Wellness & Well-being Highlights June 2nd

Wellness & Well-being Highlights

for the

Week of June 2nd, 2025

This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog looks at how another construction trade union embraces technology in order to provide Mental Health services to its members—to various agencies providing clean-up and MH services to the STL communities impacted by the May 16^th tornado—to AI’s impact on collective bargaining agreements. This week I would like to share with you some thoughts on the concept of self-compassion.

During, and for a short time after, COVID, a number of sources weighed in on the issue of self- care. To set the record straight, self-care is NOT selfish. One of the most clear and concise examples of self-care is before you takeoff on a commercial airliner the flight attendant covers their firm’s safety procedures. One of their final statements refers to a loss of oxygen and the mask falling down from above. Who do they tell you to put that mask on first? You! Why? Because if you cannot take care of yourself, you will not be in a position to assist others. However, self-care is NOT self-compassion.

A past instructor once told my class, “We all have a prosecuting attorney in our head but few of us have a defense attorney.” To this end, self-care is the set of skills (i.e., mindfulness, yoga, deep breathing, etc.) we utilize to build self-compassion. Studies show that those of us who display self-compassion while under stress, are more resilient. Resiliency is the ability to bounce back and learn from stressful events…it is not a matter of simply coping! Why? Because coping can take on 2 forms: good or bad. Good coping tends to lead towards building resiliency. While bad coping can lead to bad habits, addiction, etc.

Caron posits, “Self-compassion is the process of expressing support, warmth and understanding toward yourself during difficult times—and recognizing that you aren’t alone in your imperfections.”[1] So how do you develop self-compassion? Here are a few tips:

Say kind things to yourself every day: Stop being so hard on yourself!
Take a compassion break: Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture (RAIN)
Pay it forward: Part of caring for yourself means caring for your community.

This reminds me of what I learned while studying trauma. Too often in the past, we heard ‘What is wrong with you’ vs ‘What happened to you.’ To this end, I encourage you to read the article linked below in an effort to move from ‘I am a mistake’ to ‘I made a mistake.’

Please check out the rest of this week’s blog: https://moworksinitiative.org/category/worker-wellness-news/

Source: [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/well/mind/self-compassion.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

MH in Construction: EVERY Day vs JUST May

Iron Workers & MH App

Roadwork / Accidents / Safety

PreventEd / Jefferson Co / Recovery Community Ctr

Adults & Autism

STL Agency / May 16 Tornado / MH Care

Samaritans Purse & STL Tornado Recovery

Why Self-compassion?

Designing Safety into Projects

MH in the Workplace