Good afternoon everyone!
Friday the 25th of June was my final day working as a Communications Co-Ordinator, within the Student Success & Engagement team at the University of Reading, during my Professional Placement Year. Although I am gutted that my time in the role had come to an end, I wouldn’t change a minute of this past year for anything!
So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some of my thoughts regarding leaving the role!
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Happy Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 everybody!
Mental Health Awareness week is one of the most important days in the Mental Health calendar, alongside Time to Talk day & World Mental Health Day, and occurs from the 10-16th May 2021. In today’s blog, we’ll be taking a look at this special week, what it stands for, and why it is so important for us to raise awareness for.
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“In a world where you can be anything, be kind”
A very powerful quote, which has always resonated closely with me, and its meaning holds a life lesson for us all…
Let’s take a closer look at this quote, and at the power of kindness in today’s blog!
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April is going to be coming to a close in just under a weeks time, and in saying that, I feel like now is a great time to give you all Sweeney’s Stuttering Update for April 2021! I have found that over the last couple of years, I have been going on quite a journey with my speech and my Stutter, and I thought, why not bring all of you along with me!
So without further ado, let’s take a look at my update for this month!
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A couple of weeks back, I got challenged by my professional mentor, Polina, to start writing an Achievement/Gratitude List, which is a list of all of the accomplishments and achievements that I am proudest of in my life.
I’ve never really done anything like this before, and found that it has had a very large positive impact on how I see myself.
Let’s take a bit of a closer look at this in today’s blog!
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Today, February 4th, is Time to Talk Day 2021!! This is one of the most important days of the year in the Mental Health calendar, and is an event which lies very closely to my heart. Time to Talk Day is a social movement which continues to work to change the way in which we think and act surrounding our Mental Health & Wellbeing.
Let’s take a bit of a deeper look into Time to Talk Day and my hopes for it in today’s blog!
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I have written quite a lot of blog series here on Sweeney’s Blogs, and as I haven’t done one for a couple of weeks now, I was thinking, should they make a return? I have been considering bringing blog series back to the page for some time, so what I thought I would do over the next couple of blogs is to talk through some of my ideas for potential series, and see if anybody is interested in them!
Today’s blog is going to be about my potentially new Stuttering Series.
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On Thursday 14th January 2021, I turned 22 years old! I was simply amazed at how many kind messages and birthday wishes that got sent through to me on Thursday, so I thought I’d write a blog to say a massive thank you to each and every one of you! We are living in very uncertain times at the moment, and it’s things like this that fill me with hope for what’s to come in the future!
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2020 was a massive year for me, and yet, despite all of the highs and lows experienced in those 12 months, one of my key takeaways from the year would be the lessons that I learned throughout my 2020 Stuttering Journey. My Stutter has played a very large role in all of my life, I wouldn’t ever say that wasn’t the case, but 2020 seemed to be a year in which everything that happened, seemed to link back to that topic, my Speech and my Self-Confidence.
This is what we’ll be looking at in today’s blog!
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2020 has finally come to a close, words that some people thought they would never hear. The year has been beyond anyone’s predictions, with numerous highs and lows dotted throughout the past 12 months. Over the course of 2020, Sweeney’s Blogs grew at a rate faster than I could ever have imagined, more than doubling our views from 2019. That’s what we are going to be looking at in this blog, how Sweeney’s Blogs did this year!
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I was scrolling through my Facebook feed during my lunch hour earlier on this week and a trailer for a film called “My Beautiful Stutter” showed up on my suggested posts. Up to know, I hadn’t heard of many films that were made to address the issue of Stuttering, apart from the odd exception such as The King’s Speech, or The Waterboy, so it is safe to safe that I was very intrigued on how they were going to go about doing it.
I have not been able to actually watch the film itself yet, but in today’s blog we are going to look at some of my hopes and aspirations as to what this film can do for the Stuttering Community and for the stigma that surrounds Stuttering as a whole.
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On Saturday 31st October, I was asked to be a special guest on a brand new podcast, called “26 minutes with”, which has been created by Respect Mental Health and the amazing Benjamin Seal. It was an honour to be asked to e the first guest for the show and we are going to be taking a bit of a closer look at the podcast in today’s blog!
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6 years ago yesterday I got rushed into hospital and was diagnosed with Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome. I was only 15 years of age when it happened and I am eternally grateful for all of the work that the surgeons, doctors, nurses and more did to save my life when I was but 3 hours away from what would have been my unfortunate death.
I am James Sweeney and this is my Peutz-Jeghers Story, My Dance with Death:
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Mental Health is something that affects each and every one of us as people. Our Mental Health makes up who we are, who we want to be, and so much more. It is a phenomenally large field, that continues to grow each and every day. Over the last couple of years the spotlight and mainstream media have started to focus in more on the Mental Health and Wellbeing of people and international events, such as World Mental Health Day, which is happening today on the 10th October and so important for our future.
So let’s take a closer look into Mental Health and World Mental Health Day 2020!
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Today’s blog is going to be a little bit different to the usual kind of blog that I write. The blog is going to be focused around a story which happened to me around 4-5 weeks ago, which played a really large role in the increase of the amount that I stutter over the last couple of weeks.
I mentioned in last weeks blog that I was going to talk about it this and, even though it is quite a personal story, I still feel like the messages that we can take from it are very important. It may seem like a very sad story when you read through the first few paragraphs, but there’s always a lesson and a moment of reflection that we can take from moments like this.
So without further ado, this is Sweeney’s Stuttering Story – The Call.
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