Weekly Wellbeing: Supporting and Connecting With Others
Hey everyone!
How are you all doing? I'm sure many of you are finding it tough managing not only your own mental health and wellbeing, but the wellbeing of others. Some of you might be looking out for a friend, a family member, a partner or members of your community who might also be going through a hard time.
Here are some relevant resources on the ReachOut website:
Supporting Family
Helping Friends
With this in mind, this week's Wellbeing activity is about learning positive ways we can support others and have conversations about difficult issues. So, we've included some tips and ideas to get you started!
One helpful strategy involves active listening. Active listening is a skill that involves giving an individual your full attention and showing that you're interested in what they have to say.
Active listening techniques include reflection, labelling emotions, asking questions, empathising, sharing lived experience in a positive way, identifying a person's strengths and empowering them to find their own way forward.
Here are some tips to facilitate active listening:
- Acknowledge the other person's feelings and identify the particular emotions they might be experiencing. It's okay to get this wrong.
- Validate their experiences. For example, you could say, 'If I were in your shoes, I would feel ___ too'.
- Show your trust in their ability to work it out. For example, you could say, 'You are the expert on your situation. I can listen and help you figure out the path forward'. Guide them to look inside themselves for the answer, such as by saying, 'What do you feel like you should do?'
- Help them think about things from another point of view, such as by saying, 'What would you tell a friend who is in your situation?'
- Ask open-ended questions. For example, 'How are you doing?' rather than 'You doing okay?'. Avoid asking 'Why?' questions and ask more 'How?' and 'What?' questions.
- Point out an individual's strengths, such as their willingness to seek support or their resilience.
- Summarise the points the other person makes to check your understanding. For example, you could say, 'It sounds to me like…' 'So, in other words…', 'What I'm hearing you say is…'
- Don't jump in and offer solutions straight away. First, ask open-ended questions and show empathy.
- Tell them about a time that you coped with something similar, and what you did to cope. Instil hope. If you haven't been through something similar, try to imagine what they are experiencing. It's okay to say that you haven't experienced it, but that you can tell that it's affecting them a lot.
- Avoid imposing your own beliefs onto the other person or saying things such as 'I know how you feel'.
- Check in on them at another time after the conversation ends. For example, you could say, 'It's been a while since last talked. How are you doing now?'
When you are with a person physically, you can show that you are listening to them by:
- Sitting beside them rather than across from them. If they are sitting down, sit down as well.
- Using brief, positive prompts to keep the conversation going. For example, 'umm-hmm', 'Oh?', 'Then?', 'And?'
- Adopting an open posture.
- Making eye contact with them.
- Being relaxed as calmness is contagious.
If you're interested in learning more about how to support someone else, there are lots of paid and free courses out there. Some of them might be called 'Mental Health First Aid' or 'Psychological First Aid'. Here is a free Psychological First Aid course that I did online recently.
If you're worried that someone might require crisis support or is in a lot of distress, encourage them to use a service such as Lifeline, Kids Helpline or the Suicide Callback Service. You can find the links to these services in the 'Urgent Help' section. In the past, I've supported others by distracting and chatting with them as they've waited for a phone or online counsellor.
After supporting someone else, try to debrief with yourself. Supporting others can take a toll on everyone involved and you're worthy of receiving support too.
Here are some questions you could ask yourself:
- Do you feel that you coped with the situation well?
- Are you feeling okay after helping this person?
- Do you need to talk to someone yourself?
- What can you do for self-care?
With these points in mind, let's move on to this week's activity:
Share your top tips for supporting someone else! They could be helpful ways to open up a conversation about wellbeing, something that has helped you or a person you are supporting in the past or a useful online resource or video, just to name a few ideas.
Comments
@WheresMySquishy This thread is so amazing and helpful. I will definitely be doing that course when my workload lowers a bit.
Hey guys, great thread, thank you for making this @WheresMySquishy!
I had a question from the other side of the pond... how do you deal with people who you go to for support and they respond in a patronising or unhelpful way? Like whenever I go to my partner to talk over something I'm really upset about he always goes 'awwwww' and I HATE IT. It makes me feel so invalidated I guess? To me that's something you'd say if someone just spilled their drink on the floor, I don't want to have that response when I'm upset about my parents fighting or my mental health has just gone down the drain! I've tried mentioning it once or twice but I find it still happens and I'm so upset in the moment that it just makes me madder- this is only a texting problem he's usually fine in person. I also wanted to know if you have any advice for when you come to friends about an issue and they turn it around to be about how they have the same problem and talk about theirs over yours without meaning to.
I don't have any advice as of yet because I would love answers to this!
Hmmmm yeah @StormySeas17 I definitely get where you're coming from with those two issues and I can say that I have been on the receiving end of similar things myself!
That's a hard one about your partner, considering you have already tried to voice your concern to them about it in the past. I guess the only things I can suggest would be to keep reminding them that you really don't find that language ('aww') helpful and remind them every time they use it - it has to get through to them eventually right? You could really emphasise to them how it makes you feel and perhaps suggest things for them to say that would be more helpful to you? That, or if you find this only really happens over text you could reserve getting serious issues off your chest for when you can talk to them about it over the phone or in person?
Along the same lines of what @WheresMySquishy said, if you know that your friends are often guilty of turning the conversation onto themselves when you try to come to them with a problem you could try and get in there proactively, before you have even initiated the conversation, and say something like 'Hey, I have this issue that I really need to talk to you about it, would you mind if I have just ten minutes to vent about myself?'. That can really strongly signal to them how you want the conversation to work and may mean that they're going to be more focused on supporting you.
Let me know what you think about these suggestions - I'm genuinely very interested to know if you think they would work or I'm waffling a bunch of nonsense 
Hey @WheresMySquishy @recharging_introvert thank you so much for your suggestions! Yes it's very frustrating when you know the person cares but you just don't feel like you're getting through to them 
I think asking them why they're saying certain things would definitely help! Also redirecting the conversation sounds like a good idea. Maybe saying something like 'I understand you've had similar experiences but I want to talk about my own feelings now' would work too. My dad loves to pull the 'its okay you've had a bad day, I've had a bad day too' and my eyes roll into my head because it's like... you were so keen to say something you just overshadowed me! But I know he does care. Sometimes you need to give people the benefit of the doubt and ask if they're really hearing you I think!
@StormySeas17 definitely! And it's hard when you know those people are trying to be helpful, but maybe they just haven't learned the active listening skills to be able to truly help you. I think, like you said, that's when you really have to take charge and teach them how best to support you, which feels a little weird in the moment but will help you in the long run!
@recharging_introvert I think active listening skills is something that my family really struggles with. There's been so many occasions where I've actually had to call them out for making things about them and not listening to me. I try and be an active listener back at the same time. Mutual respect I guess? It definitely is a process and I hope I get there some day!
I have really enjoyed reading this thread! Very important topic 
glad we can have a convo about it.
Active listening can be so bloody hard hey @StormySeas17 and i think it's something that all families do differently and that we can all practice. Good on you for calling them out on that, how does it go down when you bring that up? Do you feel like they're open to talking about these things? It is really bloody annoying when people make things about themself, it's totally fair to feel frustrated about it. Its great you are making a really considered effort to be an active listener back, hopefully there is a ripple effect with that 
@StormySeas17 That sounds so frustrating! It can feel like someone is not really listening when they just respond in one or two words rather than reflecting what you've said. People can also do that when they respond to someone else telling them good news, such as when they just say, 'okay' or 'good.'
The main thing I would suggest is being open about what you feel and want from that person. There are some articles I've used a few times on the ReachOut website about how to have difficult conversations. Sometimes you can also prompt them to talk about the issue further, such as by revealing more about it or saying, 'What do you mean by 'aww'?'.
It can also be really invalidating when people share a similar problem of theirs rather than how they've actually dealt with it. 😞 I feel like I've been guilty of that a few times! Sometimes, you can try to steer the conversation by empathising with them and then saying, 'I'd like to share more about what I'm going through if you don't mind'. or 'Do you have any advice for me?'
Wow so much great advice and insight @WheresMySquishy. Thank you for all the resources (especially that Psychological First Aid course link!).
Fantastic advice @November13, choosing to have the conversation in a safe space definitely makes all the difference to help someone open up and have an honest conversation.
My top tip is that things are always better said with a cup of tea in hand! I don't know if this is just my circle of friends, but I always find that I have the biggest and hardest conversations over a cuppa. Even just holding the mug and feeling the warmth can bring so much comfort in hard times.
@recharging_introvert I'm not a big fan of hot tea myself, but I know so many people who can't live without tea! Once, one of my nursing home residents was upset because one of their family members had passed away, and I brought her a cup of tea and we sat on her bed and chatted about it. Eventually, she was smiling again. I've had a similar conversation with another resident over tea as well. I used to serve tea to people waiting for appointments with mental health professionals in my other roles too. I feel like it can really encourage someone to open up if they're finding it hard to communicate.
That gif is amazing! 🙂
I find it helpful to pick a place where they can feel safe to open up/cry if they need to. And sometimes just letting them vent without trying to cheer them up can do wonders!
@WheresMySquishy this is a great thread!
Thanks so much for linking the free psychological first aid course, how long did it roughly take you?
@JullyBean It was meant to be done over a few weeks, but it wasn't that long and I finished it really quickly. Most of it was lecture-based so I would just watch it while having lunch. 🙂
@November13 That's great advice! Sometimes, it can help for them to go somewhere quieter.
I found this article the other day and I thought it was relevant for this activity too. 🙂
