event

Event Archive | Shared Resources (General)

Topic:  Changes that Can Stress Us Out: Talking to Each Other For Sanity and Wellness

Date: Thursday, July 8, 2010

Time: 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time / 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. Central Time

3:00 - 4:30 p.m. Mountain Time / 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. Arizona-Pacific Time 

Things are not easy for many of us right now.

There’s oil billowing beneath the sea.

The economy is slowly arching forward, and unemployment is high, and getting a job is very tough.

Many of us are facing difficult times. Financially. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. For some, spiritually, too—for some, attitudinally.

How can we remain centered in our strength when so much seems to be going wrong?

Please join us in a conversation focused on recovery and wellness to strengthen each other during very difficult times and to rekindle each other’s experience of hope.

While no easy answers or “quick fixes” are guaranteed, a lively discussion focused on changing our attitudes is intended to encourage deeper strength, revitalized resilience, enhanced creativity, expanded community, and the sharing of resources for mutual growth, safety, and success.

The call will include opening remarks, comments, and discussion with Gitane, Steve, and possibly some other surprise speakers, and be opened up to participants, one at a time, much like taking part in a radio program.  You are invited to listen, make comments or ask questions, as well as invite others to take part in an activity intended to celebrate hope, acknowledge the real difficulties of daily life, and help spark great creativity, resourcefulness, and community-building.

Please join us, and more importantly, please believe that better things are possible for all of us, and please do what you can for your own wellness, for others’, and for the well being of the human community and our world.

“Peace in the world thus depends on peace in the hearts of individuals.”
-Dalia Lama

“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”
-William James

“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
-Audre Lorde

Speakers:     

Mertice “Gitane” Williams

Mertice “Gitane” Williams is the Vocational Wellness Educator at Crestwood Behavioral Health and travels across the state to support and educate consumers, staff and families throughout the Crestwood network and beyond.  Gitane has over 20 years experience as a community self-help leader in California. Her expertise include housing, cultural competency, SSI and collaborating with others to build learning communities for all ages.  She is currently part of the Crestwood Leadership team, where she creates and designs pre-vocational and re-entry programs.

As a Vocational Wellness Educator and community navigator of the human race, having a spiritual experience, her deepest intention includes increasing her consciousness to enable transformational systems that are inclusive of everyone personal wellness and spiritual growth.  Her vision is to support and enhance client/family members in welcoming attitudinal changes to allow healing in all cultural communities.  Her prayer is that we also embrace the healing of the environment, inter-generational racial trauma, and leave peace as legacy to the next generation.

Stephen Kiosk

Stephen Kiosk is the Director of the SAMHSA-funded STAR (Support, Technical Assistance, and Resources) Center at NAMI. Steve has transformed his own past mental health challenges and diagnoses into strengths and new skill sets, has worked in ministry as a member of a religious order and as an ordained minister/priest, has supported others as a peer in the GLBTQI community as well as a mental health practitioner, and has been a life-long student of spiritual traditions, extraordinary human capacities, and attitudinal and holistic wellness practices. Steve has used many different tools, technologies, readings, activities and methods for his own innovative wellness path, and has also applied creative recovery approaches in his work as a peer/support advocate, trainer, licensed professional counselor, social services program director, and group facilitator. Steve sings opera as a tenor, loves studying the possibilities of human awareness, and is currently also working on a doctoral degree in education. For more information on Steve’s background as well as the STAR Center, please visit www.consumerstar.org.

Audio

The STAR Center gratefully acknowledges SAMHSA as the funding source for the STAR Center’s work and activities. Please visit SAMHSA/CMHS at http://mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/cmhs for many helpful resources, self-help tools and guides, and links.

The STAR Center promotes consumer-directed approaches that maximize self-determination and recovery and assist people with serious mental health challenges to decrease their dependence on expensive social services as well as to avoid psychiatric hospitalization.

Empowerment     -       Independence   -     Responsibility    -     Choice     -   

  Respect and Dignity

“Let your Star shine!”

The views and opinions that may be presented and discussed during the teleconference will not necessarily reflect those of SAMHSA or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and should not be construed as such.