A THRIVE Podcast

Welcome to our second episode on Resilience, as part of UoL's Thrive Podcast.

Missed the first episode? No worries, find the playlist here.

Listen below, or scroll down for the episode transcript!

Transcript

Hello again! Welcome to the THRIVE podcast. My name is Gemma and I’m part of the Student Health and Wellbeing team at the University of London. And this is the second episode of our seven part series on Resilience. If you need a transcript this will be available on the university’s campus life site, which is campus life dot London dot ac dot uk.

Last time, I introduced you to the Sailboat metaphor and its eight elements. As a reminder these elements are: water, the compass, the steering wheel, a leak, the sail, the weather, other sailboats, and finally, the destination.

The content of this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not medical advice and it is not a substitute for treatment or diagnosis. Please contact your general practitioner for professional medical advice.

In this episode we’ll continue explaining the Sailboat metaphor.

As the Captain, you interact with the eight elements in four ways:

One: Attention.

What do you pay attention to? If you feel led by your feelings, then you may be focused on your compass. If you focus on the negative events in your life, as opposed to the positive ones, maybe you pay a lot of your attention to bad weather rather than good weather.

Two: Thoughts.

If you think about your goals a lot, then you’re thinking about the destination. Whereas if you think about the difficult parts of your life being only temporary, you may constantly be on the lookout for sunny, blue skies through the clouds.

Three: Motivation.

Why do we do what we do? If you like using your strengths – your sturdy sails – to move towards your destination, you could understand yourself as being goal oriented and positive.

And Four: Actions.

Actions are what we do, or our behaviour. If you’re trying to improve your weaknesses, you’ll try and fix that leak in your boat. Or perhaps you’re developing the existing strengths you have and hoisting your sails.

You aren’t in this journey alone. Yes, you have the other boats around you, but you also have this podcast and our resources as your Lighthouse. You can always come back and re-listen, or even seek guidance. But remember, you’re the one in charge. You’re the Captain.

Life can be stressful. Life is stressful. There’s bad weather, leaks, bumpy boats and more. There’s so much that we do and don’t have control of. But, we can at least learn to sail through the storm into calmer seas. You’ll learn to use the elements you do have control over in order to help yourself and seek help, when it comes to life’s stresses.

So that is the Sailboat Metaphor. As a reminder, here are the eight elements:

Water – everything your life interacts with.

The compass – your emotions.

The steering wheel – your values.

The leak – your weaknesses.

The sails – your strengths.

The weather – life’s events that are out of your control.

Other boats – your relationships.

And your destination – your goal or goals.

And again, the Captain interacts with these elements in four ways. Attention, thoughts, motivation, and action.

Okay, here’s your Call to Action, I’d encourage to write these down as notes to yourself: Reflect on what’s been stressing you out. What’s the metaphorical weather like? What emotion is coming up on your compass most strongly? And how are you handling the weather? But also, what kind of captain are you currently and what kind of captain do you want to be? What are your motivations? What are you thinking and paying attention to? And, what are or could be your actions?

In the next episode we’ll be talking about mastering attention. Thank you for listening, check out our Campus Life site, follow us on Instagram at wellatuol, and keep thriving.