Written by Aaron Azariah. Aaron is a placement student with OTLR currently completing his Master of Counselling at the University of Notre Dame in Perth, Western Australia. December marks the start of the holiday season, with Christmas preparations kicking into full swing and plans for New Years and any upcoming January holiday getaways taking up large portions of our time. …
NAIDOC Week 2020: Always was, always will be
When Australians get asked how to describe our culture, often we’re drawn to answers like mateship, Vegemite and BBQs. Australians joke that we don’t really have much culture, not like Egypt with its pyramids, or Greece with its ancient mythology. NAIDOC Week this year seeks to challenge this idea. Because as a matter of fact, we’re lucky enough to live in a country which is home to the oldest continuing culture on the planet. Did you know Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people built and engineered structures older than Egypt’s pyramids?
5 study tips we can learn from athletes
Want to improve academically? Think like an athlete! When we watch our favourite athletes, it’s easy to forget the hours of training they’ve put in behind the scenes to perform at the highest level. AFL footballers, for example, begin their pre-season training only six weeks after the end of the main season in preparation for the following year!
How to use a growth mindset to your advantage for COVID-19 and beyond
Performance is 90 percent mental and the rest is physical.
This is a quote many athletes would have heard before. And while the maths might not exactly add up and as clichéd as the saying might be, it helps to remind us that it is important to train for both the physical and mental components of any performance (whether athletic or not).
In partnership with Brisbane Lions and Epic Good Foundation
OTLR is proud to partner with Brisbane Lions and Epic Good Foundation to provide much needed mental health education and welfare support for community clubs and schools in Queensland.
Our founder, ex-AFL player Jake Edwards, started the charity in response to his own mental health challenges upon finishing his AFL career.
Getting back up again
Has COVID-19 and the fallout sent you into a spiral in an unknown direction? Do you feel like you’ve been knocked down? Do you feel like you have or are likely to fail?
If you said YES, that’s overwhelmingly normal and what I call being human. At some stage, we are all knocked down and face challenges that are extremely complex in different environments. So why is it that the solution most friends and family give us – “get back up and try again” – so widely used and yet hard to implement?
Supporting our youth through times of grief and loss
When we think about grief and loss, our brain tends to assume the worst, which commonly is associated with the passing of a loved one. However, feelings of loss can be closely tied to the loss of various other entities, rituals and opportunities. Although it’s easy to distinguish the loss of a pet compared to the inability to train with your local football team, the byproducts of this loss may carry the same weight. This is especially important in our current society where our youth have needed to become increasingly more resilient and open-minded – sometimes needing to sacrifice their needs due to ever-changing circumstances.
The impact of a father
On this day 12 years ago – 10 June 2008 – just after 8 o’clock on an overcast winter’s morning; Mum emerged from our long, winding hallway, stepped into the kitchen, softly trembling with tears as she struggled to find the words to tell us that Dad had passed away…
In 2004, my dad was diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer. In the following years, the cancer advanced to other parts of Dad’s body, and eventually, his brain…
Nourishing your life back to a new normal
The time has come for new changes, new opportunities, and to come back out into society again. Some people are heading back to their old work, some are moving back into the office after working from home, some are going back to school, sports, and hobbies. But others have found a new purpose during their downtime: starting a new business, pursuing a new passion, immersing in self-reflection and self actualisation – and some may have discovered a new lease on life.
Mental health and wellbeing
When I was 12 years old and in Grade 6 at primary school, my mum and my two younger siblings moved from Fitzroy to Clayton. Mum had obtained emergency housing after one too many domestic violence incidents with my stepdad.
A friend that I met at school and his family got me involved with the football and cricket clubs, and from then on it became my outlet: first from my poverty stricken home-life, and later on from the drugs and crime that my brother and returning stepdad were involved in. I loved being able to get away on the weekend, to just enjoy sports and the family-orientated environment that they provided.