The Tower Block: Navigating Your Mental and Emotional State

Have you ever experienced days where you feel on top of the world: energised, motivated, and ready to tackle anything and then, seemingly out of nowhere, you find yourself in a slump where even the smallest tasks feel overwhelming?

This fluctuating experience is something we all go through, and it’s at the heart of the Tower Block concept in Mind Works with Craig.

The Tower Block is a metaphor I use to describe the levels of our mental and emotional states. It helps us understand how we move up and down depending on our energy, focus, health, and the stress in our lives. Recognising where you are on the Tower Block at any given moment is key to managing your emotions, enhancing your performance, and achieving your goals.

What is the Tower Block?

Imagine your mental and emotional state as a tall tower, with different levels representing how well you’re functioning and feeling:

• Level 10 – The Penthouse: This is where you feel your best: energised, motivated, clear-headed, and capable of tackling anything life throws at you. On these days, tasks seem easy, challenges feel exciting, and you’re fully engaged with life.

• Levels 7-9: These are your good days. You feel well, focused, and driven. On these days, you can really push toward your goals. Challenges feel manageable, and you have the energy to make meaningful progress in your life. Whether it’s work, relationships, or personal projects, everything flows more easily.

• Level 6 – The Comfort Zone: This is where you feel stable and balanced and things are going well.  You’re functioning well. From here, you have the capacity to push ahead and stretch yourself when needed. It’s a good place to be when you want to start making changes, as you have a solid foundation to build upon.

• Level 5: This is where things start to feel a bit more challenging. You might be distracted or feel some stress, and tasks that usually feel easy now require more effort. It’s a transitional state where you still have control but may need to refocus your energy and attention to prevent sliding further down.

• Levels 4-1: These are the days when stress, anxiety, and self-doubt become more prominent. You feel stuck, frustrated, and overwhelmed, and your ability to take action is diminished. This is where protection mechanisms like avoidance, overworking, or procrastination kick in as your mind tries to shield you from discomfort.

• Level -1 – The Basement: This is the point where your internal world becomes overwhelming. Energy is low, thinking feels foggy, and everything takes more effort than it should. You might withdraw, lose motivation, or feel disconnected from your usual sense of self. It’s a deeply internal struggle, driven by emotional overload, exhaustion, and protective patterns that take over when you feel you can’t cope. In the Basement, the nervous system is still active, but it is working hard to conserve resources. This is why you may rely more on comfort-seeking behaviours or feel unable to take action, even on things you care about.

• Level -2: The Dungeon - The Dungeon reflects the external pressures that push you further down the Tower Block. This is where life circumstances start to weigh heavily: financial stress, work overload, conflict at home, lack of support, or unstable environments. These situations drain your capacity and keep you in a constant state of hypervigilance or overwhelm. Even if your intentions are good, you simply don’t have the space or stability to move upwards. In the Dungeon, survival is shaped as much by the world around you as it is by your internal state. Progress becomes difficult not because of a lack of will, but because the demands on your system are too great for the resources you currently have. 
• Level –3: The Void - The Void is where the nervous system shifts into a freeze or shutdown response. This is not a choice but a physiological state linked to the dorsal vagal system of polyvagal theory. It can feel like being completely numb, disconnected, or unable to react. You might struggle to speak, think clearly, or recognise what you need. The Void is often misunderstood as giving up, yet it’s actually the body’s deepest form of protection when everything feels too much. From here, the priority is restoring safety, regulation, and stability so your system can gradually rise back through the levels.

Moving Up and Down the Tower Block

We don’t stay at one level of the Tower Block for long. In fact, we move up and down hourly depending on our energy levels, concentration, enthusiasm, health, and the stressors in our lives. It’s natural for our mental and emotional state to fluctuate throughout the day, and being aware of this movement is crucial for managing it.

For example, you might start your day at Level 7, feeling great after a good night’s sleep, but by mid-afternoon, stress from work or distractions may pull you down to Level 5. By recognising this shift, you can take steps to recharge, refocus, and move back up the Tower Block rather than staying stuck at a lower level.

The goal isn’t to stay in the Penthouse (Level 10) all the time—life doesn’t work that way. The aim is to understand where you are and take purposeful action to move upward when you’re struggling or feeling stuck.

Tools for Moving Up the Tower Block

To help you climb the Tower Block and stay at the higher levels, we use several key tools:

• Mental Strength: Developing mental strength is fundamental to understanding and managing your position on the Tower Block. It helps you observe your current state clearly, take responsibility, and make conscious choices that keep you moving upward.

• Parts of Self: Our internal dialogue often reflects different parts of ourselves that can be in conflict—logical versus emotional, future self versus current self. By understanding and aligning these parts, you can reduce the inner conflict that keeps you stuck on lower levels.

• Gears of Motivation: As you move up and down the Tower Block, your motivation shifts. Understanding how to switch between different “gears” of motivation helps you adapt to your current state and push forward even when things feel tough.

• Pillars of Health: Your physical and mental health play a huge role in where you land on the Tower Block. Strengthening the Pillars of Health (mental, physical, emotional, and environmental well-being) gives you the resilience to stay at the higher levels.

Protection Mechanisms at the Lower Levels

When you find yourself in the lower levels of the Tower Block, you’re more likely to rely on protection mechanisms—behaviours that temporarily shield you from discomfort but ultimately keep you stuck. These can include:

• Avoidance: Ignoring problems or procrastinating instead of facing challenges head-on.
• Overworking: Immersing yourself in work to distract from emotional issues.
• Numbing Behaviours: Using food, alcohol, or distractions like social media to avoid confronting difficult emotions.
• Anxiety: Constant worrying about the future instead of taking action in the present.

Recognising these behaviours is the first step to overcoming them. Once you understand the patterns that are keeping you stuck, you can start making conscious decisions to break free and move upward.

Up Next: Parts of Self ↓

The Tower Block helps you understand where you are internally. It shows how your emotional capacity rises and falls, why your reactions change, and why thinking clearly becomes harder on the lower floors. But knowing where you are is only the beginning.

The next step is understanding who inside you is responding.

Your thoughts, emotions and behaviours do not come from one single voice. They come from different parts of your mind, each shaped by your history, experiences and emotional needs. These parts react differently depending on which “floor” of the Tower Block you are on.

When you are higher up the Tower Block, the clearer, more capable parts of you come forward. When you drop into the lower floors, protective parts become louder, trying to shield you from discomfort, pressure or emotional threat.

This is why you can feel motivated one moment and shut down the next.
Why you can want change but resist it.
Why you can feel pulled in two directions at the same time.

Parts of Self helps explain these internal shifts and shows how to bring these parts into alignment so your system stops fighting itself.
Understanding these internal roles is the foundation for meaningful, lasting change.

Explore the next concept to meet the parts of your mind that shape your daily experience.