We completed our sixth Wellbeing Workshop meeting earlier this week, bringing us exactly half way through our 12-week program!
These are all individual sessions, so if you would like to join us for the last half of the program, you are more than welcome to do so.
Here is a brief summary of what we have discussed in our sessions so far:
Week One: Understanding Mental Health
During week one, we spoke about how everyone has mental health. Some people may have quite a positive mental health, or simply find it easier to manage their mental health when faced with troubling situations. Others may struggle with their mental health for various reasons; maybe due to past experiences or due to chemical imbalances in the brain.
No matter how well you manage/maintain your mental health, it is important for everyone to have an understanding of mental health and knowing what it is that our bodies and our minds need in different situations. We all need to look after ourselves mentally and physically, as well as looking out for each other.
We then discussed some statistics around common mental health conditions before moving on to identify our own mental health needs.
Within the presentation, we provided participants with some templates to fill in. These were to help identify what we need in certain situations or when we are feeling a certain way; as well as stating what we find helpful and unhelpful in those situations. We then spoke about triggers of our emotions.
After this we looked at a couple of the most common mental health conditions in more detail (depression and anxiety) and spoke a little bit about the ‘Depression Questionnaire’ that we published in the Facebook Group prior to the meeting.
Week Two: Self-Care
This week we looked at the importance of self-care and how this may mean different things to different people. We looked at different types of self-care in more detail:
– Physical self-care
– Emotional self-care
– Social self-care
– Spiritual self-care
– Personal self-care
– Environmental self-care
– Financial self-care
– Work self-care
We the discussed some various self-care ideas before setting some homework for the week!
Week Three: Support Systems
We started this week by discussing the homework that was set the week prior. This was a nice relaxed conversation about what forms of self-care people had managed to take part in over the last week.
We then talked about the meaning of support and how this may differ from person to person. We looked at different forms of support and who we may turn to in different situations. We also identified some areas in which we felt we needed extra support.
When discussing how to build a support system, we looked at Support Circles. Each circle of support should start with yourself in the centre, followed by family, friends and then community.
Following on from this, we looked at what contributes to being a good friend and what traits may be perceived as being toxic and the meaning of ‘Toxic Positivity.’
We then spoke about seeking support where needed and what the first steps are when accessing support.
Week Four: Changing How We Think
This week was our first meeting hosted by our wonderful Co-Founder, M-J. During this meeting she discussed the various things that can influence our thinking, such as; other people, our environment, mental health and social media.
We then looked at some specific mental health conditions that can have a large impact on the way a person thinks.
M-J discussed ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder and Depression. This was a very interesting and informative discussion.
M-J then spoke about how we can change how we think through various forms of therapy such as CBT and DBT, as well as looking into the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches.
We then looked at the process of ‘Thought Challenging’, ‘Thought Restructuring’ and the ‘Worry Tree’.
We were then given some homework for the next four weeks. M-J asked us to practice cognitive restructuring (or thought challenging) over the next four weeks and keep a journal of this ready for discussing in our week eight meeting of mindfulness.
Week Five: Habits and Attitudes
During this weeks meeting we discussed the definition of both habits and attitudes and how various things can impact on our behaviours.
We looked at The ABC model of Attitudes, which details how our thoughts, beliefs and knowledge impact on our behaviours towards certain situations, events and in some cases, people.
We talked about what we deem as a bad habit or a good habit and whether it is possible for a habit to be both good and bad at the same time.
We then looked at changing our bad habits and how in order to do this we need to find a positive replacement habit to take its place.
We also discussed ‘Attitude Strength’ and how it depends how strongly we feel about something, on whether it will influence our behaviours or not.
Week Six: Setting Goals
In our latest meeting we looked at goal setting strategies for both short-term and long-term goals as well as factors that contribute to creating impossible goals. This was a really good discussion as people opened up about whether or not they tend to stick to their goals or deviate from them. We looked at why some of these goals were unable to be reached and what the individual could do in order to better their chances of success.
We provided some tips and hints for creating successful goals as well as reminding one another that it is okay to ask for help and support along the way.
COMING UP:
Next week M-J will be hosting her second meeting about Meditation and Breathing (23/12/20)
30/12/20 – M-J Mindfulness
06/01/21 – Gratitude
13/01/21 – Reflection
20/01/21 – Resilience
27/01/21 – What We Have Learned
