Let’s be proactive rather than reactive
I did my original mental health nursing with a real passion to get into, what was known in the NHS then, as Early Intervention Services. The year I qualified they were all closed!
So I got hooked into the reactive services of the NHS, going on to become a psychotherapist. I always had this secret disappointment I could not go into schools and teach kids about how to have good mental health . How to like themselves, believe in their abilities, to not fear trying things out in case they made a mistake (to see it as learning and trying things out rather than failure) how to be aware of their minds and how to respond to thoughts and indeed what thoughts are and why we have them, as my job, rather than as a sidenote to it, when the opportunity presented itself. I did seize those opportunities as much as I could.
To demystify and take the fear out of being with ourselves, you could say.
That I could help teachers understand what was presenting in front of them. To help parents get the best out of their kids and themselves. I wanted to be able to reach out to everyone to help them to understand what makes them tick and how to manage our tricky, human minds. To do our best to prevent mental health problems happening in the first place for all ages.
My personal belief is that nearly everything about human experience, comes from self-esteem. For me, it feels like how we think about ourselves then creates how we perceive how we fit into the world and how the world sees us. It is like a filter. If we feel good and like ourselves we see all the things in front of us that confirm that. If we don’t like ourselves, that really changes doesn’t it? We keep wondering if what we said in that last conversation was wrong, or the person now hates us, or we fear doing a presentation in case we are found out to be an imposter, or negatively judged, we avoid people for fear of judgement and may not take up opportunities in case we fail and we then can’t bear the confirmation we are rubbish (not that that is the case, but we fear it is).
We all experience the roller-coaster of self-esteem. However, if we are on the lows of that roller-coaster, more often than we would like, the great news is, we can usually improve it. I am working now as a coach so that I can work with a much wider audience, those who do not have a mental health diagnosis, but would like to feel better about themselves that then leads to a sense of contentment, confidence and gentle self-belief.
My feeling is that we should be trying to not just improve poor self-esteem but in fact make it a human mission to create healthy self-esteem as early on as possible, be that 15 or 79 years of age!. If we fear we are not good enough, as an example, that can effect us our whole life in almost every domain of our life. Maybe not all the time, but maybe more than we would like.
Here I am, twenty years later, about to embark on my original mission, with kids, teenagers, adults, parents, you the person reading this and literally anyone who has an interest in learning more about themselves and how to get the best out of themselves.
You do not have to have a mental health problem to benefit from improving how you think about yourself and understand how you tick. It not only helps you, but also those around you. Be that as a parent, as a manager, as a friend, as a colleague, as sister and so on.
I am at the start of creating courses you can take, split into subject areas so you can pick what interests you and if you want to, you can add on a some one to one work.
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Where I have come from:
It has been a bit of journey to get to the place of opening the doors to my new coaching practice. I have achieved quite a few things in my life, there have been a lot of ups and downs along the way along with tears, frustration, great joy and great despair. I have experienced much change, some of it amazing, some of it less so. I have had successes and steep learning curves when things have not quite gone according to plan! So I get where you are right now, reading this. I do! I absolutely hate the word “failure”. I think it should be struck from the dictionary. Instead, I honestly believe, we try things out, some things go great and some things less so. We learn so much more from the latter. Whilst it can be painful, we do live and learn. We love success, of course but only if we allow ourselves to. And the definition of success varies from one person to another. That is a whole other blog post or 7! It is also an important part of the coaching process, to think about what we want. We love the word goals don’t we? But goals in themselves, are slippery things as well. Have you noticed how the most important goal we thought we had in life, the things we MUST get, we did get, or did not, or did something differently anyway, but is now totally forgotten, along with a lot of the emotions we went through? I find this very interesting.
Working life experiences to date:
I have worked in so many different settings and different people over my lifetime. I have worked in the American and UK corporate world (from project management, involving large international banks to worldwide logistical co-ordination of shipping containers of food stuffs), the NHS, private therapy practices (those of others and my own), corporate healthcare, run my own businesses both at home in England then on our current Highland adventure. When I reflect on all the many people I have worked with its amazing. We kind of take it for granted at the time, but we learn from everyone who we walk a path with. From colleagues to the families of clients and clients themselves (often my most amazing teachers and inspiration) to managers, mentors, other professionals and neighbours, friends and family. Much of those things have been really helpful, and have helped shape who I am now, and I am grateful for that. Some have taught me how NOT to do things, to understand how hurtful people can be but also how wonderful and interesting.
What I bring to coaching:
I have been working in mental health for the last 20 years and learned so much about psychology and how to help and motivate people make and sustain changes in their lives, often in very adverse circumstances. I have felt privileged to walk this path with them. I never cease to be amazed at how positive transformations happen and how they play out. What human beings can understand, achieve, strive for and make happen. It is a truly wonderful thing to behold. Very hard work, often, but, so worth it.
This is probably the hardest part for me to write, as I am, by nature modest and humble. I think being humble when working with people is essential. I don’t have all the answers but I am very good at helping people find theirs. You have your answers, you just need some help to find them. I have to say that I am very good at that. I am very good at helping people to understand themselves, in simple and jargon free language.
Should you choose some one to one work, we will use diagrams to help you see why you do what you do, both the helpful and the less helpful. What power eh? To be able to say, OMG that is why I do that. Now I know why I do that, I can change it, how wonderful! I love being able to give this gift to all my clients. I have a passion and admiration for my clients. It takes a lot of courage to seek help in a society that says we should be able to do everything on our own. I do not believe that society is right in many messages that it gives us. Messages that often come from ages gone by. It is often the environments we are in that crush us. People don’t usually burn out from their jobs, they burn out because of the environments in which they work. I have experienced this myself both in the NHS and private sector therapy provisions, it is real. I can help you look at what is going on in your life, help you identify what YOU think you need to change, not what I think. I will never be ‘fluffy’ just real, honest, down to earth and I am in your corner, with honesty, compassion, warmth, kindness and able to listen to what you need and want to say. Not to mention, the coffee, fun and humour. If you choose one to one coaching with me, heck, bring your lunch, lets keep it real. I will do my best to put myself in your shoes and understand how you are seeing in your world. It really matters, to be heard. It really matters to feel no judgement, just understanding with kindness but also a space to develop and grow. I will challenge you, I will make you think about things, but I will never be mean about it. How could being mean every help anyone? I will give you that space.
Where did my Inspiration for coaching come from?
I have noticed that nearly all my therapy clients have several things in common. Most of them are very kind, empathetic and sensitive people who find the current world of harshness, criticism and judgement very difficult to navigate. This then has an effect on self-esteem resulting in low confidence to move forward in their lives in a way that they find meaningful and fulfilling. Along comes anxiety and they become more paralysed. Often added to the mix, perfectionism and people pleasing and we end up with a cocktail of confusion and pain. Loneliness, lack of kindness, validation and support, not being listened to and little understanding from others, who often jump to instant negative judgement, and being taken advantage of, leads to a sense of isolation and wondering what is wrong with them. The real fears that stop them applying for that promotion at work, leaving the corporate world and starting a business and so on. The sense of overwhelm, confusion and hurt is real and distressing. And yet I see in front of me, a wonderful human, full of warmth, compassion and empathy, juggling so much, caring so much. They do not see this in themselves. They just see ‘failure’ (there is that word) and a ‘bad, incompetent, not good enough person. And that is where I come in, to help!
These themes got me to thinking! What can I do about this in a new way, a way other than therapy. The therapy room is limited to how many people I can physically see in a week. Whilst we can address a lot in therapy, there are also limitations. I have watched some colleagues move into coaching and doing some wonderfully novel and interesting things they are prevented from doing as a therapist. And so my research into coaching began. Then I started to think about how I would want to coach, how could I use both my lifelong learning, life experience and knowledge of psychology to help. When I have worked in teams, my first words to colleagues, patients, families is always “how can I help”?
I feel I can help by being a coach who can talk to a much wider audience, preparing courses that can be used as self-study or alongside one to one support. I can create a 21st Century approach to helping, by using messaging alongside less one to one sessions that tie you down to commitment you may not have time for. By messaging I mean, being able to message me on a dedicated app with things you think about in the moment so they do not get lost. You don’t have to save it all up for next week’s session. This means you need less sessions as we can chat between them.
Please do join me on Substack, we can talk there too, on the chat and all my content is currently free. You can get to know me and how I think about things. No costs involved with my publication over there, currently.
