Reminding Myself to Breathe

This week, the University of Mississippi held a Mental Wellness seminar for students and faculty to attend. Jazmine Kelley, the coordinator of wellness education – programming, outreach and engagement at the William Magee Center off campus, spoke on the importance of knowing what mental wellness is, what it involves, warning signs, and ways in which we can stay well.

When walking up to the Overby Center (where the seminar was held), I was greeted by a friendly banner asking “How are you feeling today” accompanied with the hashtag #UMlistens. The banner was sprinkled with colorful buttons that had words like “relieved”, “accepted”, “hopeful”, “inadequate”, “excited”, “rough”, and “discouraged”. I found myself almost smiling at the buttons for even the not-so-happy words backed with a yellow, orange, blue, pink, etc. background color – it was almost cheerful.

Past the banner, there was a lot of shuffling going on as you walked through the front doors. It took a few minutes to get situated into the auditorium because some students were having to sign ‘sign-in’ sheets for classes to receive participation. Students clumped together with backpacks and purses crowded the doors which not only caused confusion on if there was adequate seating for those wishing to attend but also if attendees ‘had’ to sign in for the event.

Once all of that chaos was worked out, we took our seats and waited for the seminar to begin. Jazmine did a wonderful job of introducing herself and the William Magee Center. One thing that I particularly appreciated was that she included an agenda at the beginning of her presentation which outlined the areas that she would be discussing throughout the presentation. She then touched upon the definition of mental wellness, what mental wellness involves, different warning signs that we can take note of in both our friends, families, and ourselves, and finally what she called “The 5 Ways” which included the different ways to improve your mental wellness.

Jazmine had the audience actively participate by asking us all questions on what we thought mental wellness was and then when she went through the “5 Ways”, we all held up a finger for each of the ways in which we could improve our wellness. While some might have thought it was an elementary-like task, I thought it was beneficial in not only getting the audience to participate, but it also helped make each of them memorable.

Before I knew it, the seminar was over. It lasted all of maybe 30 minutes, however much to my surprise, I didn’t feel bogged down by the seminar, rather I felt encouraged and almost enlightened, and I have two fun things to remember my time spent there by.

What I loved was we had just been talking about the importance of “takeaways” during our event planning class that day – whether it be in the form of a document/handout summarizing everything from the event, or a pen to remember the event by, when attendees receive a takeaway item, the event resonantes with them beyond the temporal event.

In this instance, Jazmine instructed all attendees to pick a button off the banner and to wear it for the day. While everyone shuffled outside to almost overwhelm the lobby area and the banner, people were reading the buttons’ aloud and they were picking the words that best described truly how they were that day. I saw someone choose “hopeful” as they turned to a friend and explained that they were hopeful that they would hear back about a recent job interview they had. Another chose “inadequate” because she said she felt like she could have been doing more that day, and then there was me – I chose “excited” because I had just accepted my job offer the night before and I found out that the apartment I applied for was accepted.

As we turned away from the banner and fastened the buttons onto our clothes, we were greeted by staff from the William Magee Center. They were standing behind a table that had water bottles and stress balls for attendees to take. I grabbed a stress ball to not only help me get through the next stressful hour or so of work and homework in between classes, but also as a piece of memorabilia to take to my new office.

Whenever I am stressed or need to literally bounce ideas off the wall, I now have a navy Ole Miss stress ball that not only reminds me of my alma mater, but also of a time that I stopped and learned how to prioritize my mental health.

Key Takeaways:

I went into the event thinking that it was going to tell me all of the ways in which I was losing my mind and instead, I came out feeling educated, hopeful, and empowered. Like with any event, there were some areas that could have been improved – like putting the sign-in tables for classes outside in the lobby area so it allowed for a better flow in and out of the auditorium, but overall, I think the design and execution of the event went very well. Jazmine came across as approachable, genuine, and she kept us as audience members engaged. Overall, I think it was a wonderful event!