Mental Health
I recently attended an extraordinary meeting/gathering. It was held in the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney; a wonderful venue! There were two main focus areas; both on the issue of mental health. The first was a 'Garden Room' gathering of the newly formed Banksia Project and the second was an opportunity to hear about an initiative called the Heart On My Sleeve Movement. These are very timely projects and hopefully both will go along way toward improving the current crisis in the mental health scene. The statistics around suicide in Australia reveal the urgency of the situation with one person taking their own life every three hours.
What was truly extraordinary however was the passion and the zeal of all those present including the organisers and presenters. There is indeed a huge desire to change the current upward spiral of the numbers of people of all ages affected by this dis-ease! But of course the question is always what is the best approach. What do we need to do differently to what is currently being done. These questions were certainly raised as well as a number of in relation to non-cerebral approaches. The value of simple reaching out for help through conversations was a constant thread throughout the evening. I was reminded of much work done in the area of powerful conversations as a way of changing behaviour, but even more I was again made aware of the etymology of the word conversation, meaning "the act of living with" or "how one conducts oneself in the world". Such a simple thing to do but one that most people, especially men, find so difficult to do.
One comment that will stay with me was the mention of climbing Mt Everest. This is a well worn metaphor that is often used when trying to communicate the importance of processes such as preparation, resilience, perserverence, support and setting goals, to name but a few. And of course this metaphor can be used for a large number of areas including, sport, study, career, family; life in general. What was memorable this time however was the mention of the descent off the mountain. The ascent is obvious and of course if you are attempting an assault on Mt Everest the planning of the descent is critical. But how many of us plan for the inevitable descent off the mountain? How many sports men and women consciously think about and plan for their demise; for when their time at the top and in their sport is over?
How many of us plan for redundancy or dismissal at work or for retirement from work? How many of us plan or even take into considerations, the unplanned dead ends and blind turns in our life journeys? Life is not just about the ascents!
What do you think? If you would like to comment please go to the heart knows...
What was truly extraordinary however was the passion and the zeal of all those present including the organisers and presenters. There is indeed a huge desire to change the current upward spiral of the numbers of people of all ages affected by this dis-ease! But of course the question is always what is the best approach. What do we need to do differently to what is currently being done. These questions were certainly raised as well as a number of in relation to non-cerebral approaches. The value of simple reaching out for help through conversations was a constant thread throughout the evening. I was reminded of much work done in the area of powerful conversations as a way of changing behaviour, but even more I was again made aware of the etymology of the word conversation, meaning "the act of living with" or "how one conducts oneself in the world". Such a simple thing to do but one that most people, especially men, find so difficult to do.
One comment that will stay with me was the mention of climbing Mt Everest. This is a well worn metaphor that is often used when trying to communicate the importance of processes such as preparation, resilience, perserverence, support and setting goals, to name but a few. And of course this metaphor can be used for a large number of areas including, sport, study, career, family; life in general. What was memorable this time however was the mention of the descent off the mountain. The ascent is obvious and of course if you are attempting an assault on Mt Everest the planning of the descent is critical. But how many of us plan for the inevitable descent off the mountain? How many sports men and women consciously think about and plan for their demise; for when their time at the top and in their sport is over?
How many of us plan for redundancy or dismissal at work or for retirement from work? How many of us plan or even take into considerations, the unplanned dead ends and blind turns in our life journeys? Life is not just about the ascents!
What do you think? If you would like to comment please go to the heart knows...
