Mental Health Archives - INSPIRING MAX

Recharge

August 20, 2015 inspiringmax

Imagine that tomorrow, all of your duties and obligations evaporate for the day. You get the day all to yourself, to do anything you please. What types of fun activities would make your day?

I believe taking time out to recharge and celebrate ME Time is important for mental health. This week I have been lucky enough to have a week of ME Time without any duties or obligations doing whatever I feel like for the day. It is liberating and relaxing. I am spending the week in Port Macquarie New South Wales, an area I first visited as a 10-year-old child. So how do I plan to spend my days when I don’t have my usual busy schedule to contend with. No problem. Below is a list of my options most of which I have already done:

Build a sand castle
Celebrate days off with a glass of champagne
Catch up on my blogging
Colour in
Do a crossword puzzle
Draw
Enjoy the winter sunshine
Explore new areas
Gather ideas for Inspiring Max
Listen to different bird calls
Play a board game
Play solitaire with cards
Read a romantic comedy
Reconnect with what it was like living in regional New South Wales
Relive childhood memories
Sleep in
Smell the ocean
Smell the flowers beginning to burst as Spring is around the corner
Swim
Visit regional art galleries
Walk on beach
Watch a girly movie
Work on my book

It has been a great week staying in one place, catching up with myself and expand my experience of my amazing homeland, Australia.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/nothin-but-a-good-time/

Never Helpless

August 19, 2015 inspiringmax

Helplessness: that dull, sick feeling of not being the one at the reins. When did you last feel like that –- and what did you do about it?

I don’t ever feel helpless. If I feel something needs to change in a situation I think outside the square to find an answer to the problem. Sometimes the leader may require help, I may need more explanation of what is really going on or life may have suddenly taken a tragic turn that needs managing. Whatever the reason feeling helpless just takes away my power. I hope you enjoy the following acrostic poem of how I turn HELPLESS into HOPE.

Hopeful an alternative could be found

Eager and encouraged to look for a solution

Liberated to have an idea

Pleased to put it forward

Liking the response I received

Empathetic to our leader

Safe in the knowing

Self-doubt didn’t stop me finding hope

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/helpless/

Empowerment

August 5, 2015 inspiringmax

Describe your personal style, however you’d like to interpret that — your clothing style, your communication style, your hair style, your eating style, anything.

Empowering others is the basis of my communication and managing styles. My theme is “I teach people to fish, I don’t feed them fish.”

By teaching people to do things for themselves, they develop an understanding that their choices change their outcomes. They learn to set goals and realise they can achieve them by breaking the goal down into doable pieces. They have the power.

Sometimes the type of fishing or skills someone needs to learn can be difficult or slow to learn. But I don’t give up. I empower them to persevere and reap their rewards, however long it takes. By believing the other person can learn the skill and spending time to guide them on their personal journey I see them blossom and achieve things they initially never thought possible.

I love the fact that often as their confidence increases people choose to teach the skills I have taught them to others—keeping the chain of empowerment moving forward.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/style-icon/

Obsolete Communication

July 3, 2015 inspiringmax

Of all the technologies that have gone extinct in your lifetime, which one do you miss the most?

For me, technologies have been a great addition to my life however I think they have been at a cost. It’s the art of communication that I miss. The planned time to communication what is going on in my life with family and friends in personal or by personal letter.

I love sitting down regularly talking one to one with others, getting to know them or keeping in touch on a personal level. The problem is everyone is so busy these days that this doesn’t happen regularly anymore.

I used to love the anticipation of waiting for an expected letter in the mail, the joy of reading about their lives and thinking about what to put in my letter in return mail. The motivating factor for me was remembering the quicker I wrote back, the quicker my next letter would come. Email doesn’t have the same excitement for me as although I still receive them, these emails get lost in my sea of daily emails and I fail to reply quickly.

Christmas cards are another nearing obsolete way to communicate I enjoy. Last Christmas we were away so my excitement of receiving regular mail that weren’t bills and hearing about family and friends lives didn’t happen. Neither did our Christmas letter telling them and reminding ourselves what happened in our world during the last 12 months. I find this a great memory jogger and as all the family is involved in its creation, we know it is an accurate record for our future.

While technologies continue to advance us in so many ways let’s make regular plans to make dates with the special people in our world—even a 5 minute “how was your day catch up” can make a difference and may open the doors to longer more personal conversations.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/going-obsolete/

Listen

June 14, 2015 inspiringmax

Tell us about a conversation you couldn’t help but overhear and wish you hadn’t.

Working in mental health nursing from the age of 18, I learnt quickly how to focus on a room full of conversations. My active listening skills allow me to pick up on things I need to know, allowing me to intercept and redirect conversations if necessary. Despite the many and varied conversation I have listened to in over 30 years I have never overheard something I wish I hadn’t. I have however heard many conversations that my active listening skills have changed the outcome for.

My listening skills use more information than just the words the other person is speaking. I add

Look at other person

Include body language

Stop talking

Trust

Empathy

Notice the environment

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/hear-no-evil/

Help Me Please

June 12, 2015 inspiringmax

Is it easy for you to ask for help when you need it, or do you prefer to rely only on yourself? Why?

I am an independent, goal setting person who understands the power of being able to ask for help when I need it. This doesn’t mean I am weak. It means I am strong enough to say I need help and that I know how to get it. I understand the power of delegation—asking someone to do something for me. In most cases my asking for help may teach the other person a skill along the way. I find as a leader that my team recognise that importance of asking for help when they see me doing it naturally.

When I wanted to learn to blog I asked everyone I knew that blogged how to go about it. Piecing together all the information I set up my blog. It took a lot of asking to finally get it running well however I am proud of my achievement. Something I would never have been able to do without help.

For me asking for help is about connecting with my needs. If I am too exhausted from a busy day at work and someone asks me whats for dinner I will say “whatever you get.” This triggers a chain of events from which dinner is sorted.

The other person recognises that I am tired and not getting dinner.
They decide if they have the energy and if so start preparing.
We collectively decide how hungry we are and whether cheese on toast will fill the hole or if we want to order takeaway or go out to eat.

Either way for me the simple task of asking for help with dinner usually recharges me enough to pick up where I left off.

If I don’t understand something I ask rather than wasting time attempting to figure it out myself and getting nowhere. Let others help lessens your load, gets the job done quicker and brings you closer together. Asking for help also assists with setting boundaries with people as you decide who is the best person to help you with the task at hand rather than accepting someone not suitable because they offered.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/i-am-a-rock/

Time Out

June 10, 2015 inspiringmax

We all have things we need to do to keep an even keel — blogging, exercising, reading, cooking. What’s yours?

My mental health is important to me, so when things become too much I take time out. Depending on the situation I may take 5 minutes or a whole day. Sometimes the situation will need me to take 5 minutes in the middle to recollect my thoughts and a day as soon as possible when it is over. During this time I do whatever I feel like to top up my tank and prepare for the next wave.

My time out options – for short and long time periods can be found in the following acrostic poem.

Treat myself

Isolate—block out the world

Meditate

Exit the situation

Outdoors—connect with nature

Useful—be creative in some way

Talk—online or in person

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/on-the-edge/

Happy Pill

May 21, 2015 inspiringmax

If you could create a painless, inexpensive cure for a single ailment, what would you cure and why?

Working in mental health I would love to find a cure for low self-esteem. It is at the core of many illness and plays a major role in suicide and self-harm behaviours. Low self-esteem can be improved however it is usually a long, slow journey, which the person living with it struggles to believe is possible to change. This impacts their want to start as it seems to hard. By creating a painless, inexpensive and quick cure for low self-esteem the impact of mental health would be lessened.

The side effect of being able to cure low self-esteem may be that factors causing low self-esteem such as bullying, abuse, relationship problems, high stress, perfectionism may lessen and stop the cycle repeating itself. Low self-esteem is like a spark that turns into a wild-fire in some people. If it can be limited to back burning in its fire intensity it is much easier to control and many lives would be saved.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/placebo-effect/

Juggling Act

May 20, 2015 inspiringmax

How is this year shaping up so far? Write a post about your biggest challenges and achievements thus far.

For me, this year seems to be constantly giving me one theme—anything can happen. It is about learning to juggle even more balls in the air and see how much higher I can get them. Just when I think that I can’t juggle anymore someone comes along and says “I believe you can do this.”

Suddenly I decide let’s give it a chance anyway and I am taken to a new level and learnt a new skill. Sometimes its a bit surreal how it all comes together. Many years ago I learnt to juggle. Initially I used scarves to give me more time to learn the mechanics and then I was using balls. Once learnt juggling is a skill I haven’t forgotten but it definitely gets better the more I do it.

For me this is the same with my challenges. The more I choose to say—why not instead of why—the more I see my world open in different directions. This year I have changed my role at work and completed the A-Z April Challenge writing every day on a new letter of the alphabet whilst at the same time keeping up my usual blogging schedule. I have also learnt how to download my book as an e-book to help with the final stages of editing. Who knew I had the ability and only five months in. Certainly not me but I have kept pushing myself, learning new things and here I am reminding myself that I am not nearly as breakable as I thought and getting stronger by the day.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/state-of-your-year/

Everyone Is Welcome

May 17, 2015 inspiringmax

If you could have a guarantee that one, specific person was reading your blog, who would you want that person to be? Why? What do you want to say to them?

Inspiring Max is not written for any one person. It’s “goal is to inspire you—developing a spark of hope into a fire that warms you and lights your path.” This is an open invitation to all who through their life journey have stumbled upon my blog. Whatever your reason for visiting — you are welcome. I hope you find inspiration to look on the positive side of life through the contents of Inspiring Max.

I find inspiration to do many things through my adventures on the blogosphere and I hope Inspiring Max does the same for others. I chose the double rainbow to represent my blog as it also reminds us of that life is not always dark and gloomy and there is hope ahead.