Wednesday 13 August 2014

Changing Our Minds To Change our Lives

Recently I met with Gill who is the director of Phoenix Health andWellbeing. We were brought together by Jon Woolmore, Chief Executive of Community Links,  who suggested a connection between the work York Street Practice and Phoenix do. Phoenix is a charity that specialises in offering 'high quality relaxing or remedial complementary therapies' which is based in Leeds. Their website explains their ethos and work: 'We are a charity supporting people with mental or physical health issues. We offer counselling and body work therapies to a range of people who are referred to us by medical professionals, mental health support workers or associated charities. These referred clients can have a range of complex needs but many experience low self-esteem, anxiety and social isolation. This can be reflected in their perceptions of themselves, their sense of isolation and level of self-care. The use of counselling and physical treatments provide  real contact with another person in a safe environment enabling the client to experience care and to feel genuinely valued as an individual. By coming along for one of our therapy sessions you are supporting our charitable work'.

We sat in a coffee shop near York Street and talked about what our respective services did and, as always, with these conversations we moved to how we can be part of the work to build best cultures and services in Leeds. Part of this call is to create best conversations. We cannot have best cultures and services if we don't have best conversations. Conversations of listening, learning and birthing new ideas and actions. It's a great sign that these conversations and actions are occurring all over our city. You can't see these networks and movements from a high office window. But they are there. It takes a different sort of seeing to note these and be aware of their power and potency.

We discussed the issues of wellbeing, work stress in life and at work and the necessity of positive spaces in our hectic lives. In this a story was shared. The story was of a trainer who worked with business people. The trainer led a group of business folk into a simple relaxing exercise lasting a few minutes. The aim was to let go, relax and just enjoy the moment. After the exercise a woman in the group said 'This is no use to me. I don't have 5 minutes a day to do this!' This frankly is an amazing statement. It says that we are too busy to relax, chill and give ourselves a few moments of letting go. It reflects how work demands can make us feel we don't even have time to make an instant coffee. We make no judgement on the lady who said this. We do say that if we don't make time for change then change won't ever come. If we wish to find some positive space and peace in our lives the chance is that we will have to make the time and space to do this. It just won't just happen. This has been recognised for a long time. One 16th century spiritual writer, Francisco de Osuna, advised meditating because it provided a refuge when faced with stressful situations. We have to withdraw to go forward.

Maybe one reason we don't change in the ways we wish is that we don't give the change the energy and time required for that change to appear and become stabilised. So is there any hope when we know we need to change but think there's no way we can make the time? We think there is. We need to change our thinking. We need to draw a good inner picture to ourselves of why we want this change, of the benefits and how much better life will be when the changes start coming through. We need to create a vision. A vision that moves us and connects with us. Finding what one writer called 'visional power' is what can start us off wanting the change and wishing to make it happen. This is not something we can just do once then forget. It's something we need to repeat daily so the vision of what we can be starts to grow and conversely we start to grow into that vision. The most powerful cases we have seen of people breaking the addiction to alcohol have not been those who have stopped drinking but rather those who have found a state of sobriety, a positive state of living without drink. This story holds to us the challenge of living in a busy world with so much stress. It also holds to us that we have 'visional power', the power to dream that we can act and live differently and seek the steps for that to happen. The work that Phoenix and York Street do are on the surface quite different  - different client groups, different sectors and different specialisms. Yet in the depths - where it really matters - the work for hope, wellbeing and people feeling better about themselves - it's just the same.

John Walsh, York Street Health Practice
Gill Trevor, Director, Phoenix Health and Wellbeing

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