individual self-management support

Acceptance is defined as consenting to experience psychological events (thoughts, feelings, sensations and memories) without avoiding them or allowing them to exert undue influence over our behaviour. It is therefore the opposite of avoidance. 
 
Acceptance does not mean that you want to experience unpleasant sensations. When you welcome them, you don’t fight the manifestations; you let them be so that they don’t control you.

Behavioural activation is a therapeutic approach that focuses on taking action to promote the pleasurable experiences associated with actively participating in activities and decreasing behaviours that maintain negative affects. 
 
In other words, behavioural activation aims to counteract passive avoidance of unpleasant situations by proactively engaging in activities that make you feel good, regardless of your mood or motivation level in the moment. 

Sometimes, our hectic lives and many responsibilities overwhelm us, and without even realizing it, we start spending less time on activities that make us feel good. In other cases, living with symptoms of anxiety or depression can cause us to lose interest or to feel very distant from activities that used to help our well-being. 
 
However, engaging in activities primarily aimed at self-care can positively affect us, and should not be neglected. You may need support to take stock of these comforting activities and help you implement them on a daily basis!

Assertiveness can be described as an external manifestation of your self-esteem. Being adequately assertive means being able to express your needs, ideas and values without resorting to aggression or submission. 
 
Healthy assertiveness is being able to express yourself and defend your rights without encroaching on those of others. It is an attitude of healthy firmness in relation to people and events. 

According to Kristin Neff, the researcher who pioneered this concept, self-compassion is an attitude of being kind and understanding toward ourselves in difficult times. It is not synonymous with complacency or self-pity, but an active posture associated with emotional well-being. Self-compassion allows you to soften your language toward yourself.

Each of us has filters, also known as cognitive distortions. These are automatic thoughts that come to you when you have symptoms of anxiety or depression, and skew your perception of reality. It has been shown that the way we understand and interpret situations influences how we feel and react. Hence the importance of being aware of the presence of your filters so as to be able to nuance or influence their impact on you (emotions, moods, actions and reactions) and on others.

Stress management is one of the tools you need in order to maintain balance in your daily life. In this topic, you’ll explore tools that will help you learn to better cope with stress on a daily basis.

Healthy lifestyle habits help to maintain mental well-being and contribute to a healthy life balance. In this topic, you will explore diet, sleep, physical exercise, and alcohol and drug use. This is an area over which you can have a great deal of power to act... although this is often easier said than done, especially at first. 
 
Changing your lifestyle habits won’t produce miracles, but a healthy lifestyle will predispose you to better managing your anxiety or depression symptoms. This can be difficult in the beginning, given the repeated effort it requires on your part and the difficulty of shedding familiar and sometimes entrenched ways of doing things.

This topic helps you assess fluctuations in your mood and anxiety on a daily basis. It covers concrete tools to help you better understand yourself and identify warning signs and avoid relapse.

This topic will explore functional cycles at work as well as potential solutions and strategies that you can apply to manage the impact of your mental health on your work or vice versa.

This topic will help you identify the people around you who provide you with professional or personal support. Family members are often the first people that spring to mind, but don’t forget your friends, colleagues, people from the community, neighbours, etc. who can all strengthen your network.

While mindfulness is based on Buddhist teachings, it is neither religious nor esoteric. Practising mindfulness is a unique way to experience the present moment—deliberately and without value judgments.  
 
Anyone can work brief mindfulness and relaxation exercises into their daily lives. This topic is an occasion to discover or deepen your experience of mindfulness and relaxation.

This topic is an invitation to identify the emotions that make up your inner landscape. You’ll be able to recognize the strategies you already use to take care of your emotions, observe them, and become aware of their functioning in your daily life. You will also learn new strategies to regulate certain emotions more effectively. 

Everyday problem-solving can be a source of worry and anxiety. The problem-solving strategy we will look at will help you focus on your issues and resolve them more effectively, even when you feel less able to find solutions. The method involves breaking the process down into small steps and should help you work toward an appropriate solution more effectively by taking a step back to focus on the problem at hand and structure your thought process. 

Relationships with others are part of what defines us as individuals. In a way, relationships reflect a part of what we are, and the choices we make. Our self-esteem evolves through relationships with others; our ups and downs are partly shaped by others. This topic will help you identify the different types of support and recognize how each person in your network can help you.

It’s not always easy to identify the values that guide our actions, choices and priorities. This topic will help get you thinking and enable you to analyze your needs according to your tastes, preferences and interests before making your decisions. 

Individual self-management support culminates in a review session. This is a time to celebrate and take pride in everything you’ve achieved during your journey. It is also a time of reflection where you can observe and assess how far you’ve come and look ahead to support your next steps.