MENTORSHIP AND MENTAL HEALTH WELL-BEING

 

Why Every one Needs a Mentor In life?

Growing up my mother used to work in a post primary school she could give talks to students she was teaching. I would watch her prepare and sometimes heard her rehearse. She knew a lot, but her delivery was dry. Her topics were very technical, and she covered them expertly, but she was also a nervous speaker. I absorbed that anxiety from her at an early age and grew along with it.

Somewhere along the path to adulthood after my bachelors studies, I thought about being a Disability activist but I was worried about not being a good public speaker. And I held firmly to it, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

Well, I decided that 2 decades was long enough to hold firm. So I got a mentor. I had some things I wanted to say, and I wanted to say them without the distraction of an old story in my head that isn’t serving me anymore.

My mentor analyzed my voice for pitch and range. Then He recorded a video of me making impromptu remarks. I leaned against the wall and counted while I breathed. He asked me to walk around the room and raise and lower my voice. It was exhilarating, even if my palms were clammy. He was so present and so convinced that I could do it.

I remembered an article by the actor David Duchy about the influence of his high school basketball coach on his life. It described exactly what had just happened for me, and what coaching can do to create a new story:

My mentor told me I was worthwhile and good and that we could win. He talked to me as if I were someone worth telling a story about, subtly enjoining me to become active in that story. He was a man who respected me by demanding that I respect myself. He saw potential in me, and I began to respect myself step by step i gained confidence and spoke straight forward without hesitation,

That is what a good Mentor does. He fills you with a belief that may or may not be justified. As you make the dangerous crossing from unproven belief to actual accomplishment, from potential to reality, a good mentor holds your hand so expertly that you don’t even know your hand is being held. I got better because my mentor told me I was already better. It was that simple – a magic trick. And every success I’ve had since then has had some of this same magic in it, either at the hands of other skilled teachers or by the generous trickery of the voice inside me that they instilled.

For whatever reason, I stilled that voice they instilled inside me for awhile. But now I’m ready to speak up. And to let go of stories that don’t fit me any more and that's what exactly what mental health needs , mental health needs more sunlight, more candor more un-ashamed conversation to mental health is not a destination but a process. It`s about how you drive not where your going and if a good Mentor / coach is hired to help one doesn't have to struggle in silence, thanks to all Psychologists , coaches, mentors and mental health practitioners your are the hidden voice to the voice less those in isolation and in dire need.