It seems like a new, overwhelmingly obsessive trend; all we hear or read about is "How to be happy", "10 ways to be happy", "How to avoid people that are not happy", etc. But what is actually implied is "Try to be happy, because everyone else is happy, except you, and, actually: What's wrong with you?". As an expat, you might struggle with things like loneliness and happiness. After all, you’re far away from your home country and family. Here are a few tips to help regain your inner peace! Read more HERE
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While it may seem counter-intuitive due to the nice weather and being able to be outdoors, some people can suffer from an increased sense of loneliness during the summer, especially if you’re an expat far away from your home country and family. Sometimes in the summer there is an unexpected wave of loneliness that can punch us in the face. It makes us feel awkward, a little bit embarrassed and maybe even a little bit scared of what will come next. Read more here It was my honor to speak at the Women Economic Forum at 28th January in the Hague about Leadership and Empowerment. Specifically, I joined a panel together with three other professionals, Isabelle Goyon, Lisel Brunson and Theresa Randleman, and we discussed about how women can stop self-sabotaging their career, how they can stand up when life puts them down and how they can overcome feelings of loneliness when they are at leadership positions. Wonderful experience, amazing people to meet! For me working with a drama-therapist is always something nice to expect since I know that at some point somebody will have to act/ play/ sing/ scream/ have fun, as part of the self-expression approach. Joana and me experimented for the first time with facilitating a workshop on Anger Management ("Explain your Anger, don't Express it"). The result was really rewarding (for us but also for the participants)! 4 hours of talking over the causes of Anger, the feelings that mostly relate to it, the cognitive background of it and how our behavior can shift to another approach, from aggressive or passive to assertive. Letting it out felt so relieving for our participants! It was nice to hear from them that they would like to have more workshop time to work on their Anger and they are looking forward to the advanced workshop on Anger in order to learn more about dealing with this so powerful emotion and transforming it into a constructive behavioral pattern. Till next time, Have a nice and peaceful day! Vassia Sarantopoulou Counselor-Psychologist The Anti-Loneliness Project My second time participating as an exhibitor at the IamExpat Fair was -again- an exciting and memorable experience. Not to mention that the whole coordination but also the communication with the organizers was reaching extremely high standards. Comparing with the first time that people heard about The Anti-Loneliness Project, this time visitors were more open and less "defensive" to the idea of Loneliness being discussed among them. "I'm so glad that this exists", said to me a woman after stopping for a few minutes and talking with me at my stand. Some time later, after discussing about Loneliness with a man, he turned to me and admitted that it's so nice when we are allowed to embrace loneliness, before we proceed to any other step in order to defeat it. So proud and so honored to have been the main speaker in the networking event of "Volunteer the Hague" at 26 October 2016, where both volunteers and organisations meet and look for each other! My topic was "How volunteering can help defeat loneliness" and I let people know how loneliness strikes during some transition periods in our life, how it affects our -mental and physical- health, and how volunteering can help defeat loneliness and connect with other people with who you share values and interests. It is always nice to be around people that are willing to give and to offer, and, as I said at my presentation, volunteering can help us to get connected with other people out there, not to feel lonely anymore and to get a purpose in life by supporting others. It is nice to feel needed, useful and valued! Thank you "Volunteer the Hague" and Tetyana for organising that! Mondays are considered days when people are stronger to endure setbacks and mishaps comparing to Fridays ("Oh, not today, it's Friday, it's almost weekend, this cannot happen today!). The mental preparation we have done when Mondays come, is based on the fact that there is no more the weekend-enthusiasm, we know that from now on it's going to be all about work-work-work and, comparing to the weekend, we are sure that it is going to be one of these days that anything can go wrong. Yes, Mondays have the rumor of an awful day. On a Monday like this, (September 5th) I was invited by the Connecting Women in the Hague to talk about Failure and how we can see it as a gift, and not as a setback. Vassia Sarantopoulou: For me, one of the most challenging moments as an entrepreneur has been the moment of the pitch. If you had a 30-sec/1-min pitch to talk about yourself and your company, what would you say? Joana Moreira: I have a master degree in Social Psychology and a certification as a Psychodramatist. I speak 5 languages and have more than 10 years of broad professional experience in two different countries. My last project as a counsellor and trainer focuses on the use of action methods such as spontaneous dramatization, role play and dramatic self-presentation to raise the energy of the participants and boost their inspiration. This increases their commitment in the search and development of their own potentialities. Being able to help others, either as a counsellor, a trainer or a volunteer, is every time very gratifying, both personally and professionally. And this is one of the many reasons I consider myself a happy person. (You can find out more about Joana at her website and her Facebook page) Listen here to Julie Kennedy, President of WBII (Women's Business Initiative International), interviewing me for DutchbuzZ, and together we talk about Loneliness and especially in the summer, how we feel about it, and how we can deal with it.
Click here and go to 32:40 for my part. Please feel free to share and comment with your thoughts and your experience on loneliness in the summer. Enjoy! Kind regards, Vassia Sarantopoulou Counselor-Psychologist-Owner of The AntiLoneliness Project The Women Business Initiative International is a dynamic association of courageous women entrepreneurs that meet, engage, support and succeed. As a member of this network, I was asked to answer some questions for their Q&A section in order to get to know me better. Some questions I admit I enjoyed, and some of them were really tricky. Like... It was my first time participating as The Anti-Loneliness Project in a big expat event like that. And the first time that I could really experience people's reactions about the Anti-Loneliness idea/project LIVE. And from one point onwards, I thought "Oh gosh, I should start keeping notes". The reactions were so many and so different, that you must see it to believe how much of a variety there is in people's perspectives, beliefs and views. To start with... |
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