In her regular column for Canberra Daily, ‘Why your mind matters’, founder of Anytime Counselling, Tina Kendall-Davis BA, BEd, DipCouns, GradDipPsyc, offers general advice to help us cope in everyday situations. This week’s topic: See global, act local
With the world as it is, it can be hard to feel positive.
It seems with every news story we are subjected to more doom and gloom.
Everywhere we look we see terror, pain and heartache. It’s a lot to take on. Every day it becomes harder to see the positive. Sometimes, it’s impossible not to feel depressed by it all.
So, what can we do?
Unfortunately, we cannot directly control the global stage.
But we can certainly affect our local one.
How?
By actively participating in our local spaces and making a conscious effort to positively impact the day of those around us.
This not only creates positives for those around you, it creates positives for you. And we all need more positive in our lives.
For example, I ran a mental health workshop for a local bootcamp group. It was awesome and I loved it. We did things to help people build a bank of self-help resources to serve their mental health better.
Rewarding for them? I believe so, as the feedback was great. Rewarding for me? Yes, because that’s my jam and I love it.
However, the greatest reward came about three days later. Unexpectedly, I received a text. It was a screen shot of an email that had been sent the group with participant comments during their next bootcamp session – saying ‘very successful Tina’, sent with a purple heart.
Now, I felt great being a part of that workshop. But someone taking five seconds to screenshot and summarise a bunch of compliments for me – I floated on that for days.
And you can help people float too.
We can all do something that with minimal effort can create positive outcomes – not only for others, but for ourselves as well.
Sending that complimentary text or email can lift someone more than you’ll ever know. Ten times that by actually putting pen to paper and sending someone personal snail mail.
An extra five minutes to mow the neighbour’s lawn – a lovely surprise for them to come home to and you feeling good for being that catalyst for them. Stopping by that person’s home to say G’day and have a cuppa. Change their entire day, put a smile of happiness, gratitude and appreciation on their face, as well as your heart – all whilst enjoying the added benefit of slowing your day down just a little – something we all need to do.
The reality is we can positively impact our world around us in a multitude of ways that bear little to no inconvenience to us at all – especially when you consider the positives we gain from it, too.
The options are endless – as are the benefits. For all.
