We established October’s #BeingHopeful campaign with one goal in mind – to shine a light on the importance of hope in mental health during Mental Health Month, 2022. And we have been thrilled at not only the response to the campaign but the outpouring of hope from our community!
With this in mind, here’s a roundup of everything that has happened this month, and the sources of hope we’ve been drawing from:
Research on The Hope and Mental Health Connection
We got hope from the researcher and CEO of Third Collective, Mandy Scotney, who shared her recent research findings on the connection between hope and mental health.
While the definition of hope can be complex and broad, she shared exactly what hope can do for people day to day and some of the things that hope can be for others. Her core findings that she shared were:
- Hope is like the tide
- You can find hope in despair
- Hope is a collective experience
- Hope tells us to pay attention to our well-being
Read more in-depth about ‘The Importance of Hope in Mental Health’ from Mandy Scotney HERE.
Finding Hope During Difficult Times
We also found hope from our team members throughout the month who contributed to the campaign. Specifically, Libby and Julian worked together to create some excellent advice you can put into practice if you’re looking to find hope during a difficult time.
Some of these tips include:
- Getting outside
- Expressing gratitude daily
- Trauma-informed self-reflection
And many more aim to turn hope into practice for you rather than a ‘one-time’ event.
You can read Libby and Julian’s #BeingHopeful During Difficult Times: 8 Tips for Success in full HERE.
Hope From BEING’s CEO
Spearheading the #BeingHopeful campaign, we got hope from our very own CEO Priscilla Brice, who kicked off the month with why we chose to focus on hope this month.
“We believe that having hope during the process of recovery from mental illness is vital.” – Priscilla Brice.
Read our original announcement here, as well as what hope means to us here at BEING, in the words of our CEO Priscilla Brice HERE.
Hope From Our Community
Last but certainly not least, we drew incredible hope from our community! We were inundated with stories, messages, quotes, and images of what hope means to all of you. (A big thank you to the team who have handled all these so well this month!)
Going through all of your submissions showed us two very important things that we want to share:
- Hope can mean so many different things to different people
- Hope is everywhere if you’re willing to look
In order to honour and respect all submissions, we decided to create a page dedicated to them. You can view the page HERE.
Overall, Mental Health Month 2022 has been our most inspirational one yet! So a big thank you to everyone who has made it possible, the experts willing to share their stories and research, everyone who has been involved on social media, and everyone who has sent us a submission!
