Since starting my new job (looooooooooooong story about being fired in August last year and spending three months unemployed) I've had the opportunity to really push the mental health bandwagon and talk to people about talking seriously about mental health.
Talking about mental health is hard. I think there's a couple of reasons for this:
-Fear of judgement/punishment - I think this speaks for itself. We're scared of people punishing us for our issues, whether it's being fired for taking time off to cope or people thinking we're not capable of doing our jobs etc.
-Pride - We don't want to be seen as weak. We don't want to burden others with our problems. We want to be able to fight it ourselves, to prove how strong we are.
-Don't know how - A lot of people don't know how to talk about their emotions or their mental health. How do you even start the conversation? What are the words for the things we're feeling? Who do I go to for help?
So, in order to help people talk about these things, I've started doing monthly "Mental Health" sessions at our weekly meeting. You would be surprised how many people open up when they know they're in a safe place and they learn how to talk about these things. Some of the activities I've come up with so far are:
- Anonymous positive messages. Passing around a hat with names, and you have to write an anonymous positive message to the person whose name you got
- Word Association. Everyone has 30 seconds to write down as many words that they associate with a particular word. Great for showing how differently people use language and how the same word might have a different meaning to different people.
- Death by PowerPoint. Trust me, PowerPoint presentations don't have to be boring. If you use them as a way to generate discussion instead of talking at people, you can really bring people out of their shells.
Regular talks about mental health not only encourages people to speak up, it increases morale and brings the team closer together. Instead of just relying on things like "R U Okay Day" and brushing it under the carpet the rest of the year, make the effort to keep the conversation going all year.
