Mental Health Week 2022: #GetReal About Helping Others

May 6, 2022 - Defence Stories

Get ready to #GetReal - CMHA Mental Health Week - May 2-8, 2022 - Download tools and materials at mentalhealthweek.ca today!
 

With Mental Health Week underway, it is a great time to continue conversations about mental health with your friends, family and colleagues, and reflect on what empathy can look like. Empathy is the ability to both understand and share someone else’s feelings or experiences. It is done so by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. Being empathetic encourages compassion and fosters healthy relationships with those around us.

Reaching out to someone who may be experiencing mental health challenges can have a huge impact. Sometimes simply asking “How are you doing?” with true curiosity can help someone feel valued and heard. When having empathetic conversations, we must practice active listening. Here are six tips for effective active listening:

  1. Express that you are there to listen
  2. Remove distractions
  3. Put yourself in their shoes
  4. Be present
  5. Offer an attentive ear
  6. Validate their feelings

For more details, read the full list of steps to the art of listening by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) (You are now leaving the Government of Canada website).

When reflecting on the empathetic conversations that you have this week, consider ways to continue these conversations throughout the year. We all play a role supporting one another and combatting the stigma associated with mental health, and we can work towards this together.

Please find some suggestions and resources below that will help you to #GetReal about mental health:

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