I WAS struck the other day by a comment someone made about what the concept of wellbeing meant to her.

She said how important it was to find people with whom you can be your authentic self and how rare that was in the world in which we live today.

We were having a group discussion about what a healthy sense of wellbeing meant to each of us and how this was different for each person depending on their own lifestyle, experiences and expectations.

One lady said that for her, wellbeing was very much about having the chance to be completely real with other people and not to have to constantly wear a mask.

As someone who worked helping the homeless, she said that at work she found it necessary to be supportive and resourceful no matter how she was feeling inside herself.

At home she also had a number of responsibilities which meant she was often on auto-pilot. She talked about sometimes feeling that by the end of the week she had not been her true self at any point.

Instead she spent her time fulfilling other people’s expectations of her and showing only what seemed appropriate for the occasion.

In talking about this idea with several different groups of people since then, it has seemed to really resonate.

Mention of wearing a mask and feeling obliged to fulfil certain roles has been met with nods in every group I have spoken to. Many seem to feel that way and it occurs to me that this can’t be very good for our mental health in the long term.

We have all heard the advice that one important part of keeping well mentally is to ‘talk to someone’.

Of course this can be helpful as it gives you a chance to vent, to be heard and perhaps start to process your own thoughts about things.

After last week’s conversation though, it occurred to me that talking to someone is only one piece of the puzzle. Most of us talk to people every day about a variety of things. But that in itself does not mean we are being completely honest about how we feel or even properly recognising our own feelings.

There is quite often a concern about how we ‘should’ be feeling or a worry about what the other person might think if we were to open up completely and show how we genuinely feel.

Being honest about how you really feel involves an acceptance of being vulnerable. In order for that to happen you need to feel safe, accepted and not judged by the person you are talking to.

So this week my advice to people has changed a little bit. Instead of simply suggesting that people ‘have someone to talk to’ perhaps the real trick is to find someone you can both talk to and be truly authentic with.

A slightly harder challenge perhaps, but one which I feel that many of us would genuinely benefit from.