[CHAT] RUOK day: How to ask, how to help

Getting Real: RUOK?

No one ever said life was easy, but no one ever said life would be this hard.

Sometimes life isn’t easy and you know what? That’s actually pretty normal.

Almost every single person you know has gone through a hard time in their lives, is going through a hard time right now or will go through a hard time in the future. Some people find it easy to reach out to friends or family and talk about their emotions and experiences, while others find it easy to reach out to professional help.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of us out there that find it difficult or embarrassing to speak out and say that we need a bit of extra support from the people around us.

That’s where ‘R U OK?’ day comes in!

R U OK?’ Day is a national day of action to remind all of us of the importance of checking in on our friends, colleagues, boyfriends, girlfriends and family to remind them that they’re not alone in whatever struggles they face. It’s on the second Thursday of every September (so, September 10^th this year).

To recognise the importance of ‘R U OK?’ day, we’ll be hosting a Getting Real session focused on it on September 7^th.

We’ll be discussing the 4 steps of actually having this difficult conversation with others and thinking about how it applies to us in our day-to-day lives.

So, join us next Monday to get the conversation started, and remember: You don’t need to know the answers to someone’s problem, you don’t even have to have all your own problems sorted out, you just need to be willing to listen without judgement.