Last week, I had the opportunity to take Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training online. MHFA is quite similar to first aid, where you try to stablize/provide temporary relief to someone injured until help arrives, except you’re trying to help people with mental health challenges.
This was my first time taking live online training, and I have to say that it was excellent. I had a great instructor who brought the course material to life and taugh us many useful MHFA strategies.
The strategy we spent the most time on was listening. In this world, it seems like everyone wants to share their thoughts, but no one wants to listen. When you can listen to understand someone’s situation, not listen so you can jump in right after they’re done speaking, fix their problems or tell them what you think, people have a better chance of trusting you/feeling comfortable enough to talk about their deepest struggles.
Some of the tips we went over were quite intuitive, such as ‘Don’t finish their sentences’ and ‘Listen without expressing your opinions about their situation/openly judging them’. The tip that surprised me was ‘you should refrain from talking even if you’re trying to be helpful.
A suggestion (expressing an idea) is quite different from giving advice (a strong recommendation), and we were told not to advise people on what they should do because a) you could be very wrong about their course of action, b) people who come up with their own plan of action are more likely to follow through with it, and c) sometimes there is no solution. Sometimes people just want someone to talk to and provide comfort.
This is an area I’m weak in. I want to be a person that can truly listen, one you can talk to about anything, but I’m very problem–solution oriented. When I see/hear someone going through struggles in life, one of my first thoughts is “What’s the solution to this? How can it be fixed?” This MHFA course has really challenged me to stop treating everything like it’s a problem to be solved and focus on the person instead.
One thing I noticed about this course was how much it lines up with James 1:19:
“Everyone should be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.”
It’s such a simple, straightforward verse, but it’s so hard to live out. If you’re anything like me, I encourage you to work on talking less and listening more. May we be people that are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to be angry.