Unless you were living under a rock this week, you’ll know that the Budget has been dominating the news.

But something you may have missed was the focus on mental health.

In our culture, stress is a dirty word, alongside anxiety and loneliness. Brought up on a steady diet of courage and grit, none of us like to think that we don’t have it all together.

But this failure to recognise and express our thoughts and feelings can isolate and condemn us.

Tuesday’s Budget was a testament to this with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s sober reminder :

“Everybody listening tonight knows someone struggling with their mental health,” he said.

While much of the mental health spending is directed to suicide prevention (and rightly so), preventative mental health care is also important.

In my work as a qualitative researcher and property developer, two very different worlds, I have seen both sides of the stress coin. I have studied, lived and endured it.

So I know how we can underestimate, ignore and normalise the tell-tale signs of anxiety.

Perhaps you’ve felt it too?

There’s a great saying, “a problem shared is a problem halved,” and research shows that if we can recognise and express our emotions, we can regulate them.

So any communication tool that breaks down the barriers has to be a good thing. And that, I’m excited to say, is where my Well-th Matrix comes in.

My work and the intention of the Well-th Matrix, is to start the conversation around stress through the lens of success.
It gamifies, simplifies and amplifies our thoughts and feelings so we can recognise and express our blind spots.
If we can recognise our dilemma, we can express it.
If we can express it, we can manage it.
Before it manages us.