Today’s ep: part two of my conversation with the awesome Erandathie Jayakody.

When Erandathie first took a job at one of Australia’s biggest mental health not-for-profits, she never would have guessed that a decade later she’d be on the board of directors. Back then, she was just trying to survive the working week. Check out part one for that story.

Here in part two, we cover more of the nuts and bolts of how decisions get made at the highest levels in big mental health organisations, as well as how Erandathie balances all this high-powered work with the need to still look after her energy and mental health.

Topics covered:

What does a board member even do?

How do you avoid getting boxed in as ‘the lived experience person’ on a board?

What's the difference between being a Lived Experience Worker and being someone who works in mental health and just happens to have lived experience?

How do you do demanding work while also managing your own energy and mental health?

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Erandathie Jayakody.

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

“[Hardest thing about working in mental health?] Feeling different from my colleagues. Feeling like I'm too high strung, anxious, or worried about things they aren't worried about.”

– Big Feels At Work survey response

In this new ep, I share a few thoughts on feeling like you don’t belong at work.

Topics covered:

Feeling like you don't belong at work

Wondering if you’re any good at this (even when there’s strong evidence you are!)

How some of us just find it harder to feel like we belong (at work or anywhere)

How having an emotional reaction to the work is coded as ‘unprofessional’

What if the self doubt IS the work?

...

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Self-professed 'recovering high-achiever' Katie Cowan on how to navigate big work systems as a sensitive soul.

Imagine you’re a high-achiever, kicking goals in a stressful career, but something just isn’t right.

You do your best to change the system you’re working in, for others and for yourself, but it doesn’t seem to change anything. Then one day you realise: I can’t do this anymore. So what now??

My guest on this episode is Katie Cowan. Katie describes herself as a “recovering high-achiever”. She was a lawyer, who even started her own legal practice in her 20s. But she is also a deeply sensitive, thoughtful soul.

As she describes it now, looking back “I had the intellect but not the constitution for that work”. For Katie, this insight was a hard-won gem that, at first, felt like defeat, but now feels very different.

After years out of the workforce forging her own unique recovery path, Katie’s now a coach. She specialises in coaching people who have “particularly intense internal worlds” and often feel like they don’t fit in at work (or anywhere else). Katie’s aim is to help resource these people, because, when they are well supported, Katie says, those are the very people who help resource the rest of the world.

Topics covered:

– Navigating working in a big system when you’re a sensitive person

– The challenge of hiding your struggles in professional settings and its impact on mental health

– How Katie tried to change the way the legal profession treats its workers

– Recognizing when your chosen career path doesn't align with your internal needs

– The importance of building "slack" into work systems for mental wellbeing

– "Post-traumatic flourishing" - finding new meaning after major life challenges

– Transitioning from a traditional career to one that honors your sensitivity and internal world

Content note: there’s a brief discussion in this ep of feeling totally hopeless, to the point of considering life unlivable. (Spoiler alert: that’s not where Katie stays!). Time code is 24:00 to 25:30 if you’d rather skip this bit today :)

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Katie’s website: katiecowan.co/

Host: Graham Panther

Guest: Katie Cowan

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com


Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

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If this ep brings up things you want to talk to someone about, you might consider the following help lines:

LIFELINE — 13 11 14

SUICIDE CALL BACK SERVICE — 1300 659 467

BEYOND BLUE — 1300 22 46 36

Or outside Australia search search “the country you’re in” plus “mental health crisis line”, e.g. “Canada mental health crisis line”.

More resources listed here, including non-crisis peer support options: www.bigfeels.club/need-to-talk

You’re an early career clinician, just learning the ropes. You loved your study, the rich philosophy of the work, but when the work begins, you struggle in ways you didn’t expect to. The work affects you emotionally. But here's the thing. Your colleagues don’t seem to be having the same reactions (at least as far as you can tell).

Feedback from clients and colleagues tells you you’re good at your job. But you can’t help wondering, am I just too sensitive for this work?

My guest this week is Deanna, an early career social worker with her own lived experience (and fellow Big Feels At Work listener!) finding resourceful ways to navigate the work as a sensitive soul.

Topics covered:

-- Self-disclosure - can clinicians self-disclose to clients?

-- What’s the difference between being a peer worker, and a clinician who happens to have lived experience?

-- Wondering if you’re just ‘too sensitive’ for the work (and what you do with that)

-- Doubting yourself even when you're doing good work

-- How Deanna cultivated a handful of other clinicians who ‘get’ what it’s like to work in this field and have big feels of your own

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Deanna

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

"I just remember thinking, who was I to work alongside and support folk and have the answers when I had no clue what I was doing with my own messy, messy stuff?" -- Ant, Social Worker

Picture this: You're in your first week studying to be a social worker, carrying years of your own messy mental health stuff, but keeping it well under wraps.

And you’re suddenly convinced of one simple truth. You don't belong here. Surely you’re too mad to work in mental health (and you’re about to be found out and shown the door).

That's where Ant's story begins - a tale of a career (and a life) filled with several twists and turns over the next two decades. All of which can perhaps best be described as a journey of being more and more honest, and more and more tender. With himself. And with the people he worked with.

Topics covered:

-- The legacy of growing up with a "mad mum"

-- The family/carer role as a “cloak” for your own messy stuff

-- Slowly being more honest, with colleagues and with participants

-- The power of saying “I don’t know”

-- How the Consumer and Hearing Voices movements radically transformed the way Ant saw his own mental health

-- Moving from social work to peer work

-- Having to step back from work altogether

Ant’s instagram: https://www.instagram.com/silverwizard_art/

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Ant

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

Finally, we catch up with erstwhile Big Feels At Work host Gareth Edwards, who's been travelling the world - but as you'll hear, it hasn't all been smooth sailing...

Topics covered:

-- Where IS Gareth anyway?

-- Leadership in mental health (as distinct from management)

-- Looking after ourselves (and one another)

-- Taking the long (I mean really long) view of our work

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Gareth Edwards.

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

Erandathie Jayakody's story begins with two mental health breakdowns that derailed her law career, leaving her wondering: am I just not cut out for this whole ‘high-powered career’ thing?

A chance encounter led to her first job in mental health, as a junior lived experience worker. Back then she was just trying to make it through each working week.

But fast forward over a decade, and Erandathie has accomplished remarkable things in the mental health field. Most notably, she's now a board member at Mind Australia - the very organisation where she started as a junior employee.

She didn’t do all this by suddenly becoming a completely different person who didn’t struggle with big feelings. She did it by finding a tribe. Colleagues who she could be honest with. Who could see her potential, even if she didn't yet.

Topics covered:

-- Trying to be a lawyer when you can barely leave the house

-- Shame and secrecy around your mental health

-- Peer support: the shock of finding others like you

-- Realising her lived experience was viewed as an asset in the mental health sector

-- Going from junior employee to board member in just 12 years

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Erandathie Jayakody.

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

In this episode, we talk with Australian Mental Health Prize Winner Honor Eastly about an 'aha' moment in her own recovery. The point at which she realised: all this therapy I'm doing, some of it's helping, but some of it's making me feel even more stuck! We cover:

-- How the things you look for from a clinician can change over time

-- How being the one always asking for help can knock your confidence

-- How sometimes what you need is a clinician who *doesn't* have the answer (and knows it)

-- Having ‘humility and reverence’ for just how complex and delicate recovery really is (and what that actually looks like in practice)

We're hoping this episode serves as a bit of an antidote to those of you out there who might catch yourself thinking 'who am I to work in mental health when I don't even have the answer myself?' What if that's the very thing you have to offer someone, the thing they most need to hear?

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Honor Eastly.

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

Episode 25 of "Big Feels At Work" -- an audio resource for mental health and addictions professionals dealing with their own big feelings.

Topics we cover this ep:

-- Starting a new job when you're having a total breakdown

-- What it's like to work somewhere where everyone from the CEO on down is crazy too

-- The challenge of doing frontline support work day in, day out, even when you love it

-- What happens when you move from a very peer-led, grassroots setting to working in a much more mainstream mental health agency.

Host: Graham Panther.

Guest: Amie Davis.

What is this thing? More info here: www.bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this thing? www.bigfeels.club

Episode 24 of "Big Feels At Work" -- a podcast for mental health and addictions workers dealing with their own big feelings.

Topics we cover this ep:

-- Can you really ‘compartmentalise’ your work and home life (and what do we lose when we do this)?

-- Why do we think being “professional” means “not being emotionally affected by the work”?

-- The difference between work-life balance and “life-work balance”

-- The difference between ‘making’ a decision and ‘taking’ a decision, when you know something at work needs to change

-- Feeling like you don’t have enough energy for work

-- The power of writing down what currently feels impossible

Host: Graham Panther

Guest: Gareth Edwards

What is this show? bigfeelsatwork.com

Who made this show? bigfeels.club