Tag: mental health

With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe, it’s no wonder that anxiety and fear are on the rise. What if a loved one falls ill? How will we deal with the potential financial fallout? And what happens if we find ourselves in another global recession? Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb—also the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Maybe You Should Talk to Someone—reveals what we can do to deal with the stress in GQ. 

During a global pandemic, one thing is for certain: the news coverage is nonstop. But constantly refreshing your Twitter feed and obsessively wondering what will happen next isn’t necessarily the best approach for our mental health. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb explains, “Humans don’t do well with uncertainty, so what they do is make up stories about the future, and usually what they do is they’re catastrophizing. They don’t make up happy stories.” Instead of playing a game of “what-if” that could spiral out of control, she encourages us to limit the amount we check the news, suggesting that a constant obsession will create an “emotional overload.”

“It’s really important to stay present and not imagine something that hasn’t happened,” Gottlieb explains.

Read the full article here.

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The stigma surrounding mental illness is one of the biggest barriers to mental health care. The #BellLetsTalk initiative encourages people to get talking and save lives—and keynote speakers Michael Landsberg, Vijay Gupta, and Waneek Horn-Miller, are experts at starting the conversation.  

Michael Landsberg—an ambassador for #BellLetsTalk—uses his story to start the conversation. Landsberg was the brash, witty host of TSN’s Off the Record—an 18-season sports talk show full of personality, fun, and healthy debate. No one would have ever known that Landsberg was battling anxiety and depression, but now, in warm, intelligent keynotes, he talks about it: “Imagine you had the power to change lives just by talking. Imagine if you knew you could save lives by simply telling your story … together, we can change the stigma that surrounds this disease.”

Violinist Vijay Gupta uses music to start the conversation: “Arts are a powerful force for community, belonging and humanity,” he says. His groundbreaking Street Symphony program provides musical enrichment and valuable human connection to L.A.’s homeless and incarcerated community. In keynotes, this charismatic MacArthur “Genius” transforms research and real experience into a compelling story about the connection between music and mental health. When language fails, music is able to communicate, drawing people from the brink of their darkest times. 

Waneek Horn-Miller uses hope to start the conversation. At 14, she was stabbed by a Canadian solider for protesting developments on Mohawk land. Ten years later, she became the first Canadian Mohawk woman to compete in the Olympics and grace the cover of TIME. Today, she’s an expert on Indigenous reconciliation, explaining in keynotes how to undertake the hard work of changing history. It takes frank, sometimes uncomfortable debate; extending empathy despite differences; and ultimately, making a pledge to maintain hope. “Without hope,” she says, “there is no health.” 

To book one of Lavin’s extraordinary mental health speakers, contact The Lavin Agency.

Sometimes we don’t know how to face a challenge until we’re already struggling with it. Michael Landsberg, Candy Chang, and Dr. Jonathan Fader are three speakers who approach the issue of mental health from all angles: acknowledging the realities of illness while also promoting mental wellness for all—no matter how you feel. 

Michael Landsberg: Sports, Stigma, and Mental Health

The charismatic and outspoken former host of TSN’s Off the Record, you'd never guess that Michael Landsberg has been battling mental illness and depression for most of his life. Lifting the stigma from this topic, Landsberg delivers a powerful and personal keynote on the misunderstood issues of depression and mental health. Landsberg shares the story of his own battle with mental illness, as well as the unexplored stories of some of the world's most recognizable sports figures, to show us that recovery, strength and hope are possible in some of our darkest times.

Candy Chang: Learning From Ourselves 

“All of us have mental health issues. It’s a spectrum,” says speaker and artist Candy Chang. In her talks, Chang shares her personal experiences with grief and depression and how she has channeled her emotional struggles into her participatory public art experiments, including spaces for anonymous confessions. Drawing upon her body of work, she shares what she has learned from thousands of honest and vulnerable responses from people around the world, and reveals ways we might gain new perspectives on the role we play in our relationships with others as well as our relationship with ourselves.  

Dr. Jonathan Fader: Life as Sport 

Over the past 20 years, sport and performance psychology has taught elite performers to train more than just their bodies, but also their minds: preparing for stressful moments and connecting with the most powerful versions of themselves. In his rousing keynotes, filled with personal stories and evidence-based research, Dr. Jonathan Fader adapts a host of mental skills-training approaches for everyday life, on and off the field. Whether you’re looking to enhance performance at work or home, in business or in parenting, Dr. Fader delivers the most valuable lessons from the biggest courts and most watched fields of the sports world.

To book speakers Michael Landsberg, Candy Chang, Dr. Jonathan Fader, or another one of our mental health and wellness speakers for your event, contact The Lavin Agency today, their exclusive speakers bureau.  

In the January 1 issue of The New Yorker, music critic Alex Ross writes about “visionary Los Angeles violinist” Vijay Gupta and his organization Street Symphony, which invites LA’s homeless, mentally ill, and incarcerated communities to attend and make music with the best classical musicians in the country.  

Attending a midnight performance of Handel’s “Messiah” on Skid Row, a large tent city in downtown LA, Ross writes about Gupta’s endeavour to move beyond his career as a prodigious musician (and former scientist) to reach LA’s homeless community—some 58,000 people—through music. The result is Street Symphony, which he founded in 2011. “Gupta is one of the most radical thinkers in the unradical world of American classical music,” writes Ross. “With Street Symphony, he has created a formidable new model for how musical institutions should engage with the world around them.” Ross calls Gupta “a riveting speaker, at once jovial and intense. He talks rapidly, precisely, and with startling candor.”

Read Handel’s “Messiah,” on Skid Row (The New Yorker) 

But Gupta isn’t satisfied by one-off events, like the successful “Messiah,” held in a charitable institution called the Midnight Mission. “If you’re going to make any difference, you have to show up a lot more often, and not just when you feel like it. This community is one defined by trauma. In their lives, someone didn’t show up. We gotta show up,” Gupta tells Ross as they leave Skid Row after the concert. 

In his talks, Gupta speaks passionately about his efforts to “show up” for a diverse range of disenfranchised people—from the homeless to the mentally ill, to incarcerated populations around Los Angeles. Within it, he speaks with optimism and creativity to how we can help each other with music, and more. 

Lavin is proud to represent speakers like Vijay Gupta, who are making the world a better place through both their art and social outreach. Urban artists like Candy Chang, whose “Before I Die” walls, painted on derelict buildings, have become an international phenomenon. Chang’s work invites people to share their deepest feelings about their lives and communities.