By Tara Postma

It is Mental Health Awareness Week and at this strange and uncertain time maintaining your mental health feels more vital, but also more challenging, than ever. We are inundated with recommendations on how to maintain GOOD mental health whilst at the same time constantly being fed scary and baffling information from the papers, news channels and Government. It can feel like a battle at times, like being pulled in two directions.

So today I want to reflect on the theme chosen by the Mental Health Foundation this year, kindness, because #KindnessMatters. At Kazzum Arts we created a series of colouring worksheets for our professional development programme with Robin Lane-Roberts and I wanted to share a few of them as a marker for thinking about how we might find these moments of kindness in this very uncertain and confusing time.

The first sheet is called ‘Self-Care’ but don’t worry I am not about tell you all the things you must do to care for yourself, quite the opposite.

What makes you feel better? What brings your heart rate down? What makes you laugh? What offers you a moment of stillness? What brings you joy? It might be none of the things on this sheet and it might be all of them. That is not what’s important, what is important is that you are kind to yourself and don’t make self-care another thing on the list to beat yourself up about for not doing. This isn’t about finding inner peace or aligning your chakras, it’s just about finding a little time in your day to give yourself a hug, in whatever form that comes. This time might be an hour of daily meditation or that two minutes of peace when you are sitting on the loo without the kids at your heels or that 5 minutes of stillness before you fall asleep! That is for you and only you to decide, there is no right or wrong, just remember this time is valuable and worth carving out for yourself each day.

The second sheet I want to share is Protective Factors.

During this time of global mourning, uncertainty and overwhelming hardship for many, it has been comforting to witness so many beautiful acts of selfless kindness within different communities and on a national scale. This worksheet reminds me of the power of simple acts of kindness to support and rebuild. At Kazzum we place these ‘Protective Factors’ at the heart of our practice and although they may seem specific to working with young people who are vulnerable at that point in their lives, I would argue that most are easily translated into everyday interactions between anyone, of any age. It is through these interactions that agency, inspiration, comfort, joy and connection can be found. In a time where finding points of connection can feel challenging, supporting each other and finding ways to offer that feeling of safety and support is so important. What you might find is, moments of kindness you offer to someone else become the moment of kindness you also offer yourself, self-care can sometimes be found in caring for another.

Kindness Matters