ReThinking Mental Wellbeing
Real, relatable conversations about mental wellbeing from someone who is walking the same journey as you, just sitting on a different side of the microphone.Just like you, I’m on this journey of self-discovery and healing. We answer the questions that you have asked. To explore mental wellbeing in an honest and authentic way without all the jargon getting in the way.Mental wellbeing is deeply personal, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to finding peace, fulfillment, and self-acceptance. That’s why this podcast is all about rethinking the way we approach mental health. It’s not about fixing ourselves or striving for some unattainable version of perfection. It’s about creating space to understand ourselves better, to embrace our unique challenges, and to redefine what wellbeing looks like on our own terms.So join me in our discussions where we can sit with each other and learn how to live out the best version of our authentic life.
ReThinking Mental Wellbeing
Make a splash - Journal for Mental Wellbeing
Hello and welcome to another episode of Rethinking Mental Wellbeing. This is our community podcast where we can talk about everything related to depression and anxiety. So my name is Andre and I want to thank you for being with me over the next half an hour as we share this space of lived experience where we can talk about how to live the best version of our authentic life. So if you're ready, then I'm ready. Welcome to the podcast. So welcome back to Rethinking Mental Wellbeing. If you're here for the first time, then welcome to the space. If you've been here before, then welcome back to the space.
Speaker 1:Today I'm chatting with Michelle Peet, the author and creator behind a journal book with a mental health theme called Make a Splash. This journal is designed to be almost like a personal art space, giving people a place to breathe, to figure things out and showing us that we are just enough exactly as we are, are just enough exactly as we are. Today. We're going to have a great conversation and we're going to look into where this idea came from and why creative spaces like this matter, especially for young people, and how something as simple as a blank page can turn into a place of hope, healing and self-discovery. So, Michelle, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Kia ora Andre, Thanks for having me here.
Speaker 1:More than welcome, really going to enjoy this conversation with you, so thanks for being here with me. I think the first thing I wanted to say when I was working through this book myself is how easy and enjoyable this journal was to use. Its simplicity gave me space and room to be able to express some of the deeper things that I needed to work through myself. So I'd love to start this conversation about asking you where did this idea come from? For you, was there a moment when you thought to yourself that this journal needed to exist in the first place?
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, andre, that's neat. Make a Splash. Yeah, it's an art journal. It came to be after I was working through a tough time with one of my children. I'm a mother of four of my own children and two stepchildren. One of mine was going through a very tough time with her mental well-being and we navigated support for her through the mental health for adolescent mental health unit. It was tough going, I think, as a parent. Oh, it was tough going, I think. As a parent it can be very isolating. Waiting for referrals to places can be really scary when your children aren't doing well. You know, it's a very tough place to be and we kind of came out the other end of it all. But, yeah, very tough going. And once we had got to the other side of it, this idea started to think what can I do to help or to support this space? And that's where I came up with Mega Splash.
Speaker 1:Love that. I really like the way you described the the really difficult time that you had with your daughter, helping her through that journey and that stage in her journey, and then making that decision to help other people in that same situation. What was it that made you decide to use the journal format? What is it about that format that made you think it was going to be useful, which is a great idea, by the way?
Speaker 2:I guess, as a creative myself, I had the 10 to 16 year old in mind when I was making it and I just wanted to focus on that kind of age group. It's a tough time. It's a hard time as we get a little bit older. Sometimes we can be able to see that things might change, but often when we're in that age gap, we can't see anything changing. We feel like we're stuck there. So I think the beauty of journaling is that you, as a person who's journaling, you can just work some things out in your own time, in your own way, and there's no one that has to read it.
Speaker 1:Right. So it becomes very individualized for the person relevant to the context of what they're going through.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I have broken it into certain kind of prom Like. In the contents page there's 56 different references. Some of them are a letter from me, a list of helps and a special thanks, but the other ones are all the different prompts that I've listed out in the journal.
Speaker 1:I really liked too, as I was going through the chapters, I guess, of the book itself really enjoyed the prompts, where, if there's something, this is the way that I used it when I was going through the chapters and the content. The words that you used are very descriptive and give a really good understanding about what that chapter is all about, which then jumped out at me as the thing that I was going to get the most out of at the time that I needed it, so I found that really helpful. I really like how you described this journal as a place where people realize that they are just right. I'd love to know what does that phrase mean for you personally, Because the concept is fantastic. Just talk about that for a bit.
Speaker 2:Thanks, andre. Yeah, even as an adult, we can often shape ourselves to be more acceptable.
Speaker 2:You know, all of us desire to belong and be accepted, and I think it's particularly true at that younger age where there are so many pressures to conform and be a certain way to be accepted. So I wanted to use Make a Splash as a place where young people can explore who they are themselves Like. There's some topics you know finding joy. There's ways of getting people who are using the journal just to start to look at hey, what do I like, who am I, what do I enjoy. It just creates that spark of difference because we definitely need that in a world. We need everyone who has their own special flavor, something you could put in there. But you know that unique aspect of ourselves that no one else can be, so we need that, you know yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:Why do you think that there's so many young people today struggling to find their individualism or to find their way, find their authenticity? As I often say, what do you think? Some of the reasons would be around that.
Speaker 2:I guess it's not an easy thing to answer. Globally. There's so much going on. There's so much going on with our environment. There's so much going on with just the pressure around looking a certain way influenced by, you know, our social media input. Um, yeah, just not having that break. I mean just thinking when was the last time I actually lay on the grass and just looked at the sky? You know those moments where you don't have to be anything, you can just relax, totally relax, and I think I don't know totally where all that pressure comes from. But I just hear it. I hear it from young people, I hear it from older people. But the stats that came out just this year, earlier this year, around the statistics for our young people and their mental health, we are not doing great here in New Zealand.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:It's quite disturbing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It really is Like anything that can just bring, I don't know, a little bit of ease into that space. I think that's partly what motivated Make a Splash.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I really appreciate your taking this time to create something specifically for young people, where it's not left to an organisation to create that. You, as an individual, with your own lived experience of having a daughter going through this, you've created something that is again going to be useful for many other people. So I love that and I think we need to see more of that, and there's nothing more powerful than the sense of belonging and that sense of connection, the sense of I've got your back as family right, so thank you for doing that.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Andre.
Speaker 1:What is it about being creative? I know we've touched a little bit about that, but it's really. I love the creativity aspect of that. Where does creativity fit within mental health and how do you think it helps us?
Speaker 2:I think there's a spaciousness when we are creating things. It's hands-on, you know, when you see someone thinking about something, they look up, so it's moving away from looking down at a screen and we're holding something in our hands. We're ripping paper using ink, collage paint, pens, whatever. There's something about hands-on that creates a different way of thinking. It accesses different parts of our brain. I think that's why creative activities are so helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think maybe I'm not sure maybe your input would be good at this For people that are listening to this who are saying to themselves uh, you know what, I'm not that creative, I'm not, um, this kind of thing wouldn't be useful for me. Would it be fair to say that creativity doesn't necessarily mean being really good at something. That means allowing yourself to be in the space where you can just be creative without that expectation of perfection.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 2:I think that self-talk of oh, the person I can see over there is such a great artist. I'll never be that good. I would never have made anything if I'd thought like that. I've got a good friend who's an incredible artist and of course my work's not going to be like her work. It doesn't mean that I don't find worth in just making, but the other aspect to that is we don't just show anyone and a journal is not for public unless you choose to share, so can hopefully move away from that having to produce something amazing.
Speaker 1:Nice and I like that, that and I kind of like the idea. I mean, there's a lot of studies and a lot of science around journaling and and how effective that is right, and I guess one of the key things about journaling, particularly something as creative as this, is that you can look back a week later, a month later, later a year later, and kind of see your journey unfold as the pages develop.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah. I think healing starts when there's a place of safety. If we're feeling safe, we can start to explore different ideas, different ways of thinking. So I hope that Make Splash can create a little piece of safety for people who are using it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I really appreciate you saying that too, because safety is safety and survival right is our number one priority as a human being, so creating as many spaces as we can that we can feel safe or safer.
Speaker 1:I think is critical and this, this journal, this creative journal that you've, that you've made, I think, absolutely from when I was going through I captured that place of safety, um, within the context of the pages that you developed, because the pages are, they're very, very well designed, they get you, they get you thinking, they're not just. I can see from the way you write this book, the way you design this book and this journal is not just something that you've done for you. You've done it very specifically to get to elicit things from the young person who is using this book. So it's really cleverly designed. I think it's hidden within the simplicity of that. So when someone picks up the pages of the book, it's a fun book, it's a fun journal, it gets you being creative, it gets you discovering more about yourself that you wouldn't know in a place of unsafety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, thank you. I'm not a counsellor. It is written from a perspective to support whatever other helps are in place, and it's not only for people who are struggling either. You don't have to be in need to be using Make a Splash. There's been young people who have been using the journal, who are feeling okay in life, have also found it a really great place to explore things further.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like that. It sort of follows that. There's a beautiful quote that says maintenance is easier than repair. Other words, when we maintain our mental well-being through this type of thing that you've created, it's a lot easier than trying to repair when we've crashed or when we've fallen over and that takes a lot more energy where maintenance is the easier way. So a daily reflection or an often reflection at work is easier than having to try and fix something after it's broken, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, another way parents have bought and used this book with the young person is by using the topics as conversational points With my daughter she did, you know, like she wouldn't eat, she was doing self-harm.
Speaker 2:There was two serious suicide attempts in that kind of journey and it was really hard to know how to engage with her, sometimes like it was like we're just walking on eggshells a lot of the time, and even when, if your children isn't at that kind of extreme, just having someone who's going through all those hormonal changes or there's things going on at school or there's things going on with their peer group or with the other parent in their home and just having some sort of I might just kind of bring this topic up. I know I can see there's a little bit of guidance in this book of how to support some of those conversations. One woman reported back that her and her 12 year old son actually worked through the book together, while other parents have given their children the printed version and they've bought themselves the online version just so they know what their children are working through. So it can be used in many different ways.
Speaker 1:Nice. So, oh yeah, speaking of that. So you have two different versions you mentioned online and printed is available, Yep.
Speaker 2:For the printed version. I'm only posting to New Zealand and Australia. If people are living in Kirikirirua, hamilton, they can organise to pick one up. So you'll be minus the postage, but you can buy it from my website.
Speaker 1:So my website is michelle pete, so that's michelle with two l's and pete is spout p for peter e, a t for ton, so it's michellepeteconz if you could give like one piece of information to someone who's who may be picking up this journal for the first time maybe they've just brought it online or or in hardback copy and they open it up for the first time. What's the one piece of advice you would give them? About anything about the book, how to use it, what to get out of it. What would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I'd say just give it a go. On the blank pages I've actually added a strip of color, part of my collage or one of my paintings or whatever, just so that it's not actually a blank page. There's something already on there. Cover it over if you want, leave it there if you want. It's fine. There's no right or wrong way to use Mega Splash. It's just an invitation to make a mess. Get messy.
Speaker 1:I love that. No right way to do it right.
Speaker 2:No, there isn't.
Speaker 1:Let's go back to that. You said this was based on your artwork, because I'm looking at it now. I'm looking at the references that you're making in the book. Is this your own artwork that you've added to this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love making art.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's my third book. Yeah, I've made two children's books where I've made the art and the words. The second one, I just made the art and worked with the author with the words, like the editing, and then make a splash.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. How long? Just on a side note, how long have you been painting for, doing art for?
Speaker 2:Well, my whole life I've always. You know, when we go to kindy or daycare and we just pick up paintbrushes and we just use things. I've never met a kid who hasn't wanted to make paintings. But somehow we unlearn that as we go along. Well, I guess I was just one of the ones that didn't unlearn it for some reason or another. I think creativity is in us all. It's just yeah. Have we lost a little bit of that along the way?
Speaker 1:If you could write a message on the last page at the end of the journal, a little note to the person that's using it. What kind of thing would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I would say things do change, it's okay, just keep going.
Speaker 1:I really like that. I really like the simplicity but the depth of truth with that, because I think there's a lot of people that will be carried away with trying to make something really profound and make the end message very substantial, but there's such power in the simplicity of things, and that is just beautifully said and so true as well. Thanks, andrei. So this journal is a great idea and I love the way that you've come up with the idea and populated this book with the content that you've created. Did you have other people that were involved in this project with you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I did actually Like we referred to my daughter who sparked the idea. She actually wrote a letter to the readers, so that's in there. And another young woman who's a flatmate, suicided while she was living with her, wrote this beautiful poem in tribute, so that's that poem she's given permission to have in this journal. Also the editing like there is so much editing and also I wanted to see if it was of use, like do people actually like using it? So I had two families who used the art journal.
Speaker 2:I had two people actually edit, one at the start and one near the end. I had family members reading the first draft and also the te reo Māori that I've put in the journal. I wanted that to be edited or looked over. So I had three Māori support people who sort of looked at the journal and looked at my bill, made sure I had that written yes, so certainly wasn't alone in the polishing, I guess and the contributions and just seeing people using it before I actually made it into a book, so into book form, because once it's printed it's printed.
Speaker 1:And it makes such a difference, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:having a team around you that you can feed off and be influenced by right, Definitely, I think.
Speaker 1:before we do go, I just wanted to ask you do you have anything that you are doing or anything that you want to do coming up in the future?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been having fun exploring making zines. So a zine is a little self-published piece. They're so creative, you can find them in your libraries often, and then there are zine fests, so it's Z-I-N-E.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so much fun okay, nice, so okay, give us the idea of how much we're looking at if someone wants to purchase these either online or hard copy the printed copy is $25 plus postage and the online one I'm not sure it's less than that.
Speaker 2:I can't quite remember what that says. Maybe $12, new Zealand dollars.
Speaker 1:Good, and just to confirm that, just go through your website michellepeteconz.
Speaker 1:Michelle, this has been a great conversation and I've been really quite inspired about the idea that a journal can be so much more than just pages and prompts. You've made it into a safe place where we can experiment, a dream and realize that we are in fact just enough as we are. So, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing not just the book but the heart and soul behind the book and your personal journey that instigated this book. I also love the idea why this creative space matters so deeply and I think a lot of people listening are going to feel quite encouraged to be able to pick up this book and have a play around and see where that leads them. So, Michelle, really appreciate your time and thank you for being a guest and letting me share in this space with you.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Andre. Thanks so much for inviting me in.
Speaker 1:So that's all I've got for this episode. Thank you for joining me today and I hope that you've got something useful from this discussion, and if you have any questions you would like us to discuss on future episodes, then please email me at rethinkingmentalwellbeing at gmailcom. I'd love to hear from you. So until then, go well, go in peace, have a great week and we'll see you next time.