Reporter: Mahirotus Sofa
Unlike the typical invitation, this time Umah Ramah had the opportunity to provide reinforcement on mental health at LPK (Lembaga Pelatihan Kerja; Job Training Institute) Hana Cirebon on Wednesday, September 4, 2024.
Director of Umah Ramah Asih Widiyowati spoke to roughly sixty young people from the institution on the “Art of Understanding Yourself” while they sat in a circle on the futsal field.
Nani, one of the LPK Hana’s Korean language teachers, voiced her worries about certain students who occasionally got into arguments. This conflict affected their self-confidence.
“I frequently serve as a space for LPK students to exchange stories in addition to being a teacher. There are quarrels among students all the time. Some of them lack confidence and tend to overthink things. Because of this, I want the students to learn about mental health so that when they go to work in Korea or Japan, they’ll be more self-assured and mentally capable,” she said.
Asih didn’t define mental health right away in her introduction; instead, she focused on self-awareness and understanding. About how to lift our mood, which fluctuates a lot, what makes us happy when we’re sad, and how to express it.
“Your happiness is independent of other people since only you truly know what makes you happy. As simple as eating seblak, listening to music, cooking, and so on,” she remarked.
One of the attendees posed a question regarding the handling of unstable emotions following the material presentation.
However, Asih did not answer immediately, she asked back what the participants did when they felt upset. Some answered they reserved it, told stories about it to close friends, and some said when the emotion came, they channeled it by cleaning the toilet.
You can control your emotions in any way, she says, as long as you don’t direct them against other people. That doesn’t fix the problem; in fact, it can make it worse. Particularly if you are abroad, where the strain will probably be considerably higher. []
This article translated by Napol Riel.