these situations. The more ways you can understand your problem e.g. a worry about presentations at work or whether you are a good parent, the more options available to you. And the more options available to you, the more likely you are to find the one that actually fits for you. Therefore giving you space to feel and think and be in a way that is most conducive to good mental wellbeing.
Noticing is always the first stage of overcoming mental health problems or even just the problems that interrupt you every day life that are unpleasant to deal with, so building this daily practice before considering any actions is key. So 'Keep Noticing and Keep Feeling'.
Written by: Dr Yvanna Coopoosamy, clinical psychologist