Emotional needs understood
Living organisms have needs, and when those needs are met, the organism thrives. This is true for a human or a tree, a dolphin or a donkey.
Humans are the most complex things in the known universe with the most complex needs. As with any increase in complexity, this increases the likelihood of something going awry.
Know Your Needs
Human beings hold the greatest complexity within all natural systems, so it follows that we have the most complex sets of needs. For our mental health, we each have a set of emotional needs and innate emotional resources.
We are all naturally endowed with resources that enable us to meet our needs.
One of these resources is our ability to grow knowledge for strong choices.
By knowing what our emotional needs and resources are, we can take effective action to improve our wellbeing.
Practicing this Mental Health and Safety approach through meeting our emotional needs is what prevents poor mental health.
The Mental Health Continuum: When needs are met in balance, then we thrive.
Using the Mental Health Continuum model, we can understand how the emotional needs and resources relate to the signs and symptoms of poor mental health. This empowers us to support ourselves and one another to meet needs and thrive.
Prevention is always better than cure
When challenges to our needs outweigh our ability to meet them, we classify these as stressors. Prolonged or severe stress impairs performance and leads to mental ill health.
Meeting needs is like watering a plant. If left neglected, the plant will wilt.
Mental Health and Safety provides strategic understanding of how to focus emotional resources to avoid stress and illness.
Emotional health
MHS Training shares a comprehensive model of emotions that encompasses not only emotional literacy, but also emotional intelligence.
Emotions are nature’s signals to us that we need something. However, the emotions may not be helpful, as they are essentially a hundred million years old.
By building our understanding of innate needs and resources, we can make stronger decisions.
Mental Health and Safety training takes into account the emotional nature of behaviour. By understanding a common-sense model of how emotions work, delegates are empowered to focus emotions towards meeting needs and thriving.
