World Mental Health Day, Climate Change and Windfarms: Feeling Down & Over It

It's probably a sign of my lack of sleep last night, due to my own increased anxiety as I start work again, that I'm feeling a bit down for two reasons today - one, I got a group email from the work counsellor telling us that it was World Mental Health Day, and we could click on the link provided which would take us to a site where we could make promises about mental health (our own, and how we might support others) and the IPCC report on climate change, as well as the letter we got in the post protesting the proposal of a wind farm in our area.

The link was to https://1010.org.au/ , a site which aims to shed light on mental health.

For those that know me here, I'm all for this and think it's so important. Stigma, and the discrimination associated with it, is one of the biggest hurdles in overcoming mental illnesses, and the more awareness and discussion about it, the better. It's something we've encouraged on @naturalmedicine and @mountainjewel too started the hashtag #ihaveanxiety too - so many of us know it's important because we've been to our own dark places too, and have empathy for the suffering of others.

Yet what's happening in this school? An email link to staff. And we're all going around ignoring those emails because we're too busy to read them. We patch when things go wrong and do nothing to prevent, and those in charge ignore the resources they have in their own staff and do nothing to support them to bring the tools that could help with mental health issues into the classroom and the whole school dynamic. And I sound more depressed than I'd like right now because I'm exhausted from a sleepless night with my own anxiety, which I know will settle because I have the resources to help it calm down eventually - I know it will pass. Yet it took me a long time to learn these strategies and you only get to learn them when it's too late and you're patching your mental health because you've run into a dark place in your life.

Whilst I really wanted to reply something along the lines of: 'is this all you are doing all year for mental health?' I bit my tongue and looked at the site. What I really loved about it is that it invites you to make a PROMISE. To me this is like setting a goal or an intention, and by doing so, real change is set into action.

What if we all made a promise? On this site, you can write your own promise about what you are doing to de-stigmatise mental health or support people around you.

You can take up one of the promises on the wall or write your own - so far there are 22136 of them. They've made it fun - you can upload your own image or get one of theirs. The saying goes that 'energy goes where our intention flows', so I'm rolling with it.

My intention was to deliver a short mindfulness practice to my classes every single lesson, rather at the end of the week when they're all so shattered that they need it as a 'patch'. I'd put away all the pressures I felt to deliver curriculum and rely on the knowledge that by delivering 5 minutes of calm, centred awareness practice I could get students to drop into to how they feel and use techniques to bring them into a focussed present so that I'd help keep them on an even keel through the week rather than bandaid it Friday afternoons.

And it's worked, so there's that. It's something positive I can do to affect change. But there's so many things I feel powerless to do anything about right now, and that's getting me down a bit. Hence the sleepless night.

So, the IPCC report. I'm not the only one thinking that the mental health of teenagers can be directly linked to the state of the environment and the future we're heading into - in fact, it was the first conversation we had yesterday morning. I listened to them interrupt each other and talk over the top of each other with incredulity that our government isn't really doing anything to stop the production of coal despite being warned that if we don't phase it out within 22 years we're pretty much doomed, and the Great Barrier Reef will certainly be no more. Our environment minister Scott Morrisson is more concerned with the lights going off on the east coast of Australia rather than backing this landmark study and putting energy and funding into preventing this happening via alternative energies. These kids were so devastated and felt so powerless. It was their future, yet they felt as if no one really cared about the future they were inheriting.

Mt Mercer Windfarm, Victoria

And then the letter through the post, asking for the community to come to a rally protesting the proposal of a windfarm in our area. Like the government worrying about their investments in coal, so too do most of the protests derive from the need to protect farming interests and family money in the area, or that it'd intrude on investment properties and weekenders. Again money is put above the environment. Furthermore, whilst this might sound harsh, the health of a few is pitted against the health of the many - the world depends on us coming up with alternatives to coal that should override any personal interests, gains or concerns. Individuals have alternative in these critical moments, whereas the nation and the world doesn't. I find it interesting that it's the people that oppose windfarms because they have personal investment in the area all of a sudden feel deep concern for a parrot or a frog they never cared about before (which are far more likely to go extinct due to climate change than due to a few wind turbines) or are decrying them due to unfounded medical claims that they create headaches or some such problems. Again, I might sound harsh, but today, I'm not in the mood for people to be so self interested and uncaring about the wider world around them.

Ah, I'm off home now, best do some meditation myself lest I ruminate further on the things I feel powerless to change.

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