It's okay to not be okay
9 October 2020
To coincide with World Mental Health Day, the Scottish Tech Army (STA) podcast team asked Julie Reekie, Workplace Counselling Coordinator for CrossReach, to participate in a conversation with STA volunteers about the impact the pandemic is having on mental health.
With no specific agenda, the conversation explores the range of feelings, thoughts and emotions experienced as a result of the changes the pandemic has brought to all our lives, what things we may already be doing to look after our mental health and what we could be doing to help combat the impact of living through the Coronavirus during the winter months.
‘The STA is like a mental health initiative, giving people purpose and hope.’
Julie and the team acknowledge that everyone's experience will be different and discuss the benefits of doing things we are passionate about; how volunteering can be protective to our mental health when facing the loss of a job, reviving our sense of meaning and purpose and how it can even lead to a new calling.
"It's okay to not be okay sometimes"
Having conversations about mental health helps us all build self-awareness and creates safe spaces to share ideas about ways to cope as well as normalizing the range of feelings that can occur during a period of major change. Mental health has been pushed to the foreground of society's attention and there is an opportunity to share ideas and become more innovative in our approach to mental well being.
To hear the full podcast: www.scottishtecharmy.org/podcasts
