When passions collide

Have you ever thought about how it feels when passions collide?

I am not talking about people here, although I do admit that that can be pretty awesome.

I am talking about when two or more of our own passions collide or, if you like a gentler version, come together.

Well, this has happened to me in the past year.

For those of you who have read previous blogs, know me well, know me a little, have been in my training sessions or have interacted with me in any way in recent years, you will undoubtedly be aware that I am quite fond of India.

Oh no, here she goes again!

Bear with me. Yes, I have a passion for India, I love going there, being with the people, travelling around, eating the food, and immersing myself as fully as possible in the culture … but I also have a passion for mental health and for helping people build supportive mental health cultures.

After my first couple of visits, I started to dream about how I could combine these passions. And for a while, it was a dream, you could say a fantasy, to help people in India in the mental health space, particularly in rural areas where access to resources is basically non-existent.

I would fantasise about what it would look like. How would it happen? Who would be involved? Where would I start? Would local people be interested in working with Mental Strides? In my head I had it all sorted and it looked fantastic – and so very doable!

In reality, I really didn’t know where to start and then COVID-19 came, so it stayed a dream – one I indulged and fine-tuned regularly.

When Western Australia re-joined the world though, the opportunity came to go back to India and provide some suicide prevention training for MHAI (Mental Health Academy India). Now this was great but not really fulfilling my dream, until MHAI’s founder, Ranjitha Raj and I got talking ….

The funny thing about passions is that there are often others who have the same or similar passions. This was the case with us. Both of us had been dreaming about building capacity in the rural areas of India to improve mental health. As we talked and talked (and talked), we saw our dreams come together and the fantasy I had held in my mind for more than three years started to take shape in the form of the Holistic Health Rural Training project.

After six months of consultation, collaboration, research, Zoom meetings, designing, planning, resource development and training preparation, Holistic Health Rural Training was launched in Bangalore (Bengaluru) in the state of Karnataka, in February 2023.

Six trainers were trained to deliver the Holistic Health workshop. To date, the workshop has been delivered to a variety of institutions including workplaces, schools, aged care facilities and mental health care facilities. Close to 400 people have attended these workshops. More workshops are planned and other trainers will complete our next Train the Trainer course to help expand the program.

To say I am excited, happy, and proud is a bit of an understatement. I am so grateful that I have found people who share my dreams and that through that connection, my passions have collided in a whirlwind of joy.

Actually, going back to my first question – what does it feel like when your passions collide? Words don’t really do it justice, but it is amazingly awesome!