Kwesi Millington talks resilience during Mental Health Week

Gabrielle Liu - Junior Copy Editor

Kwesi

Millington, former RCMP officer turned public speaker, delivered the keynote speech for Bishop’s Mental Health Week on Feb. 3. Millington shared techniques of mindfulness to improve confidence and mental health, drawing upon his lessons from his childhood, early career, and incarceration.

Dean of Student Affairs Dr. Stine-Linden Anderson acknowledged the traditional territory of the Abenaki and reflected on their knowledge and ability to survive off the land – temperatures scraped a frigid -31 degrees that day. She then passed the floor on to Sophia Stacey, Health and Wellness Representative of the SRC, who introduced Millington to a gathering of mixed ages at the Gait.

Millington spoke of three techniques: release, relinquish, and reserve and rejoice, preluding each practice with an anecdote. He recounted having a crush on a girl named Rita while in university. He would often come close to speaking to her in class or at the gym, but would end up thinking, “Maybe next time.” “We’re our own worst critics when it comes to our mental health,” he said, speaking of how thoughts of being too tall, too dark, or too dumb held him back when he was younger. Millington then asked audience members to share what they admired about themselves, to release their obsession over their imperfections.

When he graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University, then known as Ryerson University, he took up a temporary office job. When the role turned into a permanent position, he was denied the job by a hiring manager. However, three years later, he earned his RCMP badge. Feeling proud, he went back to the firm to look for the manager, only to find out that she had been promoted and was no longer there. “I’m not very mature,” he joked. “I held on to a grudge for three years over someone who probably didn’t even remember me,” Millington said. He asked audience members to think of what they had to accept about themselves to move on, to relinquish the past. “I had to accept that I could no longer be a police officer.”

Millington served 12 years in the RCMP. It was a career where he met celebrities and served as a bodyguard to presidents and prime ministers. Six years into this career, he was involved in what he described as “one of Canada’s largest police cases.” He testified in court and was later informed that he had been charged with perjury. He was convicted and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. According to Millington, when he was put in jail, the guards placed him in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is usually reserved as punishment, but for Millington, as a former policeman, it was for protection from other inmates in the general population. He asked the audience to imagine a 7x11 foot room, being kept there 23.5 hours per day, with just 30 minutes reserved to shower, change and walk in a gated yard. “How many of you have ever felt overwhelmed and alone?” he asked. “One blessing of being in a solitary cell was no technology,” Millington recalled, describing how he could focus on the present. When he was given access to the library, he delved into a book each day. Recounting the joyful tears he shed after receiving chapstick after three weeks in prison, he asked the audience to begin a practice of appreciation each day, to reserve happiness and to rejoice.

One of the greatest challenges transitioning into his current career as a resilience coach and public speaker was learning the business and how to find hosts. Millington mentioned he first joined Toastmasters, a nonprofit organization that builds public speaking skills, before finding out he had a talent. For Millington, the greatest reward from this career is hearing from students who write to him about practices he taught them, and he plans on working with youth for as long as he can.