While providing professional support, I often also encourage my clients and patients to find different other ways to support themselves. In this article, I share about the different kinds of support you can gain and benefit from.
Positivity Route 1: Self-Help
Self-help is a very powerful journey. We know ourselves the most. The ultimate route to self-recovery and betterment always starts from the change within us.
Self-help includes different ways. This includes developing a consistent life routine, exploring the own personal traits and personalities, building interpersonal skills, developing new habits and interests, etc.
Identify which area of life or a particular issue you want to work on. This will help you know which self-help tool works the best for you.
Positivity Route 2: Find your own tool set or support mechanism
There are abundant resources (even the free ones) easily accessible to us. The main point is how we can identify and choose the right one for us. For instance, some may realize the need to connect with someone to gain support; some may need to slow down and focus on the own individual self. Another part is timing: doing the right thing at the right time with the right people.
Here are the examples:
Social connections/support: Having a supportive family and peer circle is like having vitamin C for our health. Many times people come forward for professional support, not only as they lack the relevant coping strategies to overcome the challenges, but also they have no one to rely on when stuck with the own problems. It is important that we have people whom we could turn to for practical support, or those who could emotionally embrace you.
Education/self-development training: ‘We are too used to doing the doing; but we often don’t think of our doing.’ Most of the people chase after endless tasks, and have little time to ask themselves what they work so hard for in the first place. Self-development training or courses are opportunities for us to gain a different perspective or get equipped with skills, knowledge and competence to deal with challenges and setbacks.
Immediate support: Being on a mental crisis is not a rare issue. At those points often we require external support. Identify who/which communication point you could rely on. It can be a close family member/peer, or an external service support, such as a telephone number of a hotline.
Positivity Route 3: Be open to the other Professional Support
Many kinds of professional support are local community based. Spend some time to draft a list for yourself of where or which place you could choose as your support network ranging from local centers, telephone/hotline to online support.
For instance, in Manchester, the hotline resource list can be found here.
I welcome you to write down what helps/does not help you – sharing is caring!