Running towards the cannon. Self-acceptance, resilience and mental wellbeing

Michele Capots is a speaker, writer and mental wellness and resilience coach who is currently based in Arlington, Virginia.  Michele went through a clinical depression in her 20s that led to her having suicidal thoughts and planning to kill herself. She was a binge drinker and didn't drink every day but once she started she generally couldn't stop. She was in recovery for many years and had a really hard time dealing with her alcoholism as she felt all the things she associated with it didn't apply to her. Her drinking started out as a coping mechanism. Her father died when she was two and she grew up thinking she was different.  Alcohol made that OK and later when she was seventeen a sudden death in the family led to the drinking became the coping mechanism.

Michele stopped drinking when she was 25 and although at the time she thought that was too young she’s now grateful she stopped at that age. When she stopped drinking she went through a depression and went to therapy and onto medication and got better. Years later she went through a similar depression but this one sent her into a manic episode and she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She knew nothing about bipolar and was in and out of psychiatric wards for three years. Her bipolar manic episodes were bipolar 1 that meant she suffered intense experiences of mania and these episodes sent her into hospital – the episodes happened, she  was treated then released. She felt better and then the next year it happened again. Michele thought it was going to be like this for the rest of her life.

Michele was worried that it meant she was crazy and that she should be able to snap out of it.  She didn't think it was something that happened in your adult life, rather it was something you were born with. The self-stigma she felt was difficult to overcome and made her fight against the diagnosis and she didn't admit she had a mental illness. Illness is often portrayed as a war and this is not the best way of approaching it. Someone told Michele that she should to run towards the sound of the cannon and she took this as meaning she should run towards the problem rather than away from it. When she accepted that the disorder was only a part of her not all of her she found freedom and achieved mental wellness.

Michele feels mental wellness is different to mental health. Mental health is the diagnosis, therapy, medication and appointment with the doctor. Mental wellness is about finding the tools to help us get there – exercise, eating well, meditation and practicing gratitude – all the things we do to that help us take care of ourselves and maintain our mental health. Self- acceptance was really important to Michele. She fought against having a mental illness and the more she fought the more she was in its grip. Recovery helped a lot with that so she was able to accept her mental illness and realise that there was more to her. She thought her mental illness was all she was about and could offer someone but she then realised that there was a whole other side that she wasn't embracing because she was focused on her mental illness.

Its only fairly recently that words like mental illness have become more accepted. Now it’s sometimes seen as an obstacle that can be overcome with good lifestyle and therapy. The external stigma has been reduced and in a way Covid has helped with this by bringing the conversation to the forefront. So many people were experiencing problems with their mental health and Covid helped to normalise it but there is still more we can do.

The current generation seems to be more aware of mental health as being non-stigmatised and recognise mental illness as not being any different to a physical illness. People sometimes stuggle with taking medication for a mental illness but its exactly the same – you are simply taking medication to help your illness. Michelle feels it is courageous that people stand up and talk about it but when you’re in the middle of it you still feel isolated and alone. Being able to talk to people who are knowledgeable, practical and pragmatic as well as therapists and coaches is important.  

Michele recently broke her jaw and went through a period where the feelings that started her depression came back but she realised what they were and that she could do something about them. Resilience helps with this - knowing you've been through it gives you the tool kit to go through it again and come out the other side.

Bipolar not a sign of weakness and now Michele embraces that part of her, the experiences she’s been through are what made her resilient and shaped who she is and what she does.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more at Michele Capots.com

Create a different story

Kevin Roth is a Life Coach but started his career as a dulcimer player and musician in 1974. By 2015 he had worked on around 50 albums, sung the theme to a children’s hit TV show Shining Time Station that was based on the stories of Thomas the Tank Engine and developed a children’s music career.

Everything was going well when in 2015 he was diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma and given around 2 years to live. It was a sentence he didn't agree with so he decided to change the story and moved from Kansas to California to live a bohemian lifestyle in a beautiful place. After a couple of turbulent years dealing with the diagnosis, someone suggested to him that he should become a life coach, something he didn't know anything about. Initially it didn’t appeal to him, but he found a way to teach the dulcimer in a meditative style and become a life coach in his own way using spirituality and science to talk to people about understanding life, dropping stress and creating a life that they really love.

As a child Kevin was very musical and played piano by ear. At 13 he heard the Appalachian Mountain dulcimer and fell in love with the sound of it and learned to play it. In some places it is still seen as a traditional folk instrument but because Kevin didn’t know about its history he played it like a guitar or piano and came to be seen as a very innovative player. Being seen as doing something different helped in him getting his first record deal with Folkway Records.

Kevin feels that music teaches resilience. Its hard to make a living as a musician and in a business sense music teaches us how to create something out of nothing. It also helps us recover from making mistakes – how do you come back from a bad gig when people don't applaud?  In jazz there are no mistakes just improvisation and often what we class as mistakes are just someone else’s judgement. Kevin also feels that music should be taught in schools like maths and science, the more people who are artistic or musical the better. Everyone can be artistic and the more artistic skills you teach, the better people will be able to do their jobs.

When he got his cancer diagnosis Kevin thought he was in in good health. He now feels that it was the stress in was under the three years prior to the diagnosis that caused it. Stress and inflammation can have a really damaging effect and we have to know how to handle stress and what to eat in balance.  When he was diagnosed Kevin had to think about what was really important  – I only have two years to live so what do I want to do? The fame and fortune didn’t matter anymore what he wanted to do was make music, spend time with his dogs and move to California. He rejected the diagnosis. They removed a lymph node to see if the cancer had spread and then waited a year to see if it had come back and it never did.

Kevin never thought he was going to die, he changed the story. When you realise that nothing lasts or matters and everything passes, you get out of the story of ‘I hate my job or partner and don’t like this or that’ and then when you change the way you look at things the things you look at change. When he had the diagnosis Kevin said he was going to go and watch surfers in California, and wasn’t going to live the rest of his life in a cancer ward. We create stories every day. When we wake up it can be a good day or a bad day. If you’re in a really bad mood and the phone rings and it's a friend you haven’t heard from a while then suddenly you’re in a whole other dimension. All the drama that was ruining your life is gone. When you look at mindful awareness and take the time to contemplate it you realise you that you really shouldn't get upset about very much. The story is the story. Learn to live in balance.

Every day we create a different story. When Kevin wakes up he says this is what I want to do and feel today.  Of course there is a need to eat the right things, to rest and exercise and do some sort of meditation but we need to get out of the illusion that money buys happiness. We also need to recreate our life on a daily basis. We need to retune ourselves through the day. Many people don't know how to sit in silence or be comfortable with themselves any more.  They have lost who they are and are addicted to stress.  We need to drop a lot of the things going on in our heads, be nice to ourselves and give ourselves a break. We have an inner voice that will talk to us if we are quiet enough to listen so we can replace what doesn't work with what does.

There is a balance between planning for the future and learning to live your life now. When you figure out what matters and why, everything else falls into place.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more at Kevinroth.org

Living under the veil of domestic violence

Lara Sabanosh is based in Florida where, having retired from various roles in the government sector, she now has an advocacy role helping other people deal with domestic abuse.

Lara and her husband had been based at Guantanamo Bay in a civilian capacity for four years and had been married for twenty years. On January 9th 2015 they attended a Command function where they had an altercation. Later that evening he went missing and his body was found two days drowned in the Bay. In telling the story of his disappearance, the media portrayed him as a war hero and a wonderful husband and father but this did not tell the full story of their relationship. Lara was told not to say anything to the media and to keep quiet.

The evening her husband went missing he had assaulted her three times verbally and physically. Once his disappearance was reported a female agent was assigned to the case. Lara was trying to help her in finding out what had happened to her husband but the first thing the agent said was ‘why did you stay with him?’ Although she was trying to help she was being made to feel as if she was the bad person because she stayed with him. It was not a helped by the fact that the people who were questioning her were the same people he socialised with. Nobody was listening and the reports she had made against him were ignored.

People often ask why to people stay with the abusers. Lara feels that she became a military wife at a very young age. She was nineteen years old when she met her husband and was a college student with big plans for the future. She came from a close-knit family unit with no background in violence but she now realises that the stronger the ties became the more she lost herself. At the start of the relationship it was not abusive but again she now realises that there were some red flags before they got married. They had only dated for a short time, under a year, before they got married. They didn't live in same area and he would come and visit at weekends which didn't worry her at the time but she now knows he was breaking military law to come and see her. He had drug and alcohol issues and was driving on a suspended licence. There were incidents that happened which she now feels should have given her an indication about how he handled situations and that he was lying to her. After they got married these things became her problem.

Lara feels that domestic violence is not a new issue in the military, nor is it a small issue. When senior leadership fails to address these issues it becomes a foundational problem. There is a well established saying that ‘if the military wanted you to have a wife they would issue you with one’ and many senior leaders believe what happens in the house stays in the house.

Lara spent twenty years trying to figure out who she was and who he wanted her to be. She started to believe the things her husband was telling her and it didn’t matter what anyone else told her. She did something. She was the cause. She apologised for the reasons he was angry. She didn’t believe there was anyone else out there. There was nothing else left inside and she went through the motions to try to stop and slow down what continued to happen. In some ways she wished his abuse was more physical that verbal. It was so crushing and relentless.

Lara’s book Caged is a window into her life. As with nearly all trauma, there is a measure of healing to be gained in the sharing of her story, not just for herself and her family, but also for others who, like her who have lived under the veil of domestic violence for years. She offers a call to action for reform, encourages others to seek out help, and urges those in positions of authority to assess existing procedures and question certain long-standing policies.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Lara and her book Caged at www.LaraSabanosh.com

Decide to be happy

Rob Dubin was an award winning filmmaker who owned his own company and travelled the world working for numerous Fortune 500 companies. At 42, he and his wife changed direction, sold their home and bought a sailboat and spent the next seventeen years sailing around the world, studying human happiness and fulfillment.

In his late 60s he then started speaking on happiness and fulfillment and when the great resignation hit in the US, he realised that people were leaving their jobs not just because they were unsatisfied with their jobs but also with their lives.  He now works with corporations on wellness, happiness and fulfillment so they can keep their employees and develop a different type of corporate culture.

Pre-pandemic in the US there was a notion that if you did all the right things, went to school, got an education, got a job, got married, had a family, got the white picket fence, got reasonable promotions along the way happiness would just happen to you. That's not actually the way happiness works. In the pandemic there was a paradigm shift where millions of people started asking themselves were they happy in life, was their life ending up how they imagined it. Lots of people said no its not and resigned in mass numbers.

The second paradigm shift was when people asked themselves questions about their dissatisfaction at work. The HR department always knew the answer was more money and better benefits. Now that people are asking if they were happy in life, the HR departments are at a loss. If compensation and benefits are the solution, the great resignation would be over by now. When people ask themselves the question why am I not happy and how can I be happy, most people don't now how to make themselves happy. In the old world we knew that more money would make us happy. In the new world no one knows the answer because few people know how to make themselves happy.

When Rob and his wife had finished sailing around the world, a lot of people wanted to hear their stories but Rob wanted to leave people with more. He had been very involved in the sailing world and spent considerable time with very wealthy people, millionaires and billionaires who were aiming who high-end yacht races. A short time later they were sailing to tiny islands in the Caribbean and Pacific and spending time with and barefoot villagers. Some the very wealthy people were happy and some unhappy and it was the same for the villagers so happiness is clearly not your circumstances.

Rob feels happiness is both a state and a skill. We think that when zxy happens we will be happy. This is true in a small sense but this kind of happiness only lasts for a short time – we buy a new car, a new house and are happy but a while later we want a different car or house. We get sucked into this idea because it’s partially true but in fact real happiness is just a decision you make to make to be happy. Once we make that decision Rob thinks we need to practice habits or skills of happiness daily over a period of time until they become habits. Once they become habits and part of what you are, happiness becomes part of who you are. Rob uses LIVE HAPPY as an acronym.

L - Learn optimism

I - Invent your new story

V - Value yourself

E - Exert emotional control

H - Happiness is a decision

A - A daily gratitude

P - Practice mindfulness

P - Practice contribution

Y - Your dreams

Rob feels that the way we know when are happy is that we feel a deep contentment that you know your life is going the way you want it and that it is what we thought it was going to be. Our experience of life is our emotions so that's how we describe our experience of life be it happy, sad or worried, these emotions become our life.

The change in direction in Rob’s came a year after he and his wife were part of a group of people who spent five nights in the wilderness after being lost in a winter blizzard in Colorado. People generally only survive one or two nights so after three nights the search for them was called off and they were given up for dead. The search made the news worldwide and when they were found safe, the first call they received was from the President of the United States who congratulated them on their survival. 

The aftermath however though was that Rob’s wife incurred frostbite which led to the doctors saying they would amputate both her feet and most of her fingers. Rob wondered what life was going to be in the future. He left the hospital distraught and helpless but the next morning he woke up feeling powerful. He went back to the hospital where he and his wife refused to sign the papers for the surgery and focused instead on a full recovery. They decided that was going to the outcome and although his wife was in hospital for 21 days and it took a full year, he did make a full recovery. Rob feels their story of resilience has three phases. The first was when they were out in the storm. The second was when they decided they were going to focus on a complete recovery and focus on a compelling future for the future and the third was the story they told themselves going forward – that we can accomplish what we want so lets sail round the world

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more Rob at Robdubin.com

Setting a vision for success

Paola Knecht is a certified leadership, transformational, and self-development coach with fifteen years of experience working in leading-edge global corporations, including Viatris and Syngenta. She has recently published her first book The Success Mindset: Take Back the Leadership of Your Mind which challenges the mainstream view of success and asks her readers to redefine success so it is truly meaningful to them.

In her research, Paola looked at the difference between people who are extraordinary and reach things no one thinks are possible and people who don't achieve everything they want to. She feels that many people are living against an externalised idea of what success looks like rather than what matters to them and that they are following a definition of success that was not really defined by them but comes from external sources.

Paola thinks the first thing to consider is what success look like for each individual. For her, success is about discovering and following a vision and really thinking about what makes life meaningful. Not in terms of houses, cars or money because even though you may have reached certain milestones in the corporate world, it doesn’t mean you were successful in your own terms. You may have achieved all of the things you think you should have done but you still feel empty or stuck, don't find meaning in your life, feel bored or fall into the trap of never ending consumption. It’s about who you are rather than what you have.  

At different points in your career there is a chance to reset. Paola left Mexico because she wanted to travel. When she was a child her father gave her a globe which she used study. She graduated in engineering so when she had to choose where to continue her studies study she choose a Masters programme in Switzerland which gave her the opportunity to see more of Europe. Paola’s vision was that she wanted to see more of the world.  She feels we all need to set a vision for ourselves and that one way of doing this is reflecting back on what we enjoyed doing when we were children, before we took on responsibilities, followed other trends and disconnected from activities we loved. This can still be relevant as you get older. Not everyone will be clear on what they want, others are still not sure or discover they aren’t happy doing what they are doing and don’t know how to make the changes they need.

Paola thinks that resilience is something we are all born with, that's an inborn trait. This resilience muscle provides us with a self succeeding mechanism but as we get older and grow out of our inner self we tend to listen and comply to other people.  We forget our resilience muscle and don't ‘train’ it any more so become people pleasers who try to live in a world were we are liked by others and fill their expectations, Then, when a big challenge comes along we find ourselves helpless, asking ourselves ‘what do I do next’, ‘I don't want to fail and my self image be ruined’.

A way of growing resilience is to stop people pleasing. Always working to be liked gets in the way of understanding yourself and having your own sense of self. We need to learn to let go of peoples perceptions of us -  if we don't have our own vision, everyone’s else version of us becomes important.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Paola at www.my-mindpower.com

Her book is available at https://www.amazon.com/author/paolaknecht

Your story matters

Clint Davis was born in South Africa but, after living in Dubai and Australia, he and his wife realised a decades-long dream of living in the USA when they won the Green Card Lottery, a 0.73% chance. He and his wife then moved to Los Angeles, and eventually settled in Austin, Texas.

Clint considers resilience to be one of our greatest characteristics. Living in different countries is not as glamorous as it sounds. Growing up in South Africa he learned about adversity quickly particularly because of the dynamic change from the apartheid system and the racial healing that had to take place over a number of years. Clint and his wife developed a mindset that helped them deal with the different changes and challenges that played out as they moved from country to country. Whether it was budgetary issues or fitting into different communities, their approach became ‘this is where we are’ ‘this is the decision we made’ ‘lets see this through’ and ‘how do we do it’ rather than ‘can we do it’.

Moving gives you the opportunity to reinvent yourself but it also allows you to leave things behind. The more you mature the more you want to leave certain things behind. In your youth, when you move from a country you want to hang on to every nostalgic artifact and relationship but the truth of ‘out of sight out of mind’ is a human fact when you live it and over several moves you can lose many relationships. The reinvention of self is hard to translate back to people if you don't see them face-to-face. When you move countries you have to reinvent yourself and Clint feels the expats who don't make it are the ones who wanted to hang on to their homeland ideologies and didn’t recognise that a new country and culture require them to change. If you can find the balance of your roots and pair it with where you are now you can become an interesting tapestry of a person.

Holding on to your past is important in terms of resilience as its part of who you are. You need to adapt it for the future though rather than simply preserving it. There is a constant battle about what you hang on to and what you let go. Nostalgia actually holds you back when it come s to engaging with a new culture and will hold relational growth back.

Different structures, careers, countries, environments, types of jobs and the entrepreneurial world all need resilience to know you are going to get things wrong so failure needs to be factored in as part of the build process. People define failure differently but Clint feels that if you need to look at each failure as a learning environment , to approach it with a willingness to fail and learn from it and the humility that comes with it. If you are emotionally healthy and stable, you know that what others see as failures, you recognise as lessons and you don’t see failure but growth.

Clint spent seventeen years in radio, broadcasting to four different countries and was also a high performance driving instructor at racetracks and skidpans. Additionally he was involved with freelance podcasting and interviewing and event management. Now with his company Capsil App, the biggest difference is that instead of just doing it and taking the risk for himself, he now has a team of co-founders so needs to keep them and their families in mind as well as the product users and their families.  He feels you need to make a shift from yourself to how your decision making, emotional intelligence and communication plays out not just to keep things pure but to make sure things are communicated correctly - the heartbeat that everything you created as this entrepreneurial version of yourself is actually relayed and received in the correct light of what you are trying to do.

Clint feels that while we live in a digital age, we have done a poor job in passing our personal histories on generationally because there isn’t a stable platform to keep them on. Capsil App is a new platform where users can gather their memories and life stories into digital time capsules with full user control so it can be shared privately with future generations or on an optional public feed to inspire others. It can also provide users with coached storytelling expertise who can help remember all the details and create a meaningful recount of your life events and memories.

For more about Clint or information about Capsil.App visit www.capsll.app/

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Can hearing loss affect mental health?

There is no doubt that life is full of personal challenges, some will be small but others will be far more difficult to deal with. Hearing loss isn’t often thought of as something that can harm our mental health, but research has shown that it can have a huge impact on our self-confidence and relationships with others.

Hearing loss affects more than 10 million people in the UK and it is thought that this will increase to 14.5 million by 2031. Running alongside this is the hearing disorder Tinnitus that is estimated to effect 10%
of the UK population frequently, with 5% of them experiencing it in a persistent or troublesome way.

Whatever the diagnosis, hearing disorders can have a huge effect on our quality of life, both physically and emotionally. It can result in a breakdown of communication that can bring on physical symptoms such as tension and exhaustion as well as issues such as distrust, sadness, depression, nervousness, anger, irritability, feeling’s of incompetence or inadequacy and of being marginalised. People can become withdrawn and isolated so their social life can become more difficult and the prejudices associated with hearing loss can result in low self-esteem.

In the workplace, hearing problems can affect the ability to communicate with co-workers, interface with customers and function as part of a team. It can be harder to follow discussions and presentations and, if work relies on communicating with clients, a lack of understanding can be seen as rudeness or inability to do a job well. Hearing can also deteriorate as people get older and, as the majority of us will now be remaining in the workplace for longer, there will be a higher proportion of the workforce with some amount of hearing loss. Around 41% people with hearing loss already retire early due to the impact of their hearing loss, reasons commonly given include difficulties in fulfilling their day-to-day tasks, such as using the phone, or communication challenges with colleagues. Age-related hearing loss develops slowly over time so it can take several years before people actually realise they are having difficulty hearing and often their efficiency and self esteem has already been compromised by this point.

It is easy to understand why people might not want to tell their employer about a hearing problem but it’s important not to pretend or make excuses about it. This only creates problems in relationships with co-workers, customers and clients. People will be far more helpful if they know someone is suffering from a hearing disorder rather than just not paying attention to them. Employers have a legal duty to make reasonable adjustments in the workplace for disabled employees and prospective employees and this includes people with hearing loss. This could mean adjusting the layout of a meeting room, using better lighting to help the person with hearing loss see everybody clearly to help with lip-reading, moving to a office where sound is transmitted well and providing equipment such as amplified telephones and flashing-light fire alarms.

Well-developed resilience skills can also be helpful in dealing with the issues surrounding hearing disorders. The coping skills that can help you bounce back from setbacks and challenges can also be used to deal with some of the issues that can come with a loss of hearing. Stress, anger, pain and feelings of victimisation or of being overwhelmed can be helped by learning some simple techniques that control your psychological response to pressure. It may seem that some people have inbuilt resilience, but resilience is defined in terms of behaviour, so it’s something that everyone can learn and develop so they can cope with pressure, adversity and uncertainty.

Invisible disabilities are sometimes easy to ignore, and although developing resilience will not make problems disappear, it can provide the ability to see past an issue, to better handle stress and to ensure that confidence, energy and performance are maintained.

You can listen to any of our podcasts here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Mindfulness in nature.

Karen Liebenguth has been working with individuals, teams and groups for 12 years, using green spaces, mindfulness and coaching to foster personal and professional development, mental resilience and wellbeing. Karen was one of the first people in the UK to start coaching while walking in nature after finding that both she and her clients get far better results outside rather than sitting indoors.  

Karen became interested in linking the threes areas together after she suffered some mental ill health herself. Around fifteen years ago she was heading a team for a corporate company but received very little line management support. She was suffering from anxiety, sleeplessness and a lack of confidence and needed to do something about it. A friend suggested she look into meditation and from that she thought abouttraining as a coach herself. She signed up for weekend coaching event and that was the start of her new career and setting up and running her own business.

Nature is really the space in which Karen prefers to work with her clients and this goes back to her childhood. She always had a deep connection with nature and is grateful to her mother who was a nature lover and took Karen and her sister on bike rides and walks, Her mother was a single mother who worked full time so the time they had was limited but the time they did have was spent outside and this really helped when life wasn't easy. 

Being in nature supported Karen’s own mental health so when she started coaching and working with clients, she wanted to bring nature into work so they could benefit from it as well. Over the past few years there has been a large shift towards different types of outdoor coaching but there is a lot of evidence to show that being in nature is good for us. We all know what it feels like when we go into our local park or into our back garden. We feel different because we come from nature, it’s our place of origin. The pandemic has put the benefits of being in nature on the agenda for both mental and physical health. E. O. Wilson coined the term biophilia hypothesis, the idea that we have an innate attraction to seek connection to the natural work. It is also well documented that spending time in nature reduces the heart rate, stress and hormone levels as well as boosting the immune system and reducing feelings of loneliness, isolation and depression.

Mindfulness is a skill that needs application and practice. Karen feels it’s training for the mind in the same way physical exercise trains muscles. She also thinks that mindfulness happens in the relationship between our brain and our environment. It is often talked about as if mindfulness only happens in the brain but neuroscience has shown the brain can change but it doesn’t happen on its own.

Mindfulness is so much more than self-awareness. Its about paying attention to the body, emotions, events, how we relate to other people and our environment. Its also about heartfulness, the attitude we bring to ourselves and others. In any situation we can choose the attitude we bring - whether we are open, friendly, kind, compassionate and respectful or whether we are closed, harsh, and critical. Mindfulness helps bring a non-judgemental attitude to ourselves, our own experience and to other people as well as helping us to get to know ourselves so we understand how our actions impact on other people and our surroundings.

Karen feels that we have to experience mindfulness for ourselves, that we have to come to it because we are curious enough about the idea that it might enhance our life.

You can find out more about Karen and her work at greenspacecoaching.com

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Fashion as empowerment. Social responsibility, technology and resilience.

Jonathan Joseph believes that fashion is for everyone. He started his company Little Red Fashion as way to educate children about the fashion industry through tech-enhanced books and resources that empower the next generation of fashion lovers, leaders, consumers, and creatives through a lens of DEI and sustainability.

Jonathan worked as a consultant in the woman’s luxury fashion and sportswear industry. During this time he saw a lot of toxicity and negativity that not only affected people working in the industry but also consumers through marketing and advertising. He thought that it would be possible to shortcut some of these issues such as the body dysmorphia created by unrealistic standards by empowering children rather than fixing broken adults.

After being left at an orphanage in Columbia when he was a baby, Jonathan was adopted when he was nine months old. He then grew up in New York where he was diagnosed with Ataxic Cerebral Palsy (ACP). This is a very rare type of Cerebral Palsy that affects perception, balance and fine motor skills but Jonathan’s parents taught him to be resilient. He wasn’t treated any differently by his family. It was ‘OK you have Cerebral Palsy but you can find ways around it and we will fight for you’.

Living with ACP became normal for Jonathan. His is non generative and when he was younger he undertook a lot of physical and occupational therapy. He also had to wear leg braces and these helped get him into fashion. His Mother was always looking for ways to empower him against the ACP by finding clothes and accessories that provided ‘armour’ in a world that may otherwise have been judgmental. Jonathan feels his Mother was a great role model. She was diagnosed with breast cancer before he was born and he can remember when she was going for chemo or radiation treatment she always had a scarf and her favourite Dior sunglasses - her armour for a situation that was disempowering by its nature.

Jonathan feels that you can use fashion as part of your therapeutic approach by creating a persona or armour or by realising that how you currently present yourself might be part of your ongoing issues. There is also the opportunity to use fashion as a lens to deconstruct the negative things that the fashion industry is notorious for. Fashion is a double-edged sword.  It can be very empowering but you can also get wrapped up in the consumer culture that puts a premium on fashion to the detriment of financial or mental health. The need is to create a healthy relationship between fashion, the consumer culture and children. Children need to realise that whatever their online personality is it comes from them and should be empowering. As long as they are aware of that then they are approaching it in a healthy way.

The fashion industry brings together a lot of topics under its umbrella, business, design and textiles for example. Jonathan’s company Little Red Fashion uses fashion as a lens to talk about and deconstruct complex issues and broker conversations between children and adults. Fashion is infinitely relateable and can play a role in how children navigate the world. Jonathan uses augmented reality (AR) to help highlight the goals of diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability by enhancing static resources like books to make them more dynamic and interactive and easier to engage with things such as body positivity They also have a fashion mentorship scheme so children and families can get resources and insights from professionals across the field in different disciplines that may inspire them – helping to move away from the ‘need to know someone in the industry’.

Jonathan’s first book The Little Red Dress is available on website preorders from February 2022

You can find out more about Jonathan and Little Red Fashion here.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

What relationships need to succeed. Communication, learning and resilience.

Kathryn Ford has been practicing psychotherapy for over 20 years. She now specialises in working with couples and other relationships having realised the importance of relationships and that she could do a better job if she had the whole relationship in the room rather than a single piece of it.

Kathryn feels being in a couple is very natural but that it’s also very natural to have difficulty being in a couple. Statistics show that about 75% of all human beings will attempt to be in a couple or major relationship at some point and, as Kathryn says, these relationships are the major way we continue to grow as adults.

When people make the mistake of thinking that the relationship is difficult because there is something wrong,  wrong with one of them, wrong with the relationship or that they are the wrong match, what’s really going on is that there is a lot of learning to be done and it takes a while to figure out how to do that.

Kathyrn feels that realising that being in a relationship is the single most important thing you can do for your own happiness and that pursuing your own happiness separately doesn't usually result in happiness. Some people ask her what is the most Important thing to look for in a partner and she thinks that we need to look for someone who likes to learn and is interested in learning because most of what you will need to do with this person is to learn together.

People often look for a type of person for a relationship without understanding what a type is and how restrictive that is. You could also look at there being different relationships for different stages in life. In the same way a company grows, relationships can have their entrepreneurial, start up and acquisition phases. The need is always to figure out how to learn together because relationships can run their course if you don't keep doing this.

Children can change relationships. In previous generations children were not at the centre of the parental relationship but in many cases now that is completely reversed. Couples need to realise that they have to prioritise their child’s health and wellbeing but that the learning for that child will come from how well they do as a couple. The main task of the family is to help the children learn to be with other people but how can you help your child learn how to relate if you’re not doing a good job of that yourself? There needs to be a emphasis on the couple. Previously families were larger social groups and there were a lot of people around to help each other. These days its more likely that two adults are trying to raise their children so the quality of their relationship makes the difference in sustaining the energy needed for the demands of being a parent. This highlights how couples need resilience. We need to face our battles together, help each other as we fail and bounce forward and learn from the experience.

Kathryn feels that the type of conversation that many couples have does not help. Often it boils down to a debate, a checking in about who knows what and whose ideas are better. What’s needed is an enlivened conversation that builds resilience and allows both people to explore and learn together. They can then move out of an adversarial mindset to a place where they can learn and be resilient together. Kathryn feels learning is the most important thing that a couple needs to do. A relationship can be demanding and needs energy and an inspiring vision, something to aim for that learning can be added to. The vision is what you’re going to learn to do together not who you already are when you start the relationship. Relationships do through different stages and this can bring different aspirations - one person moves forwards and leaves the other one behind.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Kathryn and her work at her website including details about her new course starting this month with Stanford Continuing Studies .

Welcome to 2022!

Well, after what’s been a long year, an exciting year and for many, a challenging year, we’ve made through 2021. Whilst some people found it a tricky year to navigate, others found it a lot easier, but however we got through 2021, its what we do next that matters.

2022 has all the makings of being a fascinating year, a pivotal year and what’s needed is the mindset to make the most of it. A lot of people start the New Year by drawing up a set of resolutions but don't build the plan with the means to achieve it. Without a breakdown that takes you from the beginning to the end you’re set up to fail.  

Writing resolutions can though be more of a bigger picture exercise. Using something like the Wheel of Life can help you look forward to the future in 10, 20 or 30 years time. By looking at things like where am I going to be psychologically, in my career, financially, or relationship wise, you can see the bigger picture that can then help you figure out resolutions for the short term.  Of course, if our goals aren’t long term enough or ambitious enough, our resolutions can sometimes become trite and meaningless so don't grip our imaginations. For 2022 why not tackle your resolutions differently – put a plan together for the whole year … with a reward attached when you achieve it.

Another option is to forget goals and resolutions and sit down and review the previous year. Figure out the things you want to stop, start and continue. Look at where you’re going and what you can stop doing. You’re probably not setting goals or resolutions based on what went before so look at what you want to do more of and what you want to do less of or stop doing. We’re all guilty of taking on more and more, whether it’s work or social commitments and we don't think about what we can mindfully remove from our lives.

The idea of stop, start and continue is very simple but it mind give you a better idea of how 2022 might find into the general direction of things. Maybe 2022 can be the year you can really sort out where you are going. Work-wise, it might be a case of asking yourself whether your work still has purpose and meaning? Is it where I want to be? The future of work is changing and the rebalancing of the labour market and the way we are working means there is the opportunity to make changes.

Some people have already made considerable changes, moving from the idea of financial reward to that of seeing a tangible outcome. This year there is the potential to ask ‘do I really want this or am I just doing it for for the money’. Four criteria you could use to look at your job are whether it brings money, intellectual challenge, fun or achievement. If you’re not getting any of these from your role it’s possible that it’s total lack of meaning and interest could lead to burnout. Ask yourself what do I want from this year? If you don't know what you want, reverse it and ask what don't I want? What is the purpose and meaning of work in your life? How important is it in the scheme of things. Remember your focus will change at different stages in your life. You could also try to write a bucket list, bunches of different ideas and things you haven’t tried. We can easily get stuck in a rut doing the things we always do and finding meaning is not always about having things or going places rather finding happiness in what we do.

2022 is about change. The culture of organisations, the world economy and coming out of Covid will all lead to change which in turn will creates opportunities … and risks. The more we can plan for the future, the less anxious you will feel about it. Once you’ve worked out what you want or don't want to do you can apply self-discipline and focus to achieve it.  Here’s where it can go wrong through. Sometimes we get distracted by things that give us a greater or short- term reward or procrastinate too long so we miss the discipline of long-term goals.

Whatever the root-cause of your distraction, take away the decisions and just go out and do it! Dump the rules and just make choices. Decide what you want and then go out and do it. Chose to do one thing, enjoy it then choose something else to do the next day. Choices are what help’s us to make the life we want. Decision fatigue comes from having too many decisions to make so in a way it’s easier to say no to everything rather than having to challenge ourselves by making lots of small decisions.

Maybe we should make 2022 a year of choice. Whether we choose to be different, choose to get something special for ourselves, choose to deliver more than we think we can, the first choice we need to make is to have a plan behind us!

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

The learning is in the journey. Resolving conflict between teens and their families.

Valerie Canino works with parents and their teens to help them focus on resolving conflict and set goals to help create a success path.

Valerie doesn't consider teens a troublesome category to work with. She finds them very enlightening, feels they have a lot of wisdom and that they are misunderstood a lot.  The teen years are challenging. It’s a growth period and a stage in their life where they are learning much of what they’ll take into adult life - exploring and experiencing friendships and relationships as well as having academic pressures.

Much of Valerie’s work revolves around creating a strong connection between parents and their teens. This is a period of life when teens really need their parents. She feels that some teens struggle especially when making decisions and solving problems. She often finds when coaching teens that they want to do well and be resilient but they don't know how to do well. They get stuck and her coaching helps them get unstuck and find the answers.

Often they get stuck because of outside influences such as social media, which make them feel they are on the outside. Their own parents have expectations and want them to be successful but this looks different for every family. Teachers and other adults in their world can also add to the pressure by making them feel powerless and that they don’t have a voice – why say anything, why do anything if you’re not going to be listened to?

Nowadays teens aren’t really trained to think critically. Critical thinking programmes don't feature in the education process any more as schools especially are set up to get students through subjects. Critical thinking is essential though in helping teens work through a problem, realise what is going to move them forward and help them get the result they want. Schools can’t be responsible for everything so its up to parents to be responsible for the provision of a parent model. This can have a huge influence on kids. A parent helping guide their child through making a decision is extremely powerful but a lot of the times Valerie finds that although great strides have been made on parenting there is still some thinking in society that adults know best. It’s up to the parent to create a connection and allow their child to make mistakes and decisions and to figure out their own path

Being a guide is about creating a connection and allowing the teen to have their voice and express themselves. Letting them be who they want to be, focusing on the good and positive, having an open dialogue and parenting from within. Instead of telling them what to do, parents should be helping them figure out what to do. Parents may not like the decision but once the choice has been made the decision is owned. This experience of owning that choice allows them to learn and teaches responsibility and consequence all of which is very empowering.

There are several different styles of parenting which work for different ages but Valerie helps parents develop their parenting instincts so they don’t come from their head, ego anger and fears, but from their own instinct for what they think is best for their teen. They are listening within rather than taking on outside influences. Part of being a parent is setting rules and structures but there is also a need to allow teens to have an opinion and for this to be discussed freely. They need to be able to balance their expectations by setting their goal and having a plan to achieve it but also being open to other options in case it doesn't work out. The focus may be on the end result but a lot of the learning is in the journey. It's the plan, the need to execute the plan, to get things wrong but then having the resilience to move forwards.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Valerie and her work at https://valeriecanino.com/ She is also the author of the upcoming guide Surviving to Thriving and the owner of the non-profit Mission A-Teenable, Inc., which seeks to offer coaching to teens at a low cost.

Time to invest in ourselves.

Dr Russell Thackeray’s podcast from December 2020 talks about the rather strange circumstances we found ourselves in 2020 and how we could launch ourselves into 2021. Unfortunately, much of this is still very relevant to the uncertain times we find ourselves in again this year so we thought it could be useful to return to it. In this podcast:

There is no doubt that during 2020 we’ve seen the best - and the worst of people in the work environment. There have been tales of heroism and triumph. People who haven’t worked for a large part of the year have had to deal with the economic and mental health issues that brings whilst others have worked relentlessly and tirelessly with the possibility of burnout hitting at some point. People have moved from big, open plan offices with the support, and problems, that brings to the challenge of working at home, sometimes in an environment really not suited to work!

The one thing we can bring out of the whole situation is the importance of resilience. We have seen that people can whether the storm, they can keep going and even thrive but its important to realise that they can’t keep going forever. At this time of year we all really need to do one (or both) of two things:

·      Stop and rejuvanate ourselves or

·      Invest in ourselves to plan forward.

Firstly, we need to really stop and look at what we’re doing. Remember we’re on holiday so turn off the work mobile, don't look at the emails and don’t start on the presentation needed in the New Year. We have to have a break to renew. Try some meditation or breathing exercises, have some long, relaxing baths or get out for some walks in the countryside.

Stopping will also help you to think forward. If you feel stuck or aren’t happy then start planning! There are a huge number of free learning courses online to help obtain some new skills. Alternatively, check out the Wheel of Life, which can help us think and project forward through categories such as career, relationships finance and happiness. It will also highlight the fact that at different points in our lives, different things are important. For example, at the moment you may be prepared to work hard because its getting you where you want to go but alternatively, you might be coming to a point where you’re working equally hard but you realise it’s not giving you what you need so it’s time to stop and think about what you really want.

Once we stop we can then start to invest in ourselves. We can begin by being more mindful about the way we engage with ourselves, our partners and our friends and family and the time we dedicate to them. We can look at our immune system and the nutrients and vitamins it needs to improve our sleep and help us generally feel better. We can also look at our work environment. We need to make sure we can move about freely, take time away from screens and build in proper breaks rather than just keeping going.

Rolling forward, it looks as if the seas will be a bit choppy so thinking about the narrative we use can help our mental state. If we think 2021 is going to be terrible we’ll spend our time dreading what’s to come whereas if we adopt more of a ‘what will be’ attitude we’ll be able to deal with situations a lot better. Plan some things that you can look forward to. Just the process of booking future holidays, family events or days out helps change our mental state. Remember how confirmation bias helps give us the things we believe in. If, on balance, we think 2021 will be a positive year it’s far more likely to happen if we tell ourselves it will. 

Our mental state can also be affected by the constant flow of social media. The dopamine surge when we get ‘liked’ on Facebook can be pretty addictive so we need to keep a healthy sense of perspective. The same is true about the media generally. We need to become more rationally pragmatic so we can make measured decisions about what we see and read.

Above all else, we need to be kind to ourselves. 2020 has been a year like no other and we all deserve some time and some self-care.

The only other thing to say is that we hope you have a happy and safe Christmas and we look forward to catching up with you again in 2022!

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

Understanding and dealing with conflict

Douglas E Noll or Doug Noll was born deaf, blind and unable to walk. He had four surgeries before he was three to enable him to walk and at school did not perform well until the fourth grade when a school nurse tested his vision and found he couldn't see.

Although he was raised in privilege and affluence, socially and emotionally had no support as his parents were distant and he was left to fend on his own. However, once he had glasses he did well at school, and high school, going on to Dartmouth College before attending law school in California. He initially worked for a judge before going into private practice to become a civil trial laywer. After twenty-two years, he went back to school to obtain a Masters in Peacemaking and Conflict Studies before quitting law practice in 2000 and becoming a peacemaker.

Doug now uses an advanced form of mediation to deal with conflict in law suits, litigation or disputes where people are so angry they would rather kill each other than sit down and talk! He helps to deescalate situations and calm people them down to help them work through the issues to build a durable peace. There are four basic ways to deal with human conflict. The first is coercion where one person tells the other person what to do. The second is litigation where you go to an outside authority such as a judge or arbitrator who has the power to decide whats going to happen. The third way is to go to mediation which allows the parties involved to still have the power to resolve the issue themselves but with an outside person to help them through a process that allows them to focus on the situation. The last way is negotiation. Most situations are resolved in this way but people often want to revert to coercion if they get too upset. Whatever the size of a dispute, the issue at hand is usually not the problem. Conflict generally arises because one or a combination of six needs are not being met. Doug calls these the Six Needs of Justice - Vengeance, Vindication, Validation, The need to be heard, The need to create meaning and The need for safety.

People generally prefer peace, and only involve conflict if they feel there is no other way to get resolution. As we don't like conflict we tend to avoid it so are not used to dealing with it when a major conflict occurs. Few people have any training in dealing with conflict and without it’s difficult to know how to deal with anger or upset without being triggered yourself. Listening other people is one of the key foundational skills of life because it helps in developing your own emotional database and is an antedote to getting upset or angry when someone starts yelling at you.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Doug here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Doug and his work at https://dougnoll.com/ HIs latest book is De-Escalate: How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less

Taking charge of MS

Wendy Björk has been living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) for over 35 years and now used her experience and knowledge to help people diagnosed with MS to know they have choices and that there is hope 

Wendy explains MS in terms of an electrical cord that you pull from the wall socket roughly too any times. The wires start to separate and the covering becomes damaged. The nerves in the body also have a covering and in MS, the cover is damaged or missing so when the brain tries to signal the body the signals are missed or not received correctly - the body still works but not at 100%.

In the US there is some discussion as to whether MS is genetic, There is no diagnosed MS in Wendy’s family but her grandmother had what was thought to be very bad arthritis and could barely walk and Wendy feels there may also have been an element of MS in this.

Often MS starts with quite small things that could be attributed to many other illnesses. It took six years for Wendy to be fully diagnosed. She started suffering from symptoms when she was fifteen or sixteen. When she got out of a hot bath her legs felt like ‘spaghetti’ and were useless. She mentioned this to her doctor during her annual physical but he didn’t seem to think it unusual so she kept ignoring it. It kept happening and then she started to get numbness and tingling in her feet.

Every case is different but it often starts with the extremities of the body. Wendy feels you should look for non- connected experiences. She first saw a neurologist when she was working at he first job in an insurance office. It was a very busy and stressful environment and one day she just couldn't speak. She thought she was having a stroke but in reality something in her brain wasn't connecting properly and in this instance it was her speech that was affected.

MS is a life limiting illness but people can choose how to look at it, deal with it and live with it. Treatment following a medical diagnosis will now often involve different infusions and medications that suppress or mask the symptoms. When Wendy was first diagnosed there were few medications available so she had to learn how to manage the things around her. She still feels this is a good step – alleviating stress, keeping calm and doing breathwork can all help in resetting your nervous system.

It can be very easy to go into a negative spiral. You can feel out of control because you can’t do anything about the diagnosis and slip into a depressive zone. It took Wendy a long time to navigate around it but she realised she was only 40 years old so needed to do something different. She considers herself very fortunate that her manager in her first job was very supportive. It was the early 90’s and he was very interested in self-development so sent her on a number of seminars and courses where she learnt how to take something and find a positive in it. Everyone is dealing with something and manipulating the way you use your brain can help deal not only with MS but also other illnesses or situations. 

In the US Wendy feels there are definite gaps in the care of MS.  A positive attitude is a good start but there are other aspects apart from mindset. There are many chemicals that can interfere with how your system functions so what you are eating, drinking and putting on your body is important in reducing the amount of inflammation in the body. A support circle and someone you can talk about your MS to is also important as is the home environment where things such as cleaning products can have an effect on your bodies system and how it functions.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Wendy here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Wendy and her work at Heartsofwellness.com and also download her free ebook ‘What is your body trying to tell you’.

A blueprint for life. Moving on from extreme narcissism.

Derek Newborn is the owner of a worldwide online health and fitness coaching programme that focuses on the mind body and spirit. He has also set up a website, thenewbornblueprint.com which aims to help men who have had massive emotional setbacks and want to reclaim their truth and connection to the world.

Derek initially worked as a personal trainer and built a highly successful personal training business. He was then discovered by a modelling agency and became a fitness model but the further he went down that path, the more he lost himself emotionally and mentally. His relationships with his friends and family went down and it seemed that the more successful he appeared externally and the more recognition he got for his physical appearance, the more the emotional and mental aspects of his life went in the opposite direction. He suffered from a massive clinical depression, two suicide attempts and as he went through that journey, he realised he had become a narcissist.

Derek felt he had lost himself. He had always had a vision of how his life would be and that he would like to make a successful career in the fitness world. He achieved that, his partner at the time was his ‘dream girl’ so on paper he had everything he thought he needed and wanted. On the inside though personal issues from his past meant he felt extremely empty. He used self-sabotaging behaviours, cheating, lying and hurting the people he loved the most to try to find the peaceful feeling he felt he was missing. The only thing he was concerned about was filling the emptiness so although on outside everything seemed great but on the inside he was disconnected.

Derek feels his feeling of emptiness stems from abandonment issues from his childhood. This fear outweighed any love he had for his family and partner so he was just focused on not being abandoned. The process of not being abandonment however actually pushes people away through his self sabotaging behaviours, Derek created everything to was trying to avoid.

At the same time he realised he had become a narcissist. Everything was about him and making himself feel good. A narcissist isn’t concerned about taking advantage of other people, they are self-centred and don’t worry about the repercussions or damage they create. Derek started to work on his narcissism initially by addressing his abandonment issues. He had to connect himself to his truth and believe that no matter who comes and goes in his life, no matter what his financial situation is, he is not going to be abandoned

In the past if relationships broke down Derek would just go out and find somebody to entertain him but now he is able to do things alone and can be happy and content with himself. He had to be honest with people about why he did or said things and from there it was about reverse engineering everything that he had done. After his first suicide attempt he had to go though some therapy and has since done several different versions of conventional therapy. He found that the most effective therapy for him was reconnecting with his past traumas and working through them. He felt therapy kept reliving the bad things and it was hard to see himself as a new person if he kept reliving the past.

Derek built his website thenewbornblueprint.com for modern men. Derek defines a modern man as somebody who is comfortable with themselves and knows exactly who he is. He feels that modern society makes it easy for a man to lose himself and that it’s more about keeping you controlled as a man. It is rare for a man to talk about struggling mentally or of being a narcissist and things like social media are easy to get wrapped up in. A modern man takes ownership of the good and bad in his life and is always trying to improve it

Derek believes its harder than ever for a man to be a true man, especially in America where people think of men as being very macho, very brave, of working super hard and being tough. Many women now exhibit more of these characteristics and abilities which makes it difficult for men to cover off or invent a new set of purposes for themselves. The Blueprint is also for partners so they can better prepare themselves and understand that no one is born a narcissist, that things have to happen and people show up in their lives to strengthen the characteristics.

Health and fitness is incorporated into Derek’s approach. He feels that if you are severely out of shape or not physically confident it can be hard to be mentally confident. Originally his programme focused just on physical fitness but he soon realised how much of an emotional and mental attachment there is to the fitness journey. Derek feels that if men want to be successful in relationships they have to be completely connected to their truth. He thinks that every man has a purpose and as they go through life their truth gets blurred and they lose themselves. They go through life unfulfilled because they aren’t aligned with their truth and sometimes get so far away they don't even want to face that part of their truth. They then coast though, knowing that they aren’t living at their full potential but too scared to go down what can be a lonely road.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Derek here.. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Derek at https://www.thenewbornblueprint.com/

Aligning Psychological Safety, Burnout and Resilience

Psychological Safety is something that Dr Thackeray has long been fascinated by. He is particularly interested in how it aligns with Burnout and Resilience so in this podcast he discusses:

• What psychological safety is

• What it’s all about

• What it has to offer us

• Some of the different theoretical ideas around psychological safety

Dr Thackeray feels that in order to build a psychologically safe culture we probably need to have psychologically safe people. But which comes first? This is where the challenge of resilience links together. The idea of resilience is that after making a mistake or error, resilient people are able to bounce back or forwards, to weather the storm, build capacity for change and understand themselves well enough to know where their own resilience may be compromised. They are able to make a mistake and come back from it.

Psychological Safety works on the idea that you can state the mistake so you don't actually make it or if you do, you can disclose it. So if you aren’t resilient are you able to be resilient in a non-psychologically safe culture? If you are resilient part of the way a making a psychologically safe culture is having the skills of resilience. The term burnout is used to describe a situation where people become exhausted and lose their capacity to care and to cope.  If you’re psychologically safe or talking about the correlation between overwork, a lack of care and burnout this may be an organisational indicator.

This is an increasingly important part of leadership and management. Dr Thackeray feels that part of the challenge is that leaders and managers have lost the subtlety to build a culture that is adult, robust and resilient, where people can still be accountable and responsible for the management of their own feelings. That in creating a psychologically safe culture, there is a risk of disempowering a manager to do what needs to be done.

In a psychologically safe culture leaders should be able to take feedback but Dr Thackeray feels that everybody needs to be able to take feedback. If anyone’s performance has gone off track there needs to be the type of culture where what needs to be said can be said. He thinks that having an adult culture is at the heart of psychological safety.  Having the ability to say I can be accountable, I cannot feel safe from time to time but also that sometimes I have to recognise my part in that process.

The question is how much baggage does a person bring into a psychologically safe environment? When we think about auditing people we need to have a baseline understanding of the level of anxiety that exists for people and also their level of independent safety. If you feel unsafe or feel anxious in your day to day life, your baseline of anxiety is going to be higher than other people so, when it comes to working in teams, having identity, purpose, fun and the ability to bounce ideas around, you are naturally going to be more anxious.

Does a leader therefore create a psychologically safe culture at the level of the most anxious person given that the most anxious person does not always divulge their anxiety? How do you create good practice? As well as great feedback that goes both ways, there needs to be a sense of camaraderie, of purpose and of meaning in the role that you’re doing. You have to have meetings where you say what needs to be said and you’re not shut down for putting forward an idea.

People can ask a very innocent question and someone can take offence or see a threat where there is none. There is a need to build intentionality in the culture, where people state that their intention is to build something but there may be times we it goes wrong but that shouldn’t mean we stop trying even if it isn’t always perfect. Dr Thackeray feels we have to test the culture and test the individual attitudes to anxiety before we start. We also need to have a sense of direction, a sense of meaning in the job and be able to speak out and share ideas without being laughed at.

When Dr Thackeray looks at the confluence of psychological safety, resilience and burnout, one of the key areas he considers is meeting’s. Often in meetings the happiest person is the one running it. People are there but they don't know why. It’s not relevant, it’s inefficient because it’s not the right medium. Meetings are where we can start to spot the issues. If people aren’t saying this meetings not for me, this meeting’s too long, do I need to be at that meeting they need to be more robust about the idea of return on investment and what they produce and where they invest their time. An adult culture allows anxious people to see the value in the time they are spending and making choices in where to spend that time.  So when a leader or manager asks where is the value of your contribution over the last week, that person can say this is the value of what I’ve achieved and this is where my value has diminished because of these effects.

There are always going to be meetings that need to be attended but there are numerous casual or careless meetings where people have just got into a routine. Meetings are where most people come together so if you cant challenge the team and speak out then there is an argument that you don't have psychological safety. If you don't have the confidence to talk to your manager directly, then that may be more of an issue between you and your manager. It might be down to your level of anxiety or their ability to lead you well. On a one-to-one level there is an equal responsibility to look at those things in both ways.

The question is how do we take leaders and managers to produce leadership, management and process that allows culture to be what we need it to be? 

You can listen to the podcast in full here.Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

The power of mindset. Dealing with Polymyositis.

Clarke Boozer has been living with a rare muscle disease for over twenty years. At it’s worst, he was in a wheelchair and told he might not reach his next birthday whilst at its best he’s ridden a hundred miles on his bike! He still has good days and bad days and each day when he wakes up, he doesn't know which it’ll be.

Before 2000 Clarke was very active, participating in, and organising sports. Then in 2001 he felt the first signs of the muscle disease. He was in the gym and felt a pain in his shoulder and after that things progressed very quickly. It became difficult to walk, he lost strength and was losing his breath very quickly when he tried to exercise.

He had no idea what was going on. His doctor told him he had tendonitis and bursitis. In the back of his mind Clarke knew that wasn't it. He was working as a family intervention specialist at a public school and one day he fell over and knocked himself out. He went back to the doctor but there was still no clue as to what the problem was. Over the next couple of months things got worse until he had to use a wheelchair.

He went back to see a specialist and at this point he asked if he would ever walk again. The doctor’s response was that walking was the least of his worries. The muscle disease was also affecting his internal organs and unless they worked out exactly what the problem was, he might not make it to his next birthday

Clarke’s initial response was anger. He couldn’t take in what they were telling him. He remembers being driven home and crying because he thought he was about to die. Because it had happened so suddenly he wasn’t prepared for it. At the time his children were 10 and 4, he had a good job and things had been going well. Now, he didn’t know how he was going to support his family.

He was eventually diagnosed with Polymyositis, an inflammation of the major muscles. There was no clue as to what had caused it but it can be related to autoimmune disease. His doctor prescribed high levels of drugs and after a few days the pain went away but he was still so weak he couldn't do anything. Simple things like buttoning a shirt, putting his shoes on and feeding himself were impossible.  

He felt at rock bottom. He was depressed, angry, mad at the world but also helpless. Because the disease had progressed so quickly it was difficult to understand what was happening.  Usually with muscle wasting diseases there is a gradual decline but Clarke was losing lbs each day and as his body was declining, his mind was driving him downward as well.

At the time Clarke didn't really understand how much mindset can affect physical health but an experience he had when he thought he was going to die started to change things around for him. He worked with a therapist on trying to improve his physical health and he went from thinking that his life was over if he couldn't participate in sports or play with his children. One day her just looked at his kids and his mother and realised he had something to live for. This change in mindset led to change in physiology. He started to find things he could do sitting in his wheelchair, initially just trying to lift his arm and then trying to build back strength into his legs. He still had ups and downs but he weighed the positives and negatives and found that talking to other people about his story gave him hope and helped in his recovery.

Clarke feels that mindset is the key and that we can do anything we want if we focus on what we say to ourselves and what we believe. He also thinks having a strong faith helps He has found African Spirituality, meditation and spending time in nature helps him reach his inner self and connect.  His aim now is to get out and help more people going through the same sort of issues he has. He has just completed Instinctive Mediation Teacher Training which he hopes he’ll be able to use and although he is limited as to the type of exercise he can do, he is hopeful that he might be able to undertake the 100 mile Portland Century bicycle ride again as well as continue with his Tai Chi, Qigong, recording music and DJ sets.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Clarke here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Clarke at http:/youtube.com/user/clarkecboo

Life as our label. Dealing with grief.

Nicki Pike has been a mortgage broker in Alberta, Canada for over 15 years, She loves her job and being her own boss but over the last few years she has gone through several traumatic events that have had a huge impact on her life. She had fertility problems and difficulties conceiving a child, went through a divorce, suffered the loss of her mother after watching her battle with dementia and the,n a few months later, lost her brother suddenly when he had a fall and developed a haematoma.

Grief is different for different people but Nicki was surprised and scared by what she felt.  She had lost her grandparents when she was growing up so had experienced grief but it was nothing like what she was now feeling. Her mother had been her main help and support and they had been very close, so she found it very hard to watch her change every day before her eyes. Although she had anticipated her death. when it happened it was very sudden and unexpected. Nicki’s brother had struggled with the dementia diagnosis and already had addiction, alcoholism, anxiety and depression issues himself. When Nicki was told he had passed away, she thought he had committed suicide which actually gave her a sense of peace but then she found out he had died of a hematoma caused by falling and hitting his head.

Nicki felt very angry. Her mother and brother had both been relatively young and she felt robbed. Her brother had been clean and sober for two years so when he died so all the anger and feelings she had about her mother’s death also came back. She was in a very dark place. Her grief didn’t feel logical and rational. It was so raw and emotional that it surprised her. She could talk about what she was feeling but the raw emotion she felt scared her. The level of grief she felt knocked her over. She just did what she needed to do for her daughter but could do nothing more. She had never felt so emotional and describes the feeling as an impact zone - waves of grief that were so strong and close together she was left feeling as if she couldn't breathe and was drowning. Although the waves didn’t get smaller, gradually they became further apart so she felt she had time to breathe.

There is a lot of information about grief but lots of it is irrelevant. Nicki feels that we don’t talk about grief and loss and what we go through in the early days enough. We need to have an idea of hope and a path towards it but we don't need to have someone telling us it'll all be great. Logically, we know we’ll come out the other side of our grief and that we’ll get back to what will be a new normality without the person we’ve lost. Lots of people offer support at the point of someone’s death but then after the funeral it disappears. There is often so much going on at that point that the loss doesn’t really hit us. We need support later on, through anniversaries and things that remind us of the person we’ve lost. We need our friends to be there when everyone goes back home to normal life and our life has changed forever.

Nicki was a quiet child but when she when found voice she started to use it. A high school friend who she reconnected with after brother’s death told her she had always thought of Nicki as being strong and this started Nicki on thinking about the different labels she’d had through her life.  During her marriage her labels had been a lot more negative – demanding, emotional, crazy and high maintenance, and she had believed them because she’d heard them so often. Later on as she started getting different labels - grieving daughter, grieving sister, single mother, divorced woman, she realised that living under labels was not a good place to be. When you lose people, you often get reminded of how strong you are, that you’re still here and can still get to live your life. Nicki thinks that in the early stages of grief that's not what you want to hear. She didn't feel strong, she didn't want to be a survivor because in the early days all she could think about was that her mother and brother were gone. We can use these words and labels but need to consider if the person at the receiving end is in the right place to hear them - are we helping or hurting?

Some people may say we’re strong because that is what suits them and their narrative of you. It then allows them to deal with you in a certain way. But dealing with grief is about what we need, not what they need. Some people just don't know what to say.  They have a fear of experiencing it themselves, of not saying enough or too much, or of triggering an unwanted response.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Nicki here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Nicki through Instagram or Facebook

Healing from wounds. The Art of Scars.

Kathy Hagler has been an organisational consultant for almost 40 years but prior to that was a pianist, a mathematics teacher and a college dean. It was while she was working as a college dean that she first met one of her mentors, Dr Edwards Demings. When he discovered her background in music and mathematics, he offered her the opportunity to work with him and she travelled with him extensively across the US as his ‘Girl Friday’ for over twelve months. At the same time, she was doing a Phd at Claremont College where she met her other mentor Dr Peter Drucker who was her major advisor and he also went on to become a personal friend. Kathy has taken the thinking of these two pioneers of management forward through her practice K2OH Solutions where she focuses on culture and climate and the reciprocation between them using her Organisations of Character Model which embodies her belief that culture drives every aspect of development, learning, execution, and reflection.

In her childhood Kathy suffered from a number of illnesses. Later on, her twenty-year old son was killed in car accident and her husband died shortly afterwards.  Kathy herself was then diagnosed with cancer so over the years she has developed a number of scars. She feels though that she can relate to the physical, emotional and spiritual scars she had. She then realised that organisations are similar in that they too have wounds and, like people, they can break and can heal. Kathy uses the Japanese art of Kinstugi or "gold joinery” as a metaphor for healing scars with both people and organisations. An ancient Japanese art, Kinstugi repairs a broken object by emphasising its scars with gold powder which creates a unique version of the original object. Kathy’s vision is to introduce the idea to people and organisations that you can break but you can heal and that if we put ourselves back together with gold, we are stronger and more distinctive.

Kathy’s work with organisations has shown that fear is often present. Her process is to show organsiations how to turn fear and brokenness into healing and then understand that they have healed from their wounds. Fear sits in the subconscious but this is the culture of the organisation so we can find out where the fear is coming from.  The fear can be removed and raised up into the conciousness so they can innovate and be better than before.

Kathy understands that people and organisations are imperfect and emphasises the importance of being upfront and honest about our flaws and mistakes. She helps organisations heal these “wounds” as she transforms organisations to one of character, trustworthiness, and resilience.

 You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Kathy here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.

You can find out more about Kathy here.