EP.30 - How to Approach Someone Who Is Struggling Mentally and Emotionally
SHOW NOTES:
Mental health struggles are unique and personal, and it can be challenging to navigate tough conversations with loved ones who may be experiencing difficulties.
How do we reach out and support them effectively?
The key is to approach these conversations with empathy, vulnerability, and patience. Create a supportive environment that allows them to gradually come to terms with their struggles and seek the help they may need.
Remember, it takes time, tenderness, and patience to support someone through mental health struggles, but your caring heart and willingness to be there for them can make all the difference.
Here are the key takeaways from this episode:
01:48 - Everyone's journey with mental health is unique and personal
05:30 - Approach difficult conversations by sharing your own experiences to create a bridge for conversation
06:32 - Plant seeds of awareness and observe their response to gauge their readiness to discuss the issue
10:08 - Vulnerability, curiosity, and open conversation can encourage others to share their struggles
12:43 - People's responses to difficult conversations can vary, so it's essential to be patient and understanding
13:30 - Remember that everyone is on a different timeline and that it takes time, tenderness, and patience to support someone through mental health struggles
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I help you lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma. Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be. Explore mindfulness, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.
Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] When people are going through mental health and emotional wellbeing struggles, they're not even aware of it themselves. So when you bring up the topic and you talk about yourself, you are seeding an idea that either is gonna feel so alien to them ‘cause they're not connected, or maybe it's not true. Maybe they're not struggling. Or they'll immediately relate to it. You're planting a seed in them, a seed of awareness.
[00:00:28] Hey there. Welcome to the Fearlessly Curious Podcast, your safe space. Listen, lean in and learn the diversity of human experiences through the lens of fearless curiosity. When we learn more about each other, we also learn more about ourselves. How? Because when we listen to each other's curiosities and experiences, we relate to that which is in common, and that which sets us apart, gives us something to reflect on. We learn through and with each other. I'm grateful to you, the global community, for your curious questions. The Fearlessly Curious Podcast cannot exist without you.
[00:01:15] Hello and welcome back to yet another edition of the Fearlessly Curious Podcast, where we explore various topics relating to showing up authentically as the person you are born to be and how it can enhance your emotional wellbeing. Listen, we all feel confident and comfortable in our own skin. But not everybody feels comfortable in their own skin.
[00:01:38] Life as we know it can be full of challenges that challenge our mental health and emotional wellbeing. And not just that ourselves, but often we see people that we care about struggling. Maybe there's certain types of behaviour that we witness and notice are damaging, destructive even like alcoholism or drug abuse or emotional abuse.
[00:01:59] Perhaps you know, someone who you suspect may have an eating disorder or may be struggling with ADHD. Maybe there is some abuse that's happening in their relationships or at home that they sort of even mentioned or suggested to you, and you don't really know how to show up for them in a way that supports them.
[00:02:20] You don't know how to be authentic, how to have these difficult conversations that not only support your wellbeing because you are concerned about them. But more than anything, support their wellbeing. You don't know where is the line that you should not cross when it comes to maybe getting involved in circumstances or situations that are in air quotes, not your business, but the struggle, the conflicts becoming more and more apparent to you.
[00:02:49] So that's what we're gonna go through today. I'm gonna give you three tips as to how to navigate these difficult conversations, and it's inspired by a recent workshop and some questions that I received in the Unshakable Women's Summit that I was speaking at earlier this year. It was hosted by Nadia Jokovska, I think I pronounce her name correctly.
[00:03:08] I keep getting it wrong, so forgive me Nadia, if I got it wrong, and you'll be able to find Nadia on Instagram and make sure you catch the next episode of the Fearless Curious Podcasts, where I have Nadia as a guest. But until then, I received this particular question in the summit, which was how do you approach a friend, a colleague, or a family member who is clearly experiencing struggles with their mental health and emotional wellbeing as a difficult conversation?
[00:03:43] So I gave three tips and really they're quite straightforward. The first thing to do is remember, without real evidence, what you suspect is just that. It's a suspicion. It's an assumption. So the fact that you are being mindful and careful about how to approach it is very, very important, and it's a great place to be starting.
[00:04:05] So you're making an assumption. It may be a intelligent assumption, it may be as a result of observing behaviour. Maybe your friend is getting drunk every day. Maybe they've even told you that they're struggling with alcohol or drug abuse. Maybe they're sharing with you, as I mentioned earlier, that they're experiencing some emotional abuse or physical abuse, or maybe it's something else.
[00:04:28] Maybe they're just having a mental health issue that's very apparent. So the first thing I would do is I would invite that friend to have a conversation about mental health, but from the perspective of myself. So I would talk about what my mental health or emotional wellbeing struggles are, and let's say I'm concerned that my friend may be developing an abusive drinking habit.
[00:04:54] So I'll speak of as if it were me, I would tell them. I would say all the symptoms that I'm observing in my friend or my family member. I would describe the symptoms that I am experiencing in my own life. So whether it's bad nights of sleep, I'm getting very irritable and I'm very stressed and I have a lot of high anxiety.
[00:05:15] And in order for me to cope with that, I've noticed that I've been having more than one drink a day, or I've been drinking every day and I've noticed how it's affected my mood, it's affected my behaviour, it's affecting my thoughts, it's affecting all my relationships, and I'm not sure what to do about it.
[00:05:30] What do you suggest I do? Do you have any ideas for me? So that's one approach, which is everything that you are witnessing and making an assumption about your friend or your family member is going through. I would frame as something that I was going through, share it with them. So it's like you're seeding this idea to them because a lot of the time.
[00:05:51] When people are going through mental health and emotional wellbeing struggles, they're not even aware of it themselves. So when you bring up the topic and you talk about yourself, you are seeding an idea that either is gonna feel so alien to them cause they're not connected, or maybe it's not true. Maybe they're not struggling, or they'll immediately relate to it.
[00:06:09] You're planting a seed in them, a seed of awareness. So I would start there, see what their response is. See what they say. Take notice of what their physical reaction is. Their emotional reaction is: do they get defensive? Do they get angry? Do they suddenly go silent? Do they lend support and advice? Maybe they might even say, oh my gosh, I'm going through the same thing.
[00:06:32] So that would be the first approach that I would take. If they say nothing, don't push it. Sometimes people need time to process information. Something may seem familiar to them, but they may not necessarily relate it to themselves. So just leave it there, save it, park it for another conversation. So next time you see them, you could give them an update.
[00:06:54] You could say to them, so you know what I told you the last time? Well, I'm still going through it and it seems to be getting worse, and now I'm a little bit concerned and. Maybe share with them a little bit of the emotions that you think your friend might be experiencing, but own for yourself. So perhaps you could say, I wanna reach out for help, but I feel a little bit shy.
[00:07:14] I feel a little bit ashamed. Or maybe I'm a little bit afraid, or maybe I feel lost because I don't know where to go. Right? So just share these ideas as if you are going through them so that you can create a bridge for conversation if they are going through the same things. You might also want to do some research yourself.
[00:07:33] So if you know of counsellors or therapists or websites or other resources that relate to that specific issue, it would be a good opportunity to actually share that with the person you're concerned about and say, oh, I called this centre. I researched this resource I read up online from this platform and this is what I discovered, or I got some referrals, right?
[00:08:00] And see what they say. So it's really about testing the ground you are feeling into what their response is to that situation. If it were you, tread carefully. Having gone through addiction myself and other emotionally traumatic experiences, I know for the longest time that I wasn't even aware that my mental health and my emotional being had been compromised.
[00:08:29] And as I started to make that discovery, it was very jarring to my system. It was extremely shocking to my system to become aware, to admit. That I was an alcoholic, that I had drug abuse issues, that I had emotional trauma and physical and sexual trauma as well. It was very, very shocking and it took a long time for me, first of all, to acknowledge that.
[00:08:56] That's what I was experiencing or had experienced in my past. So the acknowledgement was the first part. The second part was processing what trauma meant and felt like for me and how it affected my life and all the people around me. So that was the second level of sort of confrontation within myself of discovering when my mental health and emotional health had been compromised.
[00:09:19] And the third part was struggling to get to grips with the fact that I needed help and dealing with a lot of shame around that. Wanting to do everything on my own, wanting to keep everything a secret, feeling like I needed to uphold this image that I believed I had created for myself, and getting lost in this narrative, this belief that in asking for help, it meant that I was weak.
[00:09:44] That if I revealed these shadow parts of me, these so-called weaker parts of me, compromised parts of me that perhaps people would love me less. Yeah, it's true. Or that people would maybe reject me, that I would be an outcast. So these are very real emotions and thoughts that ran through my mind when I was discovering that I had mental health and emotional wellbeing issues.
[00:10:08] So take it from me firsthand. No matter how much you wanna help somebody, you can only help them as far as they wanna help themselves. So one great test would be to open the conversation and speak about what it is that you are concerned about from the first person. So rather than tell that person that you are concerned about them, I would speak as if these issues were your own and you are sharing with them what your concerns are about yourself.
[00:10:36] Okay. That way, you seed the conversation, you seed some ideas, you plant some ideas, and if they resonate on a personal level, a couple of things could happen. As I mentioned, they'll close up, they might have a reaction, or they might offer you some support and navigate it that way. Model to the friend, the family member that you're concerned about, what it's like to be vulnerable model to them.
[00:11:05] Pure vulnerability. Model to them, curiosity, and you're asking questions, you're discovering things about yourself, you're doing research, and really go with the flow with that. Because if someone is not ready to see their vulnerability, you can't force them. But one beautiful way to keep someone on the same side as you, and I mean on the same side as you.
[00:11:27] I mean, feeling that they're not alone is to stay connected with them through conversation, and it's through sharing your experiences. And it could even be like, for example, with all the content that I've shared, not just in the podcast, but on my social media platforms, I talk about my addiction, I talk about showing up authentically, and I talk about how important it is to own our feelings and to be curious about our feelings so that we can discover who we are, because it's only through the discovery of who we are as the authentic version of ourselves. Do we also get to heal? We get to unlearn the practices. We get to unlearn the beliefs that we have that are not true to us. And when we let go of who we think we should be, we get to live more and more the person we truly are, and the dissonance that causes so much suffering and struggle disappears.
[00:12:19] So to navigate these difficult conversations when you are concerned about someone's mental health and wellbeing, just to summarise, make it as if it's you. Talk from the first person, introduce the idea, connect model to them, what it's like to be vulnerable and to share your experience with a goal, to connect and to find support.
[00:12:43] Share whatever resources you've researched, ask for their feedback, and just take notice of what their response is, like three possible responses. They'll shut down and go quiet. They will react in, um, maybe an angry or irritable way, or they'll lean in and be curious with you, or perhaps even share with you that they're going through the same thing.
[00:13:05] The most important thing to remember is everybody's on a different timeline. Not everybody's ready to heal, to see where their struggles are, and it takes time and tenderness and a lot of patience. The good thing to know is that you have a caring heart. You wanna do something, but there's only so much you can do and you need to meet people where they are and then let it go.
[00:13:30] So that's my tips for you today on how to navigate difficult conversations with your friends, with the people that you care about, your family around the topic of mental health and emotional wellbeing when you're concerned about what they may be going through. So that's all for this week. I respond best when you give me your questions, whatever questions you may have around emotional wellbeing, around emotions, feelings, and what to do with them, and more importantly, How to break through our own limiting beliefs about who we are, how to reestablish, reconnect with the power of you, how to discover who you are in this life to show up with authenticity.
[00:14:08] Then please, please connect with me on my social media platforms. That's LinkedIn under Melissa Indot. That's Instagram under Melissa Indot. That's also via my website. Please just drop me an email. The information is all there for you to connect with me. Use that connection. This is what the podcast is for.
[00:14:26] It's for me to serve you with the highest wisdom that I've been collecting through my lived experiences, through my authentic way of being. I'm here to serve you. Once again, thank you for being part of this amazing community, and I wish you continued fearless curiosity until the next episode.
[00:14:51] If you want more, make sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode every Friday. And please leave a review if you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to send me your curious questions and experiences as inspiration for future episodes. Your anonymity will be respected. If that's what you prefer. For more guidance and support, join my emotional healing, mindfulness and music community over at melissaindot.com. See you next week.
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