When I watched the powerful 2012 documentary called “Bullied”, I cried in recognition, grief, anger and sheer sense of helplessness to stop it.
At the end, there were memorials for children who had taken their lives because of bullying. I wanted to reach through my TV and shake those school principals and parents. I understood the victims and their sense of isolation and despair.
The main difference between children’s bullying and adults’ bullying is that the more “mature” bully leaves no physical scars. After all, there are laws for that!
Having worked in mental health, I’ve seen the other kinds of scars. Unfortunately, I’ve also been victim to them myself. (more…)
(Published on Huffington Post.) Thursday, February 18th, I listened with rapt attention to The Right Honourable Paul Martin as he engaged with 5 Former First Nations Chiefs. In the image above, from left to right, they are Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, Matthew Coon Come, Phil Fontaine, Ovide Mercredi and Georges Erasmus. This was our last mainstage panel discussion of a week of sharing and brainstorming to reclaim and rebuild after 20 years of abusive neglect by our Canadian government.
The full title of the AFOA conference was “Leadership and Governance: Transformational Change through Education and Capacity Building”. The messages of hope and transformation rang throughout the week without naively denying what has happened. (more…)
On January 27th, for the 6th year, Bell Canada is rolling out their incredible “Let’s Talk Program”. They are committed to developing anti-stigma programs in Canadian organizations and offering solutions to Mental Health issues which plague us all.
Let’s get this straight. Mental Health is Physical. The brain is part of your body! We need to protect it and care for it properly.
In this short video, I share a personal story of how the lessons of stigma affected my ability to speak up and ask for help. I’m one of the lucky ones in that I am OK today. But it was a harder road than it needed to be and if I can help you feel a little less alone, here you go.
If you are wondering about if you should do more about your mental health, just asking that question means that the answer is a resounding YES! Don’t wait for a crisis. I’m going to be blunt here. If you are saying “it’s OK, I’m used to this stress”. Duh. It’s NOT OK and people shouldn’t be “used to” anything chronically unhealthy!
If you are worried about someone you love, there are ways to engage in a conversation to help them not self-stigmatize and accompany them to getting help while protecting your own mental health. If you are risking your mental health to get them health, refer to the paragraph above.
If you would like me to come to your company or organization to Demystify Mental Illness in the workplace, I’d love to hear from you. Education is key to better outcomes.
Feel free to contact me with private messages. May God bless you and protect your brain and those around you!
BIO
Monique works with organizations who want to reduce conflict to create a culture of collaboration, engagement and productivity.The most successful leaders are not infallible when faced with someone who “drives them crazy!” Her strategies to empower people to better understand each other and have better outcomes, while having fun, are appreciated by all who meet her. She draws from 30 years of crisis intervention work, she is a Level II Accredited Trainer for DISC as a Human Behavior Consultant and a Certified NLP Professional Coach. She loves meeting people and getting to know them and their industry. So feel free to reach out.
It is December 4 and there are probably 40 people in the room at the “welcome cocktail” for the volunteers of our annual convention. I hug an acquaintance, start catching up and then I start coughing. I take a sip of my wine but the mucus in my throat seems to get thicker.
Cough. Cough. Wheeze. Cough. Some people are looking at me. Oh, how embarrassing.
Deciding to catch my breath privately, I leave and head down the hall looking for a ladies’ room while digging for my asthma puffer. (more…)
This past Saturday, I was in a Professional Speaking Competition and I had to shrink a program I teach into a 10 minute keynote. Yikes. 100 people in the audience were the judges.
I was intimidated by the fact that most of my opponents had been professional speakers much longer than I have. One of them for 15 years more than me and she was talking about the same topic. Double yikes!
I decided that since it was unlikely that I would win one of the 3 prizes, I wanted to have some good video to use in my marketing. I didn’t have video of me with a head mic on a raised platform. (more…)
(Published on Huffington Post and a chapter in the book
On January 27th, for the 6th year, Bell Canada is rolling out their incredible “Let’s Talk Program”. They are committed to developing anti-stigma programs in Canadian organizations and offering solutions to Mental Health issues which plague us all.
It is December 4 and there are probably 40 people in the room at the “welcome cocktail” for the volunteers of our annual convention. I hug an acquaintance, start catching up and then I start coughing. I take a sip of my wine but the mucus in my throat seems to get thicker.