Hi everyone and welcome to my latest article where I’d like to share a little more on why the majority of employees don’t discuss mental health. Many of you reading my articles, do so because you know about the judgement I and many like me and you who suffer from mental health face daily.
The truth is, even if you’re not voicing the judgement you may have about people with mental health, consciously and subconsciously you may well be thinking this.
Many companies realise the importance of implementing a Global Wellbeing Strategy, but very few know how to do it and why Employee Mental Health plays a huge role in this Strategy. The struggle here is with the Stigma attached and how to get people to a place within themselves so they can freely talk about mental health.
Many companies globally are asking their employees to enrol on online programs; however, as someone who took personal action and hired a leading expert to help me overcome many of my mental health challenges, I know they are not going to break the ‘wall of silence’ that they are being met by those who suffer.
On many occasions, each time I try to participate and raise awareness on various issues associated with mental health and wellbeing strategies, unconsciously and consciously some people I approach tend to project their judgements on me. Some even tell it in my face, what is it that you Paul know about mental health because you are no expert, you’ve never studied psychology either.
The truth is since I began working with Tony J. Selimi, a remarkable award-winning author, filmmaker, transformational coach, business success mentor, and teacher of inner wisdom, I have learned quite a lot about myself, my OCD and my behaviours that contributed in me becoming ill.
Implementing his twenty-five conscious engineering principles of his TJSeMethod: ALARM™ into my life teaches me daily how to deal with judgements, adversity, and negativity that comes with having mental health issues. Each time I have a consultation with Tony, I walk away with a new awareness, feeling peaceful and much better about myself.
When I get challenged by people at work, I remind myself of this powerful quote by Tony J. Selimi “Living Your Life in Peace, Gratitude, Grace, and Love is Priceless.”
His teachings transcend all of what I have tried so far and maybe currently known by mainstream health systems globally, including our NHS in the UK, especially with regards to OCD, organisational wellbeing, and how to address mental health in General.
If more organisations where to hire Tony to teach their employees what he has been teaching me privately since I began working with him, they would turn their ever-increasing Mental Health Crisis into a Successful Global Wellbeing Strategy.
It is this vision that inspires me to share my pain and breakthroughs to help others, no matter what rank they hold in their organisations, to act. It is by empowering myself that I realised the scale of the mental health problem organisations faces globally.
Some people may judge your abilities according to the labels of pipefitter or Field Engineer written on your CV and shown on your LinkedIn Profile, others may judge you because of your past mental health illnesses, addictions etc.
What reading Tony’s book #Loneliness taught me about judgements from others about the labels we hold is that every label we give our self and others cannot summarise the infinity of divinity that lives within us all.
When a company asks employees to speak about Mental Health, they are asking them to step out of their current comfort, familiar zones and into a completely unknown space and that is both scary and uncomfortable for the majority.
Workplace environments, culture-scapes aren’t in general considered to be safe environments for employees to discuss something as personal as mental health, so there is just one reason for the aforementioned ‘wall of silence.’ Check out Hayley’s Experience in this BBC article, when she shared her illness at work. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-41740666
In the eight key areas of life that Tony J. Selimi mentions in his five-times Amazon best-selling book A Path to Wisdom, every employee can find the true cause of their mental health problems.
Essentially, through powerful questioning, I have seen Tony get people to reveal what is going on in any of the eight key areas of life; spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, financial, career/business, social and relationship. Many of his clients and I have created breakthroughs by stepping into new mental horizons where one is confident to voice their concerns and can overcome their fear of judgement by others.
So, what stops many companies successfully implement wellbeing strategies in their organisations? Here are five takeaways I got from reading Tony’s books and attending his recent talk titled “Engaging with Elevated Awareness.”
- Mentally many employees are far from being ready to embrace mental health initiatives.
- Emotionally employees feel embarrassed, pressured and perceived to be weak if they openly talk about their mental health.
- Financially employees feel it is a financial suicide to share about their mental health openly.
- Unconsciously majority of employees believe that by talking about mental health, they will jeopardise their career, lose their job, or at the very least endanger prospects of promotion.
- Employees lack the tools and the knowledge to change both their negative internal dialogue and external talk with both themselves and their colleagues.
The truth is, we are so conditioned to what people think about us, that even writing this article, I am thinking to myself “Am I committing career suicide, will I lose my home, my finances and everything else that I care about by talking openly about my mental health.”
On my recent coaching session with Tony, he made me realise how every organisation has a collective consciousness consisting of every employees thought, behaviours and actions. So in simple terms when the majority of organisations employee’s thoughts are based on the fear of what others will think of them or may happen to them, they will emit these thoughts and fears into the companies’ collective consciousness.
To learn more about it, I highly recommend reading Tony’s multi-award-winning book #Loneliness – The Virus of The Modern Age. In the chapter called “Human Energy Field -HEF”, he beautifully describes how everything about us is emanating into the environment we work and live in. If we don’t learn to transform what’s bothering inside of us, we will continue to keep one another trapped in this fear consciousness and hold ourselves and the company back from growing and succeeding. He goes on and also beautifully explains how this collective consciousness also exists in our families, towns, countries and universally.
Although we see an increase of people within companies signing documents such as time to change, and talking about mental health, the fact remains that majority are still fearful of discussing the intimate details of what they have been through.
Today, thanks to my ongoing coaching session with my mentor Tony J. Selimi, I am now able to observe this even more. With his clients Joel and Timea, the owners of Vandercom, a leading telecommunication and IT service provider company, they co-created “Living My Illusion”, a film and documentary series that raise awareness of the toxic effect of not speaking, honouring and living our truth.
In the first episode titled “The Truth Hurts”, he gets his clients to awareness of how their actions, behaviours and decision making are based on injected values and what others will think of them. In each live coaching session with his clients, the viewer can self-reflect on their own constant need to seek validation from others or to be seen to fit into the perceived norm and be accepted by others.
So when you as an employer are wondering why people don’t speak or want to speak about mental health in the workplace, it’s wise to consider having an expert like Tony to advise your leadership teams, train your managers and inspire your employees so you can successfully implement wellbeing strategies and take steps towards improving the overall organizational mental health. For further information on what Tony can do for you, your senior management, your teams, and organisation check out https://tonyselimi.com/services/corporate-programs/
Many leaders and senior managers spend decades educating themselves and building a successful career. It is the fear of losing it all that stops many of them take the necessary action needed to successfully implement a Wellbeing strategy that works for the many and not only a few.
I hope this article has given you much food for thought and inspired you to take positive action. Once again thank you for taking the time to read my articles.
Paul McMonagle
P.S. to inspire your being check out this inspirational quotes by clicking HERE!