June 2021
June Mental Health Challenge: Just Listen!
When someone in our life is feeling sad or hurt in someway, we often want to do something to make them feel better. To give them advice about what would work for them. Even if we are aware that the advice may not always work. This month’s mental health challenge is to not give any advice. Instead, when someone in our life is struggle with something just listen to them.
This may seem like it should be easy but for a lot of us it is very difficult. We are tempted to jump in and try to fix the problem by telling them what to do or by saying that everything will get better. Instead, I want you to validate how they are feeling. We can always validate someone’s feelings even if we can not always validate their actions.
You may be thinking that this is not enough and that the person is coming to me because they want me to solve the problem. If the person looks to us for advice instead try to help them come up with their own solutions.
In most cases someone is more likely to try something that they come up with then to follow what we tell them. Plus, that person is the expert on their life and we only have an idea about what is going on and not likely the full picture. So the next time someone contacts you with a problem, try to validate them, don’t give advice and instead help them brainstorm a solution. Give it a try and see how it works.
Mental Health Tip: Leaves On a Stream
We have all heard them those pieces of advice that sounds logical but do not work. Whether it be time heals all wounds or just think about something else or just be positive. If we are being honest with ourselves, we have likely all said one of those or something similar. Yet I know that in a lot of cases those pieces of advice are not true.
Time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds and there are some days where I can not just be positive. So why do we say them. I would guess that it is because we do not know what else to say or because there has been that rare occasion when it has worked for us or we have believed that it has.
This month’s tip is to stop telling our friends and family these pieces of advice and stop listening to them ourselves. Instead of waiting for time to heal all wounds try to do the work to process what has happened. Whether that be by yourself or with a therapist.
When we get told to think about something else don’t try to force it. Instead work on developing a Teflon mind and acknowledging the thoughts that we are having but not getting caught up in them. This is not the same as thinking about something else. In most cases if we try to force ourselves to think about something else we end up getting pulled back to what we were thinking about. This is about watching your thoughts go past.
Leaves on a stream is a great way of developing this skill. Here is a video that will walk you through how to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1C8hwj5LXw
When you get told to just be positive instead acknowledge that you feel sad. Then acknowledge that even when we feel sad we get to make the choice about what we are going to do. We can choose to do mood dependent behaviours and stay in bed or we can choose to do an activity that fits with our values. Either one is ok and it is our choice.