STOP and think about others

Angela Sheridan is the College’s Head of Learning and Skills for Hair, Beauty, Complementary Therapies and Make-up Artistry. She has agreed to write a guest blog for #mymentalhealthmatters month.

I started my journey at Ayrshire College in 2006 as a part-time temporary lecturer. My journey has been amazing and insightful and I have encountered many wonderful experiences along the way! The greatest overall experience is getting to know and understand myself better; self-awareness is a wonderful thing and has really helped me in my day-to-day role. I am passionate about wellbeing, my own included…everyone deserves to be happy.

I have made many a mistake or misjudgement along the way (still do sometimes!) and have experienced many anxious moments! I have found that self-reflection and informal workplace coaching from colleagues has been invaluable, assisting me to manage my own wellbeing positively whilst learning from the many challenges and opportunities.

In my current position, and in that very important role as a manager and leader of staff, as well as students, I often deal with staff and student issues. I see that it’s often different perceptions that contribute to workplace challenges and classroom issues. I have found that Stopping, Taking a deep breath, Observing my thinking and Proceeding from a place of awareness (STOP!) rather than emotional reactiveness, is invaluable.

Through my personal self-development, I have also learnt how our minds work and the triggers that stimulate thoughts and feeling, that in turn stimulate our behaviours. Throughout our childhood experiences and present lives, we have subconsciously built up our own internal belief systems, which makes us the people we are today.

So while we all have workplace priorities, agendas, deadlines, for our wellbeing: taking time to STOP, consider the perceptions of everyone concerned in any given situation and acting from a position of respect and consideration, for me is the building blocks to continuing to create an open, honest, respectful and supportive workplace environment…that I believe is Ayrshire College!

We all have it within us to deal with anything that comes our way whether that be in the workplace or at home – we need to believe that!

Talking openly about our thoughts and feelings, and by understanding how our minds work, makes anything possible! As part of #mymentalhealthmatters month, I wanted to share my personal journey and also a personal difficulty I had recently – when I received the tragic news that a very close family member had taken his own life.

This reinforced for me all of the above, in that the support I received from my line manager and colleagues, coupled with my ability to appreciate and remember to be grateful and positive, is helping me to deal with this very difficult life event.

#mymentalhealthmatters