We all live in this fast-paced world that’s run by a clock and capitalistic values that determine how we must live our day-to-day lives to keep up with some imaginary ideal. While striving to reach this ideal we often neglect our true needs and wants, the things that keep us healthy, happy, and really fuel our minds and souls, the things that are the core of our motivation. This is why the number of people who feel depressed and anxious keeps growing, because we forget that to feel content and keep growing as people, we need to nurture what our bodies and minds really need. 

I was fortunate enough to be a part of a project that did just that. It helped me look in a mirror and do a self-check on my mental and emotional state and guided me through fun and creative projects to reconnect with the positivity inside. As May is the international month of mental health, “Keep Dreaming” was the perfect project for it and although brief, it hit all the keynotes that affect me and my peers. On the first activity day, we talked about social participation and volunteering. By engaging ourselves in activities that involve interaction with our community, we not only work on our social well-being but can also help to reduce social problems or at least offer our support and listening ear. By engaging ourselves in the world outside of us, we can interact with different points of view and adapt to new and healthier mindsets. I feel that this is exactly what we all gained from each other as a group. Having met such amazing people with different perspectives allowed us to be open-minded to the differences that we all carried individually, but, no matter what, we valued inclusion and we all had a strong team spirit that made us inseparable. Together, through the activities we worked on breaking mental health stereotypes and training our emotional intelligence. To achieve that, of course, we had to develop active listening skills and create a warm and supportive environment where everybody felt welcome. Towards the end of our training course, we devoted time to stress, as it’s the most common cause of psychosomatic illnesses. We talked about the most common stressors in today’s age and how to avoid them. One of the creative activities was making a self-help guide through stressful situations as a way of learning how to cope with them. As fostering empathy was a great part of this project, we also talked about providing help and support to people who are close to us or are going through a similar situation. And finally, while keeping our minds healthy is important, physical well-being should also be a priority. These two things are deeply intertwined and without one the other can’t function properly, therefore to reach the best state we need to take care of our body and mind.

This project helped us better understand ourselves and each other. It connected us with beautiful and amazing people who felt like we had known each other for lifetimes. Being located by the sea, eating tasty food, welcoming people, and colourful landscapes helped us reach at least half of the goal of the project, which was achieving mental well-being. As the sea was washing away at the beach so too was the fogginess in our mind and I am very grateful for the opportunity to be a part of something as amazing as this.

Simona Soleva