It's okay to not be okay

As preparation for the school year 2021-2022, our school conducted a special webinar for us teachers. It's all about Psychological First-Aid Training. It is a two-day webinar composed of four modules to tackle. We finished the two modules today. At first, I asked our administrator, "Why conduct such training, Miss? Are we some kind of psychiatrist or psychology experts now?" Then she said, "it's not about everything that you said." I got confused and curious about why do we have to take 2 days off from working and preparing our lessons for the starting week of class. I decided to focus and listen, maybe I could grasp the answer to my question.

So, Psychological First Aid or PFA is a safe and humane response to people who are suffering in the context of exposure to a serious stressor. Since the pandemic started, pupils and students are not allowed to go to school. They are needed to stay at home and take classes at home. Some are using modular, others are having online classes. For us, we are having an online class. Even at home, we cannot ensure the safety of children.

With this PFA training, we can learn how to provide practical support among those pupils who went traumatic experiences. We could ensure their basic needs for them to cope up and comfort them to ease their feelings. Dealing with sensitive incidents or accidents, you are not going to pressure the child to talk, you only have to listen. Never force them, even hugging or tapping the back of the child is wrong. It might lead to major traumatic stress. It's because they could remember the bad thing that happened with the actions or gestures you're giving to the child. It's better to be careful.

PFA is not counseling. When you do counseling, you will be needing the historical data of the happening as your guide. Victims or survivors of excruciating events cannot give an immediate response when you ask them what has happened. This practice is not limited to professionals only. You can do it to others as a friend, a mother, a sister, anybody can do a psychological first-aid. It is like doing a First-aid treatment to a patient before sending him to the hospital. This is also not a session to analyze what happened, because if you keep on asking the victim what has happened, he will keep on thinking of the terrible event of his life. Most of all, it is not pressuring people to tell you about how are they feeling and reacting to the event. Instead of saying, 'Are you okay?' you should say, 'How are you?' You are not supposed to ask them if they're okay if it's obviously they're not because of a tragic incident or accident.

The first module is about Normalizing and Validating Feelings. We were given an activity called graphing feelings. So, we are to think of the emotions we felt for the past six months. Then, the emotions were drawn in a graph after. So for the past six months, I felt pressured, scared, motivated, disappointed, and happy. Pressured is the feeling that ranked the highest in my graph. True I am greatly pressured by the people around me. It's been 2 years since I graduated and I feel like I am left behind by my classmates. I am thinking that my pacing is very slow. Ranked the second is being scared. I am scared of the future? Will I be successful? Will I ever be able to take and pass the LET exam? When will this Covid end? I am so afraid, that I can't stop thinking about it. Next to it is the feeling of disappointment and happiness. They are on the same level. I am disappointed with myself because I can't do anything to remove the pressure I am feeling but at the same time I am happy that my family always backs me up. They're always there for me. They know how pressured and disappointed I am in myself but they never made me think that I am already a failure. For them, I am still their pride. Ranked the lowest is the feeling of motivation. For the past months, I haven't been so productive because I'm so unmotivated. My family is there, but still not enough. It was a good activity though, I was able to dig deeper into my feelings.

The second activity of module 1 was very entertaining. The speaker played 4 songs and we are to draw the first thing that comes to our mind after hearing the song. The first song was "Bakit nga ba Mahal Kita? by Rosell Nava" what I drew was a pencil, an eraser, and a drawing book. Since I'm not good at drawing I used symbolism. It represented my first love who is known as a good artist at school when I was in high school. I loved him from afar because he doesn't know my feelings for him. Even if he doesn't notice me, I still loved him with all my heart.

The second song was "Paubaya by Moira dela Torre." I drew a phone. The phone represented the time when my great love broke up with me, and I have to let go of him because he doesn't love me anymore. That's what Paubaya means right? To let go.

The third song was baby shark of Cocomelon. Well, this one's very easy. I thought immediately of my baby nephew, so I drew different kinds of fruits because we all call him at house Fruity. 😁

The fourth song was 'What a Beautiful Name It is' whenever I think about Jesus I always look up at the sky and see clouds. Clouds protect us from UV rays and they also bring rains. It is everything to me. It is what God does to us. Everything.

Moving on to the second module which happened in the afternoon session it is now all about Calming Down and Controlling One's Emotions. The first activity was called What do you do? So we are simply tasked by the speaker to jot down at least 5 things we do to calm down ourselves. For me, eating ice cream is the first option to calm myself up. The coldness of ice cream freezes my brain stopping me from thinking negative thoughts. Second, reading a book. I really find comfort in reading it helps me divert my thoughts in making images in my head. The third is listening to worship songs. Worship songs bring a different vibe to me. It's calming, soothing, and brings peace to my spine. Fourth is dancing and singing my heart out. I don't care how cracked my voice is or how awful my dance steps are I will sing and dance to tire myself and forget what keeps on rummaging in my head. The last one is my favorite, sleeping because sleeping is the best policy hahaha. I'll sleep away my thoughts, anxiety, and anger it helped me somehow.

The second Activity is called My Playlist. We were given five categories and we are to give 2 songs that we like for each.

These are what I wrote in my Activity sheet.

Happy Songs

• Beautiful People by Ed Sheeran

• Permission to Dance by BTS

Uplifting/Inspiring Songs

• Fix you by Coldplay

• Anyone by Justine Bieber

Upbeat/Hyper Songs

• Dynamite by BTS

• Butter by BTS

In Love

• Crazier by Taylor Swift

• ILYSB by LANY

Hugot Songs

• Before it's too late by Moira dela Torre

• Kung di rin lang Ikaw by December Avenue ft.

Moira dela Torre

At the end of the second module, we found out that the music that we listen to reflects our personality and our emotions. It helps us relieve whatever is going through in our lives.

Overall, Today's session was productive I learned a lot from it. So, before I could perform PFA on a victim I may encounter in the future, I have to evaluate my feelings and emotions first and be able to control the emotions that could stop me from doing PFA as a teacher. With the activities, I was able to identify the emotions I am capable to feel and was able to feel also, I found out things that can help us control our anger issues.

I am very happy I have something to share with all of you who read my articles. I hope you will be able to become an instrument to help using PFA.

Hopefully, I can continue to share with you all the remaining two modules tomorrow.

Thank you for stopping by 😊