How We Communicate
Landscape
Mental Health Tips By Generation - Hartford Healthcare
CA Could Legalize Psychedelic Therapy After Rejecting Psilocybin Decriminalization - The Sacramento Observer
NY Mental Health Street Teams - Do They Work? - The New York Times
Lesson
Today, Flourish outlines two sections from its Website Development cut sheet entitled: Flourish Your Website. This cut sheet is designed for the individual practitioner who operates their own website.
Website Principles
Make it easy
Not a maze, not a mystery
Envision the website visitor as a brand new user who has never navigated a website before or someone super nervous to pursue services
Assume the worst case navigator; the more basic, the better
Tell a story
Just as the visitor is progressing in their own personal story, provide layers to your website that link to your own professional and personal stories.
Themes of: “I am in this work for this reason” or “This is how I got here”
This can be done with an About Me section (covered below), as well as conscious tone and language choices throughout the site
Convert / Call to Action (CTA)
Visitors are on your site to solve a need, to see if this service should be the next part of their story
Make it easy and simple for them to reach out
CTA on the home page, on every page in some form
The more time they spend on the site, the less likely they will book a call/move forward with interest
Website Elements
Home Page
Why?
Every business needs a digital landing page and source of truth
Home page acts as a virtual waiting room
Create welcoming, safe, encouraging feelings
Easy to orient
How?
Background images relevant to your brand and offerings
Opening blurb: Your first impression - what is your primary message? (See examples below)
Guide them to upcoming events?
Introduce a bit about your offerings?
Introduce yourself?
Make all sections of website one click away
Name, services, options to book a call, all options within the first page
Life
Drugs, Medication, Medicine
Vernacular is important - word choice and placement can be very intentional to convey a certain message. Many times these intentions operate within us subconsciously.
The difference between a drug, medicine, and medication - among other similar words - has always been something I’ve chewed on. For the DARE generation, the word ‘drug’ will always have a negative connotation. For me personally, working in the behavioral health field, ‘medication’ has a habitual, technical, obligatory association to it - often framed as “Have you been taking your medication?” - as a quasi-guilt tripping lie detector. And ‘medicine’, to me, feels the most whole. Medicine cures you. It reaches more than just the physical, it alleviates pain on all dimensions where it exists. Not just the medicine itself, but the act of taking and receiving the medicine.
Try to think about our daily medicines. The environmental elixirs that allow us to release, feel better, and build immunities. People who challenge us are medicine. Warm weather is medicine. Laughter at my cat is (the best) medicine. Medicine is responsive to your given state and condition. Each moment can be medicinal if we allow it to be.
If time heals all wounds, would that mean with every second that passes, we heal?
In sum, drugs stunt us - numb us and dissociate. Medications are unconscious, they are taken without thought or intention and allow our bodies to check out from their natural process. Medicines are interactive, fluid, and ever healing - they can be as strong or as weak as needed in each moment. From formal plant medicines, to human connection, to goals, purposes, and challenges - medicines work to serve us to reach our highest vision of our selves - physically, emotionally, spiritually.
The practice is to constantly evaluate and intuit what serves us. What truly serves our higher selves, not works to remove us further and distract us. Stay curious and take personal inventory of our relationships with these external sources.