Embracing Change: The Journey From Comfort to Growth

There’s a lot going on in our post-pandemic world for students. While life is slowly returning back to normal, students still face stressors around academic achievement, relationship issues, financial struggles and mental health challenges. 

To open up the conversation and broaden our mindset, our theme for this year’s President’s Fundraising Breakfast for Mental Health is From Comfort to Growth. We spoke with Thea Comeau, Assistant Professor, Psychology, to share her insights on the importance of this year’s theme. 

Thea says that having a clear set of principles and values helps us to navigate the complexities of life. “It’s important that students develop a value structure, a way of sifting through what you care about – then when you are facing mental health struggles or hard times, you have something to lean into.”

Thea explained that a value helpful to her is keeping a learner’s mind. “This is a value I like to hold onto if I encounter a failure, or something I can no longer continue to do. For example if someone planned to run a marathon but broke their leg, they can use a learner’s mindset to cope with that. It involves a willingness to take on new challenges, and embrace mistakes and setbacks. 

Thea is passionate about helping others to identify their own value structures, and during the Breakfast for Mental Health, attendees will be treated to a demonstration to find their value system. “After the breakfast, I hope attendees have a takeaway skill that they can continue to use over time.”

Embracing the ups and downs

Due to stress, anxiety, trauma, overwhelm or a skill deficit students might struggle with tasks at school or life situations. “When they’re thwarted or there’s a block against the direction that they want to go – the idea of falling off track is something I often talk to students about,” says Thea.

Students shouldn’t worry if they fall off track, because life is not meant to be linear – there are meant to be ups and downs and that’s where growth lives, says Thea. “A psychotherapy writer I look up to claims that the role of psychotherapy is to help people expand their capacity for choice – this is why values are so important – if you value kindness, you always have a choice that leads to kindness.”

How we talk to ourselves is also a choice, says Thea, “I tell students you can’t control if a professor is going to give you the grade you want, but you have control over whether you will learn from their feedback and schedule your time studying better.”

It may take presence and mindfulness to know if we speak to ourselves in helpful or unhelpful ways. “I always tell my students, negative thoughts are like vapor. It’s not like somebody comes and yells in your face, it’s like a vapor that invades your mind – so your job is to check your vapor,” Thea explains.

“You are not weak because you are struggling, there is nothing wrong with you because you are struggling. There is a lot on your plate as a student.” – Thea

We don’t have to be like Sylvester Stallone’s character in Rocky, but we can push a little harder. It can be one molecule in your body that says ‘It will be better tomorrow.’ It doesn’t have to be this big Herculean effort, be gentle on yourself,” Thea adds.

Grasping for straws can make all the difference

In times of crisis Thea uses the analogy of grasping at straws. “One of the realities of depression is it steals that part of the brain that thinks we have opportunities. So, I like to normalize the process of grasping at straws for students. I say to my clients, the straws don’t always work, but I expect the act of grabbing at the straws to work.”

On campus we need to have a lot of straws for students to grab at. Relationships with faculty, with administrators, peer support networks, opportunities, clubs, courses,” Thea explains.

Faculty have limits on their time, skills and capacity, but during Thea’s time at CUE, she said she never met a faculty member who has limited their compassion. 

“Every faculty member I’ve met at CUE is incredibly caring; they care about students’ well-being and want them to thrive.” – Thea

Thea advises faculty and staff to access that caring part of themselves when talking to students. “They might not always feel they have the right words – but caring is an amazing strength. We have staff here that can provide a list of low-cost or no cost for students to go for help. I even have the distress line in my signature, so it’s easily accessible to someone who needs it.”

Thea says expecting students to easily transfer from highschool to university is unrealistic. “We need to shift our mindset and expect students to struggle, and for the ones doing well and who don’t need us – great. Students who are first generation university students often need extra support because they might not have family members to lean on for guidance.”

Adapting to a new academic environment

Part of the joy of working at CUE Thea says is helping students who did not know university was possible. “For students who may have had a harder time with high school we have to be proactive because they’re climbing a bigger mountain than the honour student who came in on tons of scholarships. Every student has their own struggles – but they’re all different.”

“I would like to tell every student, It’s not hard because you’re bad at this. It’s hard because it’s hard.” – Thea

Failure and growth go hand-in-hand

This is why the theme for our breakfast From Comfort to Growth needs to be reinforced. Thea says, “students need to learn that your classmates succeeding or failing has nothing to do with your success or failure. They’re unrelated outcomes.”

Part of moving from comfort to growth is trying new things, and Thea says “It’s important to not just wonder if you’re good at it, but to ask yourself ‘Did I have fun?’ If I skied poorly down the mountain but I had fun…then mission accomplished. Just trying something and getting over the fear factor is a massive success – how good you are is inconsequential.”

Student Life and Learning offer a holistic approach to addressing both mental health and academic challenges. Their site offers many resources to help students manage their well-being and achieve their academic goals.

Please come out the Breakfast for Mental Health on May 4, 2023 to learn more about finding your values, and discover principles to guide your decisions and actions, and remember for many students just coming to this breakfast is stepping out of your comfort zone – and you are bound to have fun and learn something new!