What’s in Your Cup? Recalibrating Your Mental Health

When was the last time you were able to rest? Not just sit down for a minute and catch your breath. But rather to pause long enough to reflect and assess your mental health and wellbeing. When was the last time you were able to discern what it is that you actually need and not what expectations have been imposed upon you by yourself or others?

According to the Mental Health Foundation (n.d.), Holistic Rest is, “refreshing [y]our whole self, both physically and psychologically”(p. 4 ). Research has indicated that engaging in rest helps us to improve mood, immune health, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills. Moreover, rest decreases blood pressure, stress, and anxiety. “Without rest, we are like elastic bands stretched almost all the way to capacity,” says Natalie Dattilo-Ryan, PhD (as cited in Abramson, 2025).

When we do not rest, our mental health cannot be at its best. By taking a step back, we give our mind and body time to recalibrate. Recalibration happens when we take an intentional pause to recognize what is in our cup, what is missing, and what needs to change to re-establish a balance that is most effective for us. Oftentimes, we cope. While coping has its place it does not help one recalibrate or fully recharge. In order to fully recharge, we must take proper care of our physical and mental health.

What’s really fascinating is that most of us have cell phones, the battery runs low, we quickly plug it in to an energy source to ensure the battery does not die. Why don’t we do this for ourselves? Rather, when our energy is low, we often push ourselves to complete our tasks before we give ourselves permission to rest.

We sacrifice our mental and physical health for the sake of meeting an expectation, completing a responsibility or pleasing others. When you think about it, we care more for our cell phones than we do for our own mental and physical wellness.

According to newly released data by the World Health Organization (WHO), there are over 1 billion people living with a mental health disorder (2025). Anxiety and depression are the most prevalent mental health disorders. Mental health conditions are the second largest reason for long-term disability claims. These statistics underscore the need for proactive measures to care for our mental health.

Taking care of our mental health is not a luxury, and it is not a one-time task. Mental health is a nuanced and dynamic concept. Mental health wellness is essential. To protect and restore our mental well‑being, we have to take deliberate steps or take action. The R.T.C. Model provides a framework that you can follow to care for your mental health.

1. Recognition- take account of what’s in your cup

2. Tuning- develop strategies that allow you to refill your cup.

3. Cultivate -implement your refilling strategies

Let’s walk through what that means.

Recognition involves taking a step back to fully inventory what is in your cup. This gives you a chance to assess your true priorities, reveal how well you’re caring for yourself, and what needs to change to refill your cup.

After the recognition stage, you tune in to the insights uncovered and develop a plan to address the deficiencies identified. In developing your plan of care, you are intentional about the actions that you must take to refill your cup.

Lastly, you must cultivate a new way of living that incorporates specific strategies to nourish your mental and physical health. It’s important to reassess your plan of care occasionally to ensure it still meets your needs.

The R.T.C. Model provides a framework to understand what’s in your cup. This model ultimately improves your mental and physical wellbeing.

Finally, knowing whether your cup is half full or half empty provides you with the opportunity to refill it. Many times, we have heard, ’you cannot pour from an empty cup’. But have you paused long enough to consider, ‘why does my cup keep emptying?’