Hi my name is Niki Olsen and I am a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in the state of Utah. I also teach mental health skills through a spiritual lens through my coaching business and I am so glad you’re here prioritizing your mental health for those inevitable future challenges. The reality is we live in a world where there is no shortage of challenges right? It doesn’t seem like anyone will be exempt from challenges in the future either right? Actually we know that is true because it’s part of the plan of salvation. This part of the plan we are experiencing is the testing and proving time. We are experiencing opposition internally and externally. That won’t stop while we are on this earth either. That means you might have demands placed on you that could exceed your resources and coping abilities which means your mental health could be impacted. 

So I am so glad you are here and wanting to learn to fortify your mental health so you are ready for those challenges. Working on your mental health not only affects how we think, feel, and act, it also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. 

The truth is, you can work on your mental health and not have a mental health diagnosis. Mental health really is a continuum, which can be different from one person to the next, with different degrees of difficulty and distress. You can experience periods of healthy mental wellness and at other times struggle. That is why it is important to work on your mental health even when you are doing well. 

So let’s talk a bit about how learning these skills will fortify you for future challenges so that you stay motivated to continue working on learning these skills. The first way you can fortify your mental health for future challenges is to develop skills to bring clarity to your thoughts. When life gets stressful or you encounter an overwhelming situation, you might start experiencing what I call mind clutter. Mind clutter can show up differently for people. Some may experience it as racing thoughts that make focusing difficult. Some may experience mind clutter as foggy thoughts that you feel like you just can’t get a grasp on. While others may experience mind clutter as blank thoughts or no thoughts at all. 

All of these different ways you might experience mind clutter make dealing with life's stressors even more difficult. It can feel very unpeaceful. When you are feeling this  unpeaceful mind clutter it can affect your ability to make decisions, communicate, understand or focus can feel nearly impossible. The skills you will learn with these cards will help you quiet down that mind clutter and bring clarity to your thoughts and focus better. What would it be like next time you experience a stressful or overwhelming event and you were able to utilize the skills you learn with these cards to bring clarity to your thoughts? How would you think, feel or act differently? How would that affect the continuation of stress in your life? 

Investing your time now in learning skills to bring clarity to your thoughts in the future will bring you so much peace. This is one block in fortifying your mental health for future challenges.

Another block to that fortification is learning how to receive Divine help with your daily life situations. What I notice with the women I work with is that they are asking for Divine help with big situations and stressors but not the day to day help. I often hear “I don’t want to bother God with that” or “I don’t want to take God’s help away from someone else to help me with that.” First of all, both of those statements are limiting God’s power. God is not bothered or drained when you ask for help no matter how small or big. Each week when you partake of the sacrament, you are asked to “remember Him always”. That doesn’t mean to just think of Him; that means to utilize the resources He has for you. 

Christ’s atonement isn’t just a redeeming power, it is an enabling power. He atoned for everything you experience and He wants to help you. Big or small, He wants to help you. When you ask for Christ’s help with the small things in your day, you not only build trust with Him for the bigger things in your life, you also become more productive and can be enabled to do things energetically that you can’t do on your own. Learning how to develop this skill of asking for Divine help in your day with this card deck will significantly help when you encounter future challenges. Think about being able to do more than you could do on your own in the midst of a trial. What would that be like for your mental health? Learning to rely on the Lord now in the small things will significantly change how your mental health is affected in future challenges.

Another way to significantly change how your mental health is affected in future challenges is to learn to communicate your needs and desires. The first part of that is knowing what your needs and desires truly are and then being able to communicate them to other people.When you are going through a stressful time or challenge, your ability to communicate is decreased. If you haven’t practiced connecting with others through expressing your needs and desires, your relationships will be affected. 

Relationships can be a great resource in challenging situations, but not if you can’t communicate what you need. This sometimes leads to resentments, frustration and isolation. Learning the skills to understand what your needs and desires are then how to communicate them to others in healthy ways will help you connect and improve your relationships. The skills in this card deck will help you identify what you need in situations and then practice communicating that to others. This work will pay off when those stressful times come.

One other thing that will pay off for you when stressful times come kind of ties into that last one and that is to learn to process your emotions. Many women I work with are very good at stuffing emotions down. Not feeling them or passing through them. This creates a volcano effect of pressure and those emotions come out in ways you don’t want them to and during times you don't want them to. Imagine not processing emotions and then something stressful happens and now your mind and body are making you experience them in ways you don’t want to. 

You might find yourself irritated more often, overwhelmed easily, shutting down and not taking care of yourself or numbing those emotions out in ways that aren’t healthy. The first thing that goes out the window when you experience a pressure release of emotions is your self-care. You stop caring for yourself and your needs. Which means you are now an empty vessel trying to pour into others. Utilizing these cards to learn the skill of processing your emotions as they come up can create healing so that you aren’t dealing with those emotions for future challenges. This will also free you up to start better self-care routines that pay off when you are encountering a challenging situation in the future. 

The skills on these cards are Mental Health skills with spiritual explanations. These are educational skills and are not therapy. These skills are not to be used as a substitute for counseling, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, or other professional advice by legal, medical or other qualified professionals and that it is your exclusive responsibility to seek such independent professional guidance as needed. If you are currently under the care of a mental health professional, it is recommended that you promptly inform the mental health care provider of the nature and extent of the use of these skills.

Front: 

The front of each card has the NAME of the skill and a SCRIPTURE that supports the learning of the skill. The scripture was included as an additional support for learning. The scriptures provide a conduit to God’s power and revelation. Looking up the scripture and pondering on the words can provide you additional insights as you yoke with the Lord for help with your mental health.

Back

On the back of each card is a description of how to implement the skills. Some cards offer insight into why they work and others don’t as there is limited space on the back of the card. There is science and research behind a lot of these skills and you can research more into them if you would like. That wasn’t the purpose of these skills so most of them will just give you instructions on how to implement the skills.

You may also notice that the cards have 5 different colors and a symbol at the top of the card. The colors and symbols represent a category of skills to focus on if you have a specific need.  

The dark blue cards with the two individuals side hugging are skills that socially impact your mental health. Everyone needs social connection and support in their lives. Whatever your level of comfortability in this category there will be skills you can utilize.

The light blue cards with the heart inside a thought bubble are skills that will emotionally impact your mental health. With these skills you will learn to process through and not hold onto emotion. That way you aren’t taking past emotions into current situations. 

The red cards with the person doing a jumping jack are skills that will physically help your mental health. Your physical body has a lot to do with storing and releasing emotions. Utilizing your body as a resource for your mental health is key.

The golden cards with prayer hands are skills that will spiritually help your mental health. The Savior is one of your greatest resources for your mental health. These skills will help you learn to yoke with Him for help. 

The cream colored cards with the hands holding a heart are skills that will help you have Self compassion. Self compassion is treating yourself with kindness and understanding, especially during difficult times. It's about being less judgmental of yourself when you make mistakes or feel inadequate, and instead giving yourself support and encouragement. 

Each skill will be helping you in a different way. Some tools might bring self awareness. Awareness is the first step in change. When you become aware of what is happening you are better able to make change. Some skills give you the chance to put something into repetitive practice that will bring a new thought process. Other skills will help you rewire your brain to make the skill a default response rather than an unhealthy response you may have chosen in the past. So be open to all kinds of skills

There are endless possibilities in how you choose to implement these cards. I will give you a few suggestions, but these are just a few ideas. Get creative and use them however is best for your learning. If you find a creative way, shoot me an email or DM and tell me about it. I love hearing how you utilize the cards. There is a wooden display block included in your box to help you display the card as a reminder to implement the skill. You could put this display in a common area in your home so the whole family can benefit, on the dinner table and talk about them at dinner, put it on your nightstand so you practice at night or in the morning or on your bathroom counter to practice while you get ready for the day.

There are 52 cards in the deck, so one way you could implement the cards would be to pick one card a week and work on implementing it the whole week. Then the next week trade it out for a different card. By the end of the year you would have practiced a new skill each week for a whole year. Imagine what that would do for your mental health.

You could also pick a new card to work on everyday and then go back through the deck when you get through all the skills. 

You could thumb through the deck and pick a card when you’re feeling like you need support as well. I would caution you on only learning the skills when you “need them”. It is a whole lot harder to learn skills when you are already depleted. So I would use this way in addition to learning them at other times as well. 

You could work on a skill until it becomes a habit and then move to the next skill. Or you could work on one category over and over until it becomes habit. 

You could also take a picture of the card and save it as screensaver on your phone so you remember to practice throughout the day on the skill as well.

The possibilities are endless but just don’t fall into the all or nothing thought process. If you feel overwhelmed by learning them all or coming up with a good strategy, just simplify and do something. When you try to come up with a big giant plan or get overwhelmed your brain will tell you to just put it off or don’t do anything with them to avoid the overwhelm. Doing something small and simple is always more than doing nothing. So just pick a card and display it if you are overwhelmed. Then work from there.

Now I know as you go throughout the skills you might run into some questions that need troubleshooting. If you run into a question that isn’t listed here, shoot me and email and I will get it added. 

I already know that skill: 

Now you might pick a card and think, I already do this. If you’re already doing that, great! Now you know these are skills you already have in your tool box and can pull out in hard times. Rejoice that it is already second nature for you to utilize it and turn to it more often as a resource when you need it.

It doesn’t work:

As you begin to use some of these skills you might notice they don’t work quite yet or in a certain situation. That’s ok, keep practicing. You might need to build up more strength with the skills or fine tune using it. Some skills take time to develop. Just like training for a marathon, it can take time to work your way up to using this skill for marathon type problems. Continue to use it in smaller less stressful situations until you develop the stamina to use it for bigger situations. 

It’s too easy:

You might look at a skills and think, how in the world is that supposed to help me? The skills may seem too simple or odd in how they may help. For the small nature of the card I won’t generally explain the science behind each skill. But I will give a scripture for each one that describes why they work. Trust that there is science behind each skill. Putting it into practice and applying it will help you understand how the skills will benefit you personally.