Recovery can be a lonely journey, so let's do it together. Round two of our panel-audience format of the Mate Helping Mate podcast! This time we hit the road to chat to the folks of the Tooma NSW community. Local folks, Sharon, Macca and Ian joined John on the couch up the front, along with an audience willing to share their lived experience. The stories and the emotions shared at Brigham House, highlight the resilience necessary for positive recovery.In this episode, there is an emphasis on the importance of community and mateship when recovering from a setback. The tragedy and trauma of the ..read more

Here it is! Mate Helping Mate Podcast first live recording of a panel-audience format! We had over 70 people join us at the Whitton Malt House to be a part of important conversations between our panelists Kim Whitham, Lexi and Jody Heath, Rob Houghton and moderator John Harper.  This episode features the conversations that took place throughout the night, which were based on facing mental health stigma, how to engage in support networks as well as strategies that people use to get through the tough times. This interactive format meant that the audience was welcome to speak at any point w ..read more

This episode of Mate Helping Mate features some solo wisdom from John about mental wellbeing resilience. Following on from ‘Preparedness’, we bring you the second episode of ‘Rough But Ready’. Once we have laid the foundations for resilience, how do we keep it up in the long term? John looks at the ability to action what you have prepared, how to know when to use it and how to apply it. It is something that we need to keep practicing and nurturing. And in building our resilience, it positively impacts us and helps us be in a better position to support those around us too ..read more

This episode of Mate Helping Mate features some solo wisdom from John about preparedness to weather poor mental health. It’s one half of a two-episode special we’ve called ‘Rough But Ready’. Preparedness is being proactive with positive strategies for whatever life throws at us. Like preparing for a storm, it’s important to have some plans in place for when poor mental health strikes us.  Being prepared with options can reduce fear, anxiety, and losses that accompany mental health crises. Preparedness is important in achieving goals and avoiding negative outcomes. It is important to have ..read more

Having a strong family unit, living in a compassionate caring community from which there are individuals you can confide in, is a huge positive factor in preventing poor mental health. It could be team harmony at work and the chats at smoko you look forward to each day. It may be your neighbour across the road who comes over for a cuppa and a handful of laughs. Whatever your community or team looks like, you are part of it for a reason, to have a yarn, to enjoy a laugh and to be there for each other when the going gets tough. Today we have a few people who acknowledge how community; a sense of ..read more

Life challenges knocking you down time and time again can drain your willingness, your resilience in getting back up and keep trudging on. Losing your optimism, having pessimism overrun your life, believing you can’t go on, is a bastard of a place to be, nobody wants to be there, believe me. The terrain may be rocky and treacherous at times, but a smoother path forward is never out of reach and isn’t something you have to find on your own. In this episode I speak with people who have run a ‘life’ cross country challenge about how they built and continue to find the resilience to keep going ..read more

Our body is like a vehicle, it gets us from point A to B. The brain is an important part of that vehicle and requires maintenance, work and exercise. Like anything without maintenance our brain, and so our thinking, can become a bit worse for wear at times. In hindsight we may look back and wonder why the hell we didn’t take better care of our brain and maintain our mental wellbeing. Check in with yourself, maintain yourself, if you’re feeling low, feeling flat look at what’s going on in your life that might be kicking you down. Reflect on past maintenance. What strategies you used to get thro ..read more

Even though we know that a problem shared is a problem halved, the idea of opening up might scare us shitless. Once you’ve acknowledged you have a problem, the next step is addressing it, telling someone about it and opening up. Simple eh! But bloody hard to do. By finding a person or a place where you feel that you can open up a bit, we tend to find others who have walked the walk, had similar troubles and with whom we can relate to. In this episode you’ll hear from people just like you, who took this step, opened up and have moved positively forward with their lives. They are opening up to y ..read more

Anxiety, depression and other mental health buggers (issues) like them, can take a long time to really understand, but just recognising that they are there is the first step in the important process of learning how to cope and deal with them. To fix or address any problem, not just mental wellbeing problems, the first step is to acknowledge that there is a problem. This can be bloody difficult whether or not you may have been here several times before or you’ve never been bit before. The jokers on today’s episode offer, from their own pockets, their two cents on what signs to look out for ..read more

From a property outside of Broken Hill, Kars Station, we hear from Brendan Cullen, a farmer who realised that talking to himself as a coping mechanism, was not sustainable. Attributing the roots of it particularly to drought and losing his family property, depression was with Brendan for a long time before he was diagnosed. He shares what’s inside his mental health tool box to get him through the tough times and also shares the news of a huge challenge he set himself ..read more