Dear Friends, Colleagues and Clients,
At the time of writing this week’s message, we are starting the first phase of relaxing lockdown and approaching another bank holiday without our usual routines of seeing friends and family - and doing things differently.
It’s well-timed that this coincides with the national Mental Health Awareness Week and great to see so many offers of support and resources out there, people reaching out to each other and services reminding the public that they are still there to help. As a team we often refer to the work of Frederickson, who identified the ten most common positive emotions that we can explore and seek out, even through very simple actions.
Our Arts-based Leadership Associate, Matt Worden, writes a blog this week to highlight how creativity can very much help our mental health and well-being, and he includes an exercise - to draw an upside down horse - that shows that anyone can draw. Having done this myself and been amazed, I can only encourage you to try it.
It has struck us as a team that reading, art, music, cooking, sewing, flower arranging, gardening and writing have been critical to us as individuals. Some have used their creative outlets as a reflection process, as Carol Bushell shared in her recent blog; some have used them to escape, to learn, to devel
op new skills, to distract or to connect to others in new ways - albeit virtually.
We are starting to be asked by clients what we would suggest for supporting people in the future, when we all navigate work in ways are are very likely to be different than the past for sometime. We are thinking on this - we are already offering coaching via Zoom and Teams, and are developing our lea
dership sessions into digital delivery for programmes that are currently postponed. However, we are struck by the power of creativity, and have developed a new offer of virtual drawing classes - which can be developed into helping teams move forwards.
Please contact us if you would like to know more.
We hope our resources are useful, please stay safe everyone! Big shout out to all key workers and much appreciation,
Donna, Matt and team.
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