February 14, 2019 
Mental health is a topic that is all too often kept in the dark. At LeadUp’s event on 7 February in Sydney, founder of Grow Together Now, Camille Wilson set the record straight about mental health and taught us how we can do our part.
Tune into our podcast of the event:
Take a peek at the photos of the event here.
Camille shared her own journey recovering from mental health struggles – a story of perseverance, self-awareness, and positivity in times of hardship. She also explored the leap of faith she took to start her own business. All this, with the desire to change the world one mind at a time.
Why Mental Health?
Camille has lived with anxiety and depression since she was a teenager. She has always been fascinated with how the brain works. Whilst psychological research is extensive, the topic of mental health in society (let alone in the workplace) doesn’t receive as much attention.
Determined to address this, Camille created Grow Together Now; her very own way to shed light on mental health and transform its perception into something positive and human.
Mental Health in Society
The main problem of how society sees mental health today is that we most of the time only talk about the clinical nature. We’re asking about what the symptoms and signs are and which mental illness can be diagnosed with this, but what we’re not asking for is how we can prevent it, change our mindset, or give support.
We prefer to look at statistics that show us how many people suffer from mental health illness, instead of creating statistics on how many people actually get support and are able to recover. Because, in fact, there’s an 80% chance of recovery from mental health issues if you actually seek treatment.
“How is it the one [health problem] we have where recovery is incredibly high, but it’s actually getting worse?”
The problem is that we’re still talking about why it’s so bad, when all we should do is changing the conversation to what we can do about it.
This is exactly what Grow Together Now is aiming for. Changing the conversation about mental health into something positive, something easier to talk about, than it sadly still is today.
It’s Time to Act
“Mental health is just the tip of the iceberg right now… it’s slowly starting to get some recognition.”
Businesses need to understand their employees and start going outside of the “traditional” view of mental health. They need to engage their employees, understand them, get them to open up and talk about what they’re feeling. Therefore, leaders need to be vulnerable and honest. Focus groups and specifically designed workshops can help with that.
Grow Together Now offers different workshops to target just this. The workshops help businesses to:
- Re-imagine mental health
- Increase self-awareness
- Learn about empathy, social connection and company culture
And you?
Take a moment to think about how you see mental health and what you can do to change the conversation into something more positive.
Change the world, one mind at a time: how will you nurture your own mental health, or support the wellbeing of those around you?
