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 People can become withdrawn and isolated so their social life can become more difficult and the prejudices associated with hearing loss can result in low self-esteem.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.

Addressing burnout is essential to staff retention

Many employees are looking for a new role because they feel their job is detrimental to their health and wellbeing.

With the pandemic continuing to dominate, new issues are popping up in the workplace where leaders are still trying to solve ongoing problems. Meanwhile with workers continuing to deal with increased workloads and the blurring of work and home life, it’s no wonder that burnout levels are rising.

This is highlighted in Ceridian’s annual Pulse of Talent report that surveyed 1,156 workers in companies with at least 100 employees. The research showed that 79% of respondents in the UK experienced some form of burnout, with 35% reporting this at a high or extreme level. It also found that the top three catalysts for burnout among respondents were increased workloads at 49%, mental health challenges at 34%, and pressure to meet deadlines at 32%. Whilst some of this can be put down to the usual pressure of the modern workplace, the pandemic has undoubtedly affected the work-life balance with many workers increasing their hours, taking shorter breaks and working when ill to meet a higher workload and the feeling of always ‘being on’.

This unhappiness means that 19% of the surveyed workers are currently seeking a new job, with another 39% saying they’d consider leaving for the right opportunity. This of course sits with the recent Office for National Statistics report that showed that the estimated number of vacancies recorded was at its highest level since records began.

Respondents were also asked what could be done better to address burnout and  55% thought it would help if their employer kept communication and work expectations within working hours. Setting strict guidelines and adhering to them is therefore essential with regards to working hours and downtime.

These surveys make it clear that many companies can expect to see a far higher turnover rate in the New Year if changes are not made. The need for effective employee support and wellness programmes, greater communication and increased flexibility has never been greater.

*Ceridian’s 2022 Pulse of Talent Report was conducted by Hanover Research and surveyed 1,156 workers in companies with at least 100 employees.

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.

From the holocaust to animal rights

Dr Alex Hershaft is one of the few survivors of the holocaust, more specifically the Warsaw Ghetto.  After being liberated, Alex spent five years 5 in an Italian refugee camp before moving to the United States in 1951 where he studied Chemistry and achieved a PhD. In the early 1960s he became a vegetarian but kept it as a private matter because he didn’t know any other vegetarians.

Alex was five years old when Germany invaded Poland. The Jews in Greater Warsaw were ordered to move to the Jewish section of Warsaw which was then surrounded by a wall topped by barbed wire and became the infamous Warsaw Ghetto.  Life in the Ghetto was a matter of existing and surviving. The normal functions of life paled in comparison with the quest for just staying alive. People were basically forgoing their usual norms of etiquette in dealing with one another in the quest for survival. People kept telling themselves to keep going for one more day. Maybe tomorrow it’ll be all over and the allies will come. If you gave up you were dead. Dying was pretty easy because there were no shortage of ways to die - typhus was prevalent and there was always a shortage of food. People didn't die because they gave up, they died because of the physical manifestations but if you didn't have the desire or the drive to survive it was easy to give up.

After he moved to the USA, Alex became an environmental consultant. In 1972 he was sent to a slaughterhouse in the mid-West to do an inventory on their wastewater problems.  He was on site one day when he turned into a corridor and was faced by piles of animal body parts. He was horrified and had flashbacks of seeing the piles of human remains in Auschwitz - glasses, suitcases, hair and shoes – and it occurred to him that what was happening to the animals could be seen as similar to what the Germans did to the Jewish population. The herding, housing, transportation, skin marking, secrecy and the discussions about what was the most humane way to kill all seemed to echo what had happened.  

Alex feels his experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto helped to shape the way he became empathic with what animals go through in todays factory farms. There are the same concepts of living in abnormal conditions, of severe crowding, of never knowing how ling you are going to be able to live and then being killed violently. After the work at the slaughterhouse Alex was in a state of consternation.  He loved the USA but could now see it as a country doing despicable things to sentient beings. He felt very alone and didn’t have anyone he could share his concerns with but he read some of the work of by Isaac Bashevis Singer and realised at least one other person shared his concerns and fears.

Alex felt a little better but he suffered from survivor’s guilt. Why was he spared, how could he repay the debt and is there a lesson we can draw from the terrible tragedy that had befallen his people. His questions remained unanswered until he attended the World Vegetarian Congress in 1975 and found 1500 we shared his views. At that point he decided he was going to spend the rest of his life fighting all oppression, starting with the oppression of animals for food.

Although he approached vegetarism from a point of conditions, there are a number of other reasons to give up eating meat. A team from Alex’s organisation attended the COP 26 Conference last year where the air and water pollution from industrial agriculture and the health benefits to be gained from vegetarism were discussed in great detail.

Going forward Alex feels that the meat industry has realised that animal agriculture has no long term future and has aligned itself with the concept of plant based meat and dairy products and that this will help in changing peoples views of vegetarism. Many people embrace the idea of animal rights – they love their pets and animals they see as ‘cute’ - but don’t want to change their lifestyle or diet. If, driven by the meat producers, plant based foods are produced in large quantities at a price acceptable to consumers then the obstacle of lifestyle change will disappear.

Alex feels that even if a plant based diet becomes the norm there will still be a role for the movement. There is still the ideology so, although we may have stopped eating animals, there is still the questions of whether animals have rights, whether we have obligations towards them and how can we make things better for all sentient beings.

 You can find out more about Alex and his work at The Farm Animal Rights Movement or AlexHershaft.com Alex also writes a bi-weekly blog The Vegan Blog.org

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.

Change your perception of time

Lisa Broderick trained as an economist before going into the business world. She wanted to work on something different though where people who might be sceptics could believe it also so moved into the fof quantitative mechanics, combining it with spiritual traditions. 

Many people know they can slow down time and that time speeds up around them depending on what they are doing. Time is contextual and depends on what we focus on and how we focus. It obviously has a physical component – it exists because things move around and because change occurs - no change no time. As its impossible to have no change, we have time. There is however a perception component. If people focus intently they can slow down and speed up time but we’re not really sure how this works.

If you imagine there are two worlds – the small world of quantum mechanics that is modeled only through mathematics and the large world of cars, human beings and astraroids. These two worlds would never seem to meet but the world of quantum mechanics bubbles up into our everyday lives through for example, computers and lasers. Lisa believes that as we understand and control this more it will provide the basis for how we control time and reality.

Lisa feels that we are getting much further in understanding the actual mechanics of the advances in quantum computing and biometric computing. Quantum entanglements are one of the biggest paradoxes of quantum mechanics - the idea that two particles can exhibit the same conditions. For instance they are both blue but one is on earth and one in space.  If you turn the on earth red the one in space becomes red immediately even though they are separated by thousands of miles and violates the universe speed limit - the speed of light.

Quantum entanglement exists on the quantum level but the question is does it exist in the big world? If it does, we’re going to be able to unlock this world and control it and use it in our daily lives. Lisa wrote her book during lockdown when time was an issue. Before that being busy was seen as a badge of honour but then everything changed. People lost their sense of identity and meaning, were overwhelmed, felt hopeless and burned out. They didn’t have any meaning any more and Lisa feels that they lost their relationship with time.

When we ask people how they are they used to say fine, now they say they are busy. The perception is that there is less time or that we don't use it in a productive way. The first steps in making time more within our control is to understand the equation time from Lisa - time is one part physical and one part perception. The perception part is the part that you can control to change that aspect of time and your perception of time and reality  

Lisa feels the reason we need to know what time it is, is because we need to know what to do now. If we didn’t we wouldn't care so if we can get a grasp of what to do in turns of personal transformation, we can slow down and speed up time in order to do all the things we want to do.

You can find out more about Lisa and her work at LisaBroderick.com Her book is All the Time in 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.

It’s not what you’ve done, it’s how you move forward

Arman Vestad is based in Trondheim, Norway and is a public speaker, father of three and a runner. Before that though he went through a lot of tough challenges. Over the first thirty years of his life he was a criminal, drug addict and debt slave but for the last fifteen he has used the experiences he gained from being on the ‘wrong side’ of life to help others stay on or get back on track.

Arman feels it was a long journey that took him into life as a criminal and that there was no one or anything he could really blame. He had parents who took care of him and three siblings, the one closest in age to him is actual a police officer. He does think though that he had some vulnerabilities when he was a child. He was bullied at school, didn’t have many friends and every so often he received some money from his grandfather. He used this to buy friends so money became the tool to get self-esteem. He had a lack of self-esteem and money was the problem solver. Money has been part of his life all the time in good days and bad days.

Arman feels that he may have had a genetic vulnerability but that he was also affected by circumstance and by friends and people he met. Critically, he moved away from his parents and lived with his grandfather when he was 13 or 14 years old. His parents lived on an island with access to the city only by ferry. Arman loved playing football so asked if he could stay with his grandfather to enable him to play more. He stayed there most of the week and he now thinks that although it was fun staying with his grandfather this was where his problems started. He grandfather was 70 and divorced and enjoyed having Arman staying but there were no boundaries or limits.

Arman now feels children need to have boundaries but at the time he thought not having them was really good. He could do exactly what he wanted and in the spirit of this he also started stealing money from his grandfather.  His grandfather gave him money but it wasn’t enough and when he did it the first time it was extremely exciting. He decided he wouldn’t do it again and would put the money back but he couldn't.  Once you break the boundaries the first time its much easier to do it the next time – he knew it was wrong but he feels that if someone had stopped him and shown him the consequences at the age of fifteen who knows what would have happened.

By the time was 18 or 19 he was a doorman at a club. Some of the customers were criminals and they befriended him. He became part of a culture and adapted to it and one thing led to another and he realised that he could make more money by selling drugs and would do that from time to time. He was a party boy who loved to dance, be happy and share joy. He was very generous so gave away money, drinks and drugs and also made his own drugs which made a lot of money and became addicted because he needed to test his own drugs to see the quality.

Over time the police became aware of him and he was arrested many times. In the mid 90s he was in the UK, Amsterdam and Poland at parties that were part of the rave culture. He didn't feel a criminal, rather he was part of a big community that was testing boundaries but after several overdoses that life had taken a completely different direction. In 2000 he was sitting in a police cell and was at rock bottom  - he weighed 70kgs when two years previously he had been 120kgs. His physical and mental health was a complete mess and he just wanted to stop living.

People standing on the outside don’t understand the power of community. Community has the power to heal and be positive but also the power but to destroy and attract people into a certain set of lifestyle choices. There is a vicious cycle of the community, drugs and crime which can be quite seductive, all partying and having fun but at the same time not noticing what it’s based on. You get caught up in the excitement and hedonism of the time. It is possible to stop the cycle but you need to stop it by removing one of the elements of the cycle and replacing it with something else that gives you that buzz.

When some people hit rock bottom they stay there but others have the resilience to make the decision to change. When he was in the prison cell Arman felt at rock bottom and wondered what have I done to deserve this – I’m just a kid who wanted to fit, be liked and be appreciated for the person I am. He didn’t feel he had enough to change things but the turning point came when he met a policeman a few months later.   Arman had gone even further down but policeman talked to him, asked him how are you today, you doesn't look very good, is there anything I can do to help, name it and I will try to see if I can make it happen. It was a very vulnerable moment and it might not have happened the day before or the day afterwards. Arman was arrested but the policeman visited him the next and that was the ignition he needed - as the policeman had said I don't see you as a drug addict I see you as a person.

Armans life didn't change at that time but when he met the next person in his journey, a prison inspector he had enough confidence in himself to realise he was worthy as a person. The prison inspector spent a lot of time with him and helped point him towards the work he does now but he still had to find his first job after he left prison. The person who hired him asked him two questions at the interview - what have you learned from the time you've been an ex-criminal and how can those lessons you learned help us solve our society responsibility. Those two questions changed the atmosphere completely at the job interview. Instead of being afraid and hiding his CV, he knew she asked about what he had learned so it was up to him to tell her.

One of Armans missions now is talking to managers or companies about hiring ex-criminals and explaining what the benefits are if you hire them. When he got his first job no one believed he would ever survive, that he would be unemployed for the rest of his live. Now, having worked for 15 years for the Norwegian government he can show its possible to change and make a difference. Ultimately it’s not about what you've done, its what it meant and how you drive it forward.

You can find out more about Arman and his work at https://www.armanv.no/en/

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.

Moving on from alcohol addiction

Veronica Valli is a recovered alcoholic and drug addict, who has personal experience of what it takes to recover from an addiction. At the height of her addiction, she was unable to go to work without the aid of a drink and her life and confidence were in tatters. She got sober in 2000 at the age of twenty-seven and went into working in the addiction field as a Psychotherapist primarily because of her own personal history.  Since moving to the USA with her husband Veronica has written two self published books and has a new book coming out in February. She now works mainly as a coach with women who want to change their relationship with alcohol.

Veronica feels alcohol is part of the social fabric and that people who struggle with their relationship with alcohol do four things. 1. They drink.  2. They think about drinking. 3.  They think about not drinking. 4. They recover from drinking. People who don't have a problem with alcohol don't think about it because it doesn't rent any space in their head and take up energy. Veronica’s calls this bandwidth. You can do a lot with 70% bandwidth but what you can’t to is emotionally grow the way you’re meant to because you are spending that bandwidth arguing with yourself about whether you’re going to have a drink that night or not, whether you drank too much at the weekend or whether you should do Dry January.

Problems with alcohol start a long time before the external signs such as missing work appear. Only people with a problem think about not drinking - why would you be thinking about not drinking? People who don't have a problem think about alcohol the some way people think about sandwiches. It's the thinking about not drinking that's the indicator.

In the UK we have normalised abnormal drinking. People are seen as successful in the various areas of their life on the outside - they check the boxes, of having a job, a house and a car so not seen as having a drinking problem. If people go to work every day they are seen to be functioning and can appear to be OK. It may be that one part of a relationship is worried but the other isn’t concerned and feels they are functioning well. They still have a job and Veronica feels the job is the last thing to go because it’s where the money is and money is where the alcohol is. Typically though the relationship will break down before the job goes.

There is always the need to find support. The most common approach is the 12 Steps and Veronica got sober using this because at the time there where no other options. She found it very useful and always makes it clear that the 12 steps are simply ancient, spiritual wisdoms so we get into good enough fit enough shape to become alcohol free and then go and get some professional help. It’s a helpful approach but she feels there should be other options and that its not the perfect fit for everyone as some people don't relate or identify with it. It's a peer led programme and many people Veronica knows also have other issues such as limiting beliefs or relationships that need professional intervention

There is a difference in how alcohol affects the genders and the way of working with different genders. Veronica was part of Generation X and in the 90s binge drinking was sold as feminism. The belief was that if you drank like the boys it was equality.  To women of her generation abusive drinking normalized. Over the last five or six years though there has been a culture of alcohol being seen as a reward at the end of a stressful day. Perception is far harder if you drink, there is a numbing of feelings and a default to alcohol to deal with problems so you don't develop the skills you need as human beings to deal with disappointment or frustration. When you’re drinking you re not really alive, you’re not really present – you don't have all your band width – which is similar to the feelings associated with taking pills for  anxiety or depression. There is a feeling of walking through life thinking we’re are dealing with everything but not dealing with anything

Alcohol is marketed to women differently. There has been a rise in female led drinks such as Prosecco which are seen as being fun and glitzy – that if you’re not drinking you’re missing out. Women simply can’t drink as much as men and there are also unique problems woman have. If women going through menopause drink too much it makes the situation worse but drink is pushed on woman whatever stage of life you’re in. Male drinking is different. It’s more sociable as men tend to drink in groups whilst women tend to drink more on their own. Veronica feels that alcohol is one of the few ways men are allowed to express emotion, that it’s acceptable to cry on best friends shoulder if their football team lost. If alcohol wasn't involved men wouldn’t do that. There is no permission for men to express their feelings and alcohol gives them the avenue to express that.

Veronica feels that alcohol is sold as a belief system before we even start to drink. Not drinking is never presented to us as a option because drinking is what adults do. Alcohol is the best way to get to the land of fun, excitement, relaxation, belonging, connection rewarding yourself, romance and sex . That's what’s sold to us and who doesn’t want that? You want these things but if you feel inadequate alcohol will get you to that place. If you’re not drinking you’re seen as being boring and have to fight the social conditioning and stereotyping that goes with it.  It can be hard to challenge this on your own as the messaging is so clever and insidious.

Connection and community are essential to stopping drinking as we all need to have meaningful connections. We need people who really know us, who we can be vulnerable with – part of the reason AA has been around so long is that it provides community. At 27 Veronica lost all her friends because no one was staying in on a Saturday and she didn't have anyone to hang out with. When you stop drinking you feel like you’re the only one so you need to be with people who understand what you’re going through. It’s also powerful a bit further down the road to be with people who can say ‘I remember that’,  ‘I felt like that this is what I did’,  ‘this is how I feel now’. Seeing people who’ve been through it helps you think that it is possible for me. Connection is the most healing and life sustaining thing we can do.

Veronica’s latest book is Soberful,  a personal development programme that would be helpful for anybody not just people who have a problem with alcohol. Everybody has to do personal development work but most people don't realise that and just bumble along. An alcohol problem is a wake up call, you've got to do some personal wok on yourselves. We all need to exercise regularly for optional health and personal development are just exercises for our mental health that we need to do regularly as well .

 You can find out more about Veronica and her work at soberful.com or https://www.veronicavalli.com/ Her book Soberful is available via Amazon.

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’.

Grief Yoga. Healing through movement

Paul Denniston is a yoga teacher who specilises in learning how to move through grief or other difficult and challenging emotions such as anger or anxiety. He has created a practice called Grief Yoga that pulls together yoga, movement, breathwork and sound to transform pain or struggle and connect to empowerment or love.

There are many types of yoga. Hatha Yoga focuses on holding postures and breathing to quiet the mind and aid stability and balance. Vinyasa Flow Yoga on breathing and flowing from one posture to another like a meditation in motion. Kundalini Yoga uses different types of breathwork and posture to cause powerful transformations. Restorative Yoga is a gentle practice to help stretch and release tension and anxiety whilst Laughter Yoga is a mixture of laughter exercises and techniques blended with yoga stretching and breathwork. People have their own take on humour, but these are exercises that help release endorphins from the brain to facilitate more happiness. Paul uses elements of Laughter Yoga in his Grief Yoga practice because he feels there is a fine line between laughter and tears. Laughter helps the free flow of emotion to move through, especially the suppressed feelings we have beneath the surface, to allow the healing benefits to take place.

Having trained in the different practices, Paul realised that he was going to classes himself to help deal with his challenging emotions of anxiety and grief.  He created his Grief Yoga practice, a blend of different types of yoga, with the specific intention of releasing pain to fund more empowerment and love - it was a class that he would what to take himself! When going through training Paul was dealing with a lot of anticipatory grief because his sister was dying and he was having a hard time moving through the suppressed feelings he was holding onto. Although he didn't feel like laughter, it connected him to what he was feeling which was anger and sadness. Laughter gave him the release he needed to allow him to be more present with his sister and dealing with her loss.

Paul works with many people who have experienced and dealt with trauma.  The first step of the process is to become aware of the present, the body, breath and ways to befriend the body through gentle ways to move and stretch. The next step is about expression. A lot of the time we don’t have the words to express our pain, hurt, anger or rage so the practice of using the sound and vibration of the voice can start to move the pain through so we might not have to have the words to articulate it.

Paul spent decades trying to run away from pain, seek peace for himself and deal with his anxiety. He was going to classes for his physical wellbeing but he realised there was so much more beneath the surface. He then thought that if we channeled struggle and pain, we could use it as fuel for healing, If we hold onto pain in the body, the body remembers this and the trauma so it’s possible, in a compassionate space, to move the pain through so we don't have to hold to it inside. He feels that we can have physical pain in the body but that it can be a manifestation of grief that we are suppression. Because everyone grieves differently, it can manifest itself in different areas of the body such as the back, neck, stomach, pelvis or chest or even cause teeth grinding teeth at night if the grief is held in the throat.

Grief can come from many different aspects of change or loss so can be seen in many different ways - the loss of a loved one, a dream of what you thought was going to be, the ending of a relationship or even a sense of disappointment. It can also be a collective thing. People can experience grief when a famous person dies because of the way that person had touched them or through an event such as the pandemic or 9/11. Collective grief is rarely acknowledged and this can become challenging because grief needs to be witnessed by ourselves or by others. During the pandemic not being able to attend funerals meant we missed the healing of having our grief and loss witnessed.

Paul doesn’t necessarily believe in closure in the grief process. If we choose to love then grief is a part of the process. Each day is different but we need to move through the loss. One of the steps he focuses on is evolution – how we changed after the loss, how our life is different now, how am I different after loving them. With time things can become easier but its part of our life experience and process.

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

You can find out more about Paul through his website Griefyoga.com

His new book HEALING THROUGH YOGA Transforming Loss into Empowerment is available from January and can be pre-ordered through Paul’s website

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

Why perseverance and resilience matter

Jeff Martinovich is based in Norfolk, Virginia and is in the process of rebuilding the lives of his stakeholders, his family, and himself after ten years of challenge! Originally Jeff attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado and served in the First Gulf War at Tactical Air Command Headquarters, Langley, Virginia as part of the F-117 Stealth Fighter programme. On leaving the Air Force, he obtained an MBA in Finance from The College of William and Mary, which led into the roller coaster world of finance for the next two decades.

As a rookie stockbroker, he started at the bottom without any clients, but he considers himself lucky to have worked with some really good people and over the next twenty years built a billion dollar advisory business. By the time of the 2008 financial crisis, they had around a hundred people working for them and clients across the US and abroad. Jeff feels that 99% of the people in the industry really do a good job. At the time, there were a number of changes going on in the financial sector so they found themselves being able to ‘sit on same side of the table’ as their clients. He feels that by aligning the self-interests of people so much can be can accomplished. Through good financial planning, they provided loans, wills, trusts, and insurance to help people achieve their goals. Of course there are some bad apples in the business the same as in any sector, but on the whole Jeff feels the large majority of people work to benefit their clients.

When the 2008 recession hit everything fell apart and they found themselves in the middle of a perfect storm. The firm had grown to be too big not to be on the radar but not big enough to be able to write a $17 billion cheque to the regulators. The Government were giving huge amounts to the major Wall Street firms and then fining them millions back, but as well as this they shut down a large number of ‘second tier’ companies and Jeff’s was one of these.  It was a frenzied situation and the company experienced regulatory scrutiny and allegations about some of the company’s proprietary hedge funds but the company couldn’t see that they or their employees had done anything wrong.  

Jeff had to make a decision. People have moments in their life that are defining, where they have to make a decision and take a stand. Jeff turned down three separate plea offers from the Government and decided to go to trial to defend the company and employees. Five weeks later he was found guilty of not ‘commanding the ship properly’ and sentenced to twelve years in federal prison. Jeff lost the company he had spent thirty years building, but there were a large number of shareholders, stakeholders and employees who were affected. The story hit front page of the newspapers and overnight Jeff went from being a stalwart of the community to pariah.

He had many dark days and questioned himself. Why did I start this journey? What are my core defining values, character and integrity? Jeff feels you have to recentre yourself, to dig deep to find the strength you maybe didn’t even know you had and also that his background in sport, the military and working with start-up businesses, helped prepare him for the difficulties and be strong enough reach into his resilience and perseverance to get through the challenge He was sent to a high security federal prison with 4000 inmates. and feels that his military background helped because he was able to dig deep into his early training. Nobody cares about whether you’ve been a successful businessman and you just have to get through on a day-by-day basis. To try to avoid falling into despair and depression, Jeff committed that each day he would be stronger physically intellectually and emotionally. Took advantage of the break to reassess, to get stronger, smarter and more capable and control of any emotional deviation.

Jeff had to start again at zero. He took a job in the law library and taught himself federal criminal law and by helping 300 other inmates with their cases, he learnt more about his own case.  He started to drive his own defense by learning enough to appeal his case and after three years the decision was reversed. He was preparing to go home and start rebuilding his life when he was given a second indictment primarily to stop him making progress on the original case. At the same time his sentence was increased to 14 years. He went back to prison and started over again. Two years later the case was reversed again with two federal judges being removed from the case. Last May he was finally released after seven years in prison and he’s been working ever since to rebuild and restore helped by his wife, family and friends who have all stood by him.

Jeff feels the keys have been perseverance and resilience. When he looks back the things that happened gave him a path to follow and a way to keep fighting – to take personal responsibility, get up and keep going because challenges help us build so  that we can handle bigger and bigger challenges.

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

Jeff’s book is Just One More: The Wisdom of Bob Vukovich. Learn more at jeffmartinovich.com