BUSINESS owners gathered at Canungra Bowls Club for the final workshop of 2024 in the Canungra Chamber of Commerce’s aptly named Gather and Grow series.
Chamber President, Nambok Intharangsy introduced the Wellbeing for Small Business Owners workshop, saying that mental health and well being is such an important topic for everyone.
The facilitators of the workshop are also small business owners, Counsellor Rhonda Nugent and Psychologist and author Shannon Swales.
Rhonda spoke about the emergence of the positive psychology movement as well as character strengths, recommending the viacharacter.org survey to ascertain your character strengths.
A former teacher, she joked that she was giving out homework to the participants, but in reality her informative booklets offered the opportunity to explore the topics raised in further detail at home.
“Wellbeing doesn’t mean you’re not going to experience negative emotions during the day – sad, mad, all of those things,” she said.
As Rhonda pointed out, some character strengths can actually be negatives, for example when someone’s ‘niceness’ makes them unable to stand up for themselves.
Shannon is in the unusual position of being a psychologist who has suffered burnout, which is the area she now specialises in and the topic of her book ‘Nothing Left to Give’.
She guided participants through a mindfulness practice and offered a number of wellbeing boosters.
Her book is a memoir from when she suffered and recovered from burnout during which time she documented wellbeing practices that assisted her recovery.
“Since my burnout, I now see myself as in not what my mind thinks I can do but what I have capacity to do in terms of energy,” she said.
She advised business owners to do things to fuel their energy and have realistic expectations of themselves, stating it is also important to surround yourself with like minded people.
“Connection is key when it comes to well being,” she said.
