Turning Experience into (Emotional) Growth

Lessons can be learned both in the classroom and in the office! Inspired by thoughtbot writer, Joël Quenneville, let’s take a lesson from the world of software and coding and apply it to our emotional and mental wellbeing! Whether you’re a barista, coder, athlete, gamer, healthcare worker or anything in between, people can grow and learn whether by practicing something casually or intentionally one’s interest in your proverbial field or classroom. Quenneville proposes that “hours spent coding don’t all count equally towards making you a better developer. You get a higher return on your time investment by taking a more mindful approach.” With that in mind, let’s take a look at how this can apply to our mental health.

First, let’s consider what it means to be mindful. A little bit of introspection can go a long way. Whether we ask questions like the ones found in Quenneville’s post or when under distress we can take a break from the big feeling and after becoming more calm ask one’s self about what happened and where the emotion came from. Sometimes hard feelings relate to past stressful events or people in our lives and we can’t notice such feelings until we find a way to regulate our nervous system. So what do we do when we get back into ourselves emotionally and mentally? 

Similar to note-taking, a great way to gain insight into emotional wellness is by journaling. Whether with word or visual representation, taking time to synthesize the triggering event can be a helpful way to gain insight into our wellbeing and care for ourselves. The more often we practice journaling and checking in with ourselves, the easier it will be to gain insight into our behaviors and intentions. Journaling can be anything between a few lines to a page of reflections - sometimes less can be more!

After making time to be introspective, Quenneville asks his audience to find artifacts, diagrams and code to help make the lesson learned memorable. In mental health, take those journal entries or time of reflection and re-write them to be a takeaway/applicable lesson whether making it into a visual picture form, mantra or summary statement. If any of these steps, especially this one, is challenging to do, then consider bringing this experience to your LGC therapist or trustworthy treater to your next session.

Lastly, Quenneville encourages the growing programmer to share, pair and dialogue in the day-to-day work setting. For our MMHM readers, consider the following:

1. For your day-to-day work setting, who are the people who you trust with challenging and stressful feelings and situations? Whether family, friends, a gaming group or Discord group chat, identify who you can trust and make sure they’re easy to connect with.

2. For every artifact, mantra and lesson gleaned, share them with your support system for collaboration, affirmation and reality testing. Learning about oneself can be hard in a silo, so get your insights out there in places that are expressive and respectful.

3. Progress in wellness takes time. Quenneville said it well, “Do these small things regularly and mindfully and you’ll soon find yourself not just accumulating coding hours, but actually growing faster than you thought possible!”

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Lou Lim, LMHC, REAT is a licensed mental health counselor and registered expressive arts therapist (REAT) with a master's degree in Expressive Therapy and Mental Health Counseling from Lesley University. He is a member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association and on the committee for REAT credentialing. He has 13 years of experience in counseling and expressive therapy working with children, adolescents, teenagers, adults, and retirees.

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