Celebrating Feelings: Emotions for Thriving

Introduction

How often have you said to yourself, “I shouldn’t feel so….” But what if our feelings are ALL valuable messages? As part of Mental Health Awareness Month, today we’re talking about changing the way we think about feelings, and embracing ALL emotions as valuable messages.

On the show today, we’ll talk about making it “just a normal thing” to talk about emotions, and making SPACE to support wellness. At the end, we’ll come back to ACTION and the most essential practices for prevention and supporting mental wellness for all.

Key questions

• What does the term “mental health” mean to you?
• What’s the connection between emotional intelligence and mental health?
• There’s still a massive stigma around mental illness… and even talking about difficult emotions. What drives that? How does that affect EQ?
• 2 words: a feeling you’ve come to appreciate, and the gift it gives you?
• What’s one practice you’ve found effective for making space for talking about emotions as something normal?
• Coming back to the original question and a feeling that’s challenging for you right now — is it important to make friends with that feeling, why?
• What is your next step to make friends with that feeling?
• I said we’d end with the essential practices — so if you could go back 10 years and give yourself just 1 post-it-note’s worth of advice about emotions, what would you say?

Making Friends with Feelings

What if we could make friends with ALL our feelings? What would  it take to go beyond treating mental illness to building the skills we ALL need for mental wellness? One step is to make it “just normal” to have honest dialogue about feelings… and to stop saying, “I shouldn’t feel ____.” We’ll share powerfully simple tools for engaging in emotions as allies, and considering how every emotion is actually a message from us, to us, to help us focus on what’s most important.

Panelists:

• Warren H. Phillips, PhD,  the co-founder of Transformative Workplace Solutions, has been a Psychologist and  behavioral specialist since 1998. He is also the owner of Central Iowa Psychological Services (CIPS) and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University.
  
• Gabrielle Magid – the Founder and CEO of Stronger Than Stigma®, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit established in 2013, dedicated to mental health advocacy for millennials, by millennials.
  Twitter: @gab_the_fab of @STS_together 
  Insta: @gabmag92 of @strongerthanstigma
• Clover Hogan is a 20-year-old climate activist, researcher on eco-anxiety, and the founder of Force of Nature; “while lots of students want to make a difference, many feel helpless to do so – frustrated by those in power, and immobilised by their own self-limiting beliefs. I started researching the psychology of agency and evolving a formula to mobilise mindsets.” 
  Twitter: @cloverhogan Insta: @cloverhogan
• Mucha Mlingo, Kenya’s expert on emotional intelligence for leadership & parenting, Founder of PTS Africa dedicated to the development of people, and mentor to women entrepreneurs across Africa & beyond.
  Twitter: @MuchaMlingo Insta: @muchamlingo
• Ayman Sawaf, bestselling author of Executive EQ, founder of KidsEQ, member of the board of The Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network. Ayman became a champion for emotional literacy in 1987; he’s published dozens of books, movies, games & albums, plus launched multiple companies for “inner-tainment” – the joy of learning about ourselves.
  Twitter: @SacredCommerce Insta: @merchantpriest
• Joshua Freedman, cofounder and CEO, The Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network, working since 1997 toward a world with more EQ. Josh is a Master Certified Coach and author of the best-selling At the Heart of Leadership
  T: @EQjosh of @6s_EQ
  IG: @joshmfreedman of @6secondseq

Panel 2: Next Gen Actions to Address Mental Health: Emotion Insights from Young Adults

For our generation, mental health issues have become an increasing challenge for us. Especially during this pandemic, many of us feel unmotivated, unproductive, and the pressures are consuming us. Today, we will share ways we are taking action, and offer you ideas you can use to take action in your life to make sure you stay mentally well. With these strategies, we’ll better understand emotions and create possible solutions to help us thrive through this time, and for many years to come.

GenZ taking action — in their lives and now during pandemic

GenZ Panelists:

• Sophie Riegel – a rising sophomore at Duke University and is a professional author and speaker. She is the author of “Don’t Tell Me To Relax: One Teen’s Journey to Survive Anxiety (And How You Can Too),” and “Overcoming Overthinking: 36 Ways to Tame Anxiety for Work, School, and Life”. Sophie is a mental health advocate who also has four different mental illnesses. She speaks openly about her experiences and has been featured on the Tamron Hall Show, Thrive Global, the Times of Israel, PsychCentral, and more. She recently recorded her first TED Talk about mental health stigma and looks forward to writing her third book in the near future. 
• Ryann Chalmers – 16-yr-old ambassador of the Mental Health hub with Teens Deam, a project of the Global Co Lab Network. The Mental Health Hub is a teen-led virtual hub that encourages youth globally to be change agents in their communities and advocate for better mental health and well-being.  Insta: @ryann._c
• Anastasia Vlasova -17 y/o mental health advocate who serves as a co-President of the South Lakes High School Our Minds Matter Club. She is also an intern for This Is My Brave, a mental health awareness non-profit, and runs the This Is My Brave Teens Instagram account. Additionally, she is the host of The Brave Wave podcast, a mental health podcast launching within the next couple of months, and runs her mental health blog Stormy Thought. She was the student keynote speaker at the 2019 Josh Anderson Ball and will be speaking at the This Is My Brave high school show in August. 
• Clayton Alenik is a junior captain of the University of Las Vegas men’s tennis team and participant at the Marty Hennessy Inspiring Children Foundation. He became committed to improving mental health during his time in the military when he lost his father at age 19 when he was a freshman at the Air Force Academy. 
• Moderator: Hannah Bowers, EQ Program Manager, Musician  & Meditator. Twitter: @TheHannahBowers
  Insta: @TheHannahBowers

Questions:

• Where do you learn about wellness? 
• Do you learn about mental health in school? Do you feel that there are communities at school that support your mental health?
• How does social media affect your mental health, and how can we cultivate a healthy relationship to social media?
• How do you change the conversation amongst your peers? (Responding to jokes about suicide, normalzing the conversation)
• What does taking action look like in mental health?
• What mental resources are available to you?
• What are the signs to look for that someone is struggling?
• How do you cope with stress?
• What practices do you have to support your mental health?
• Who are people you admire? Do you have any mental health role models?