In this episode of Then One Day, Veronica is joined by three community business champions to discuss nurturing wellbeing in our neighbourhoods and protecting the mental health of those who are making a difference. Panelists include: Lucy Dosser (Growing Sudley), Jabo Butera (Diversity Business Incubator) and Rachael Welford (Welford Wellbeing).
The full transcript
Veronica Gordon
Hello and welcome to the penultimate episode of Then One Day, the programme that highlights the people and businesses who are making a real difference in their local communities. I’m Veronica Gordon.
For this episode, we’ve decided to mix things up a little, and bring together a selection of community business leaders and changemakers to discuss how we can have a positive impact on the wellbeing of our neighbourhoods. I am thrilled to be joined today by two fantastic business leaders – Jabo Butera from Diversity Business Incubator and Lucy Dossor from Growing Sudley. Jabo, Lucy, hello. So, can I just really briefly ask…Jabo starting with you, just tell us where you’re from and what you do.
Jabo Butera, DBI
Thank you very much, Veronica, and it’s a great pleasure to be here. I’m the Managing Director and co-founder of Diversity Business Incubator. We’re based in Plymouth, and we’re based on one of the deprived areas of maybe, if not the country, the region. And what’s the purpose? We just tried to change that narrative.
Veronica Gordon
And Lucy over to you tell us where you’re from and what you do?
Lucy Dossor, Growing Sudley
Yeah. So, I’m from Liverpool and I’m from Growing Sudley Community Interest Company. And we started off as a sort of community gardening group within a walled garden within a park in Liverpool. And over the last sort of 5/6 years we’ve become a community business. We work around health, wellbeing and play through nature and plants.
Veronica Gordon
That sounds beautiful. I can’t wait to hear more about both of your community businesses.
Also joining us today is Rachel Welford from Welford Wellbeing. Rachel, hello.
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
Veronica
So, Rachel, tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, and about Welford Wellbeing.
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
I had a really severe breakdown in 2014 and I was bedridden. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and later PTSD. And all the things that I learnt over that period of time, I just thought no one knows about this stuff, you know. And within three years, I was able to recover from, you know, really severe burnout, depression, anxiety – I was having panic attacks so bad, I couldn’t leave my house – into being super happy, really positive about life, you know. And I thought, how do people not know about this stuff. And so now I just, I guess, want to shout about all the tools and strategies that I learnt that have made my life a hell of a lot easier and a hell of a lot happier. And I just want to share my experience so that other people can feel like they’re not alone and know that happiness is totally possible. Even if you’ve been to the absolute depths of depression, and you’ve lived with depression and anxiety your whole life and had all these different masks that you have to wear for all these different people, you can let go of those masks. You can take them away, you can deal with your trauma, and you can ultimately just live a happier and healthier life.
Veronica Gordon
That’s brilliant. I am really looking forward to this conversation. So, first of all, I’m going to actually start off with…it’s been a massive year for us; a massive year for the whole world, you know, going through the pandemic. And I’m going to start with you, Rachel, with this first question. So, medical professionals are now predicting that the next pandemic that’s going to happen is a crisis of mental health. And Rachel, what are your views on that?
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
I think we’ve already got a pandemic in mental health. I think it’s been happening for years. I think no one spoke about it. If anyone’s ever been to London, and been to the O2 arena…has anyone been there? Who did you go and watch? I love asking this question.
Veronica Gordon
I’ve seen like Beyonce.
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
Have you been?
Veronica Gordon
I’m just going to say, if it’s the Indigo O2 Arena, I sang on stage there in a choir.
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
So, if you’ve been, if anyone who listens to this has been right, and you’ve watched…they have like major shows there; it’s a 20,000 people arena, right. So, you know, all the big people. Dolly Parton was my favourite – I’m just putting it out there. Sharing my cheesy music taste, right? If you were to fill the O2 Arena 41 and a half times – so imagine 41 and a half arenas full of people – that’s how many people in 2019-2020 were suffering with workplace stress, anxiety and depression in one year in the UK. It’s massive. It’s over 800,000 people. And that’s just in that specific niche of people at work that have stress, depression, anxiety. So, that’s not including people that have other mental health issues, right. And I think the way that we can tackle that pandemic is from the inside.
Veronica Gordon
Those statistics are totally shocking. And Jabo, what’s it like in the area where you work? What do you think about the potential of the mental health pandemic, whether it’s soon to come? What do you think about that?
Jabo Butera, DBI
Thank you very much, Veronica, for the question. And I echo what Rachel is saying. The perspective I look at it for me, I’m seeing it has been more brought up to the surface with this pandemic. Today, you hear about lived experience; you hear trauma focus or trauma informed. This is new terminology. It does not mean they were not there before. And the big word we tend to go round is poverty. We tend to go around the word poverty, not considering it as one of the elements causing that mental status. So yes, in our sector, we talk about a lot of poverty and it’s a challenge.
Veronica Gordon
Lucy, over to you. What’s it like in your community? What have you seen with regards to people’s wellbeing and mental health?
Lucy Dossor, Growing Sudley
Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean I completely agree with both Jabo and Rachel. I know there’s a GP in Liverpool. I can’t remember his name now, but he’s speaks about the fact that most of the people who come for consultations with him, as he puts it, they’re actually suffering from poverty. And that’s how he turns it because it’s other things in their lives, like their housing crisis or jobs crisis or, you know, whatever, which is impacting on their mental health, their physical health, which are both so closely entwined as Rachel was saying. Yeah, it’s funny because particularly I do therapeutic gardening with adults with brain injuries and strokes – that’s one of my main delivery sessions. And the lockdown was really hard because people were, you know, vulnerable, shielding, often not able to access the connection to other people which had made different aspects of life possible. Once the first lockdown finished, we could welcome people back into the garden because we don’t have an indoors. It’s part of what we’re working on at the minute. But in COVID, it’s been really super helpful. So yeah, I’d say people are struggling. Yeah. In fact, I think virtually everyone I know is struggling big time.
Veronica Gordon
And, Rachel, can you take us back? I know you have your wellbeing services spurred on by your own personal breakdown. Can you tell us what you were doing before that? And how did you notice that things weren’t quite right?
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
I mean I didn’t notice at all. I thought I was living my best life. With hindsight, looking back, it was very clear that things were not ok at all. I cried a lot at work. I had no control over my emotions whatsoever. I was using alcohol to kind of dampen a little bit how I felt, I think. I didn’t realise I was doing that at the time. You know, I think a lot of people think you have to have an alcohol problem. I didn’t have an alcohol problem; I was never an addict or anything like that. I just would go out four or five times a week drinks after work, you know. It was all quite like normal behaviour but actually just using all these very unhealthy coping mechanisms. And I think, to touch a little bit on what Lucy said, I think this is one of the problems with the pandemic. A lot of people will have been masking mental health symptoms with unhealthy coping mechanisms. For example, overworking; going out to the pub and having a great time, you know, with their friends, but doing that four or five nights a week, maybe or three nights a week; you know, going away for the weekend, every weekend. It’s just exciting, I’m just going on an adventure. I’m not running away from my life, right. And so, when the pandemic hit, I think a lot of these coping mechanisms that people had of, you know, escaping to a different country, escaping to somewhere for the weekend; going out to the pub to just be social with their friends; even basic things like getting a cuddle. You know, if you live alone, going around to your mate’s house and giving them a hug when you leave and getting that, you know, touch element, all those things have been taken away. In terms of how I could have noticed, I think self-awareness is a massive piece. I had a very, very negative mindset, which is interesting because anyone that knows me, you know, any of my friends or people that used to work with me, when I got diagnosed, they were like, “What do you mean you’ve got depression? You’re like one of the happiest people that we know”. And it was like, yeah, on the outside, I was presenting as a really happy person, and I think a lot of me thought that I was that person as well. But underneath, I was just really horrible to myself. So yeah, I think I didn’t know that it was happening is probably the short way of sharing.
Veronica Gordon
And Lucy, I noticed when Rachel was talking about her experiences, I know you were really nodding and agreeing and seemed to be relating with some of that. With the work that you do, how many people do you see coming through that, you know, have similar circumstances, like what Rachel outlined?
Lucy Dossor, Growing Sudley
So, we run lots of different activities. We use basically anything that makes you feel good outdoors, apart from like, maybe naturism; we haven’t gone there yet because we’re in a public park in the middle of Liverpool. That wouldn’t go down to well with the Friends Group, I don’t think. But no, anything else. So, we use a lot of forest school; we use therapeutic forest practices; we use mind/body practices, like yoga, tai chi, chi gong; we use social and therapeutic horticulture and herbalism, and those are the two areas that I’m mostly involved and interested in. So, the main regular group that I’ve been running for the last five years has been with adults with long-term health conditions and disabilities. And I think, I don’t know, it’s interesting, because the people that I’m working with have been through some, you know, really extreme and traumatic health situations of one sort or another. And I think, coming together in that neutral and nourishing space of the garden, it kind of helps everyone to be with their own therapy and their own recovery in, you know, a safe way, I suppose. Because when you have had a traumatic stroke, or a brain aneurysm, or whatever, it’s all about the hospitals and the appointments and the measures. It’s all about your physical health in very defined boxes. And I think you very rarely get really genuinely related to as a person, as a human being and not a patient. So, I think that’s one of the purposes or the functions that the group serves for people. And then another, you know, major one is connection. So, this group – really everything that everyone did fell away. Everything. And most people live alone. Not all, but most. So, when it was lockdown, we were calling people and visiting, doing doorstep visits. And that was what we felt we could offer really. But that was the only connection that people were getting in the week, you know.
Veronica Gordon
I mean, we are seeing more and more in like the news and everything that nature is good for people’s wellbeing. Lucy, how valuable do you think…how important do you think it is that people do connect or reconnect with nature and the outdoors?
Lucy Dossor, Growing Sudley
Yeah, it’s funny because we’ve been banging this niche gong of weirdness in the corner for like…well, in my own case, for about 10 years since I used to work in the film industry. And I to get out of that when my son was born with a serious health condition. And so, I spent about 3/4 years in and out of hospitals every day. And then when I came out of the other side of that, I was a different person and my priorities had changed and I really wasn’t going to be going back to my old career. And I think, yeah, it was funny with nature, it wasn’t a conscious thing for me. Yeah, you know, I did have an allotment. I had had an allotment for a few years which I used as a hangover cure. I used to like work really hard. I used to go there at the weekend with a big hangover, weed for like six hours, and I’d be like, “Oh, this is great. I feel loads better now.” And then when my son was born, just for some reason that night in the hospital, I had images of greenery. And I’m not really a visual thinker that much, but I had really proper like visions of green; and weirdly, his dad did as well. So, don’t ask me how that happened. But I suppose it planted a little seed and I just gradually started going towards nature myself. And then it’s like you said, Rachel, once you discover…and you know, all of us, once you discover something that has done you some good, you want to share it with other people. And I think that’s where everybody’s practice comes from, whatever form their practice takes. That’s what we’re doing; trying to share. And just to say one more thing about nature. I think the fact that suddenly we went from being weird people in the corner to being phoned up for like interviews and stuff, because nature became on the mainstream agenda. And I am made up about that. I just think it’s fantastic. And I think that’s something that will stay with people.
Veronica Gordon
I love being outdoors and in nature. And throughout the first lockdown, my whole house…I brought nature inside, online shopping. And as soon as we could get out, I went to the garden shop and bought lots of things inside.
So, throughout this whole Then One Day podcast, we’ve been speaking to community business leaders from across the country. And people doing work in their communities is all about supporting their communities in the way that they can. Like you said, Lucy, you know, once people discover something that’s good for them, they like to share it with others. And then there’s others that see needs, and then they set up community businesses to meet a community need. So, with you Lucy doing nature for wellbeing, I know Jabo you’re doing it in a completely different way. Tell us about how you’re supporting your community’s wellbeing.
Jabo Butera, DBI
Thank you very much. And I’m just going to be echoing what Lucy was just mentioning about being weird. You were saying weird at the beginning but now everyone is running to you. Now, we are weird because we said it loud. So, this is what we do for us with Diversity Business Incubator. We use sometimes big terms – financial literacy; cash flow; budgeting; economical imbalance. All those are big terminology. In reality, what it’s saying is, it does not matter how much you have. Yes, we are in this boat where all of us, or the majority, are on too much month at the end of the money, instead of too much money at the end of the month. But let’s talk about it. Let us not lower our voices. And let’s start solving. Let’s start talking about it.
Veronica Gordon
Jabo, tell us a bit more about that. So, what type of financial projects do you do? And how is it impacting your communities?
Jabo Butera, DBI
I can give just one example. We have what is called cash COVID recovery. And we call it for that purpose – cash COVID. What all started was the cash. When he said cash, everyone opened their eyes. Yeah, there is money here. I am talking about recovery here. Within that booklet or that document or online courses we do, we talk about how do you go on about when you facing a big bill? The roof over your head, when it is in danger. When you cannot pay your council tax. When you haven’t got food on the table. Some people don’t realise that food banks exist. They don’t realise there is this support existing on the corner. That connectivity, that relationship, we’ve lost it within our society somehow. So, we bring that around talking about finances most of the time or personal survival budget. What are you living on? And what have you got? How do you manage your personal survival budget?
Veronica Gordon
I’m going to go over to you, Rachel, because, you know, we’ve spoken to Lucy and Jabo and they’re looking after the wellbeing of their communities. Rachel, how important do you feel it is that we do look after everyone in our communities? That we look out for our neighbour, for our people that we live around?
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
So, I think it’s really important that we look out for our community because you never know what people are going through. And I think there’s a few things that probably need to be mentioned that haven’t been mentioned within this. I love that Jabo’s talking about poverty, and I think we also need to talk about racism. You know, there’s a massive disproportionate…it makes me so angry. There’s an incredible charity I support, Black Minds Matter. Go check them out if you’re listening. Black people and brown people are more likely to experience mental health problems because of the disparities and the systemic racism that happens in countries that are primarily white, right. It’s systemic. And if you are black or brown, your access to care is so less than if you’re white. And mix that with poverty; mix that with access to jobs and then looking at black and brown people have so much more difficulty to access those jobs if they don’t have a white sounding name. Because until we balance out, you know, people that have come from deprived backgrounds in leader positions; people that are you know, black, brown, Asian, whatever, like minority, people with disabilities. Until we start to balance out the people that are at those decision-making levels that have those lived experiences. Like, I’m not going to be the best person to comment on these issues because I’m not black, you know. I can read up on it and I can educate myself and learn about it and try and advocate for it. But I haven’t experienced that. I haven’t lived that. So, I think there are these huge disparities, and this is why it’s so important for community.
Veronica Gordon
I want to go over to Jabo. Because you’ll talk about poverty, and you’ll talk about empowering people to manage their finances. I think that the whole idea of community businesses, the fact that we’re empowering our communities, I think that’s very, very important for community wellbeing as a whole. So, Jabo, tell me a little bit more about why it’s so important to make sure that communities are equipped with skills to bring themselves out of poverty.
Jabo Butera, DBI
Thank you very much, Veronica. And the economical part of it plays a huge role. And if we sustain ourselves, we learn how to have a shared economy, a circular economy; a wealth shared with all of us, not that pulling the blanket on the side, which most of the Western economy was doing. And now you have the richer, small amounts of people comparative to demographic to the poor, what is with less wealth in terms of acquisition, and it’s creating that imbalance in the society. Tomorrow’s society, we’re creating a well-balanced that starts with community resilience. In Africa, for example, I’ll give an example; I’ll finish right there. When you travel in Africa, you don’t carry luggage with you; you don’t carry your clothes, you don’t carry food. Because where you go in next door, the neighbour will give you shelter. Wherever the night finds you, they’ll give you a shelter, they’ll give you food because you are lending them something. As they host you today, they’re the ones who are going to be hosted tomorrow; if not them, their children.
Veronica Gordon
And I’d like to say, Jabo, I’m a social entrepreneur myself, and I work a lot with black and ethnic communities. So, your Diversity Business Incubator, I think like the work you’re doing is crucial, helping people out of poverty and to maintain wellbeing. And as well as that in black and ethnic communities, I mean we have other mental health and wellbeing challenges. Like, what Rachel said, you know, a lot of it was the pressures of institutional and structural racism. Jabo, what other wellbeing and mental health needs do you see within the ethnic communities in your area?
Jabo Butera, DBI
Like, for example, the finances side where we are more knowledgeable. When you go to a bank, just putting your name…if it does not sound British, the system will spit you out. That is there. Or they look at your track record, you don’t have your grandparents, your grandparents, who will start banking here before, you will be spit out. That is there. And hopefully, with the British bank business, we’re having a conversation is going to change. They’re looking at that change. As I say, the egg is cracked. There’s no return. You cannot glue it back. It’s what we’re going to do. The other challenges we are having is this resistance to change on both sides. Individuals in the black and Asian minority communities and others, whatever definition it’s called, there’s that resistance to change, as well. I’ll hold my position. And then the other side of the communities as well, they say I don’t want to change. It’s causing rifts or slow progress. And that is causing more stress within society, especially coming to the next generation.
Veronica Gordon
And as we come towards the end of the episode, we’ve been speaking a lot about community wellbeing. Let’s talk about now how we maintain the wellbeing of the community business leaders, like yourself, Jabo, or yourself, Lucy. Throughout this Then One Day podcast, for example, I’ve spoken to community business leaders, as I said, from across the country. And it’s evident that community business leaders are so passionate about changing their neighbourhoods, that sometimes they put their own wellbeing on the back burner. You know, I’ve spoken to one who risked losing her home; there are others who sacrifice time with their family or work more hours than really you should. You should actually be resting and looking after your wellbeing. Rachel, I’m going to ask you this one. What are the risks of this imbalance if people are, you know, over working on one area and neglecting one area? What are the consequences?
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
Huge consequences, you know. And I think especially for people that are in caring professions because you need to put things in place that allow you to have some space between what your issues and problems are to carry, and what are your client’s issues and problems to carry. And sometimes that can be quite difficult because if you’re working with people, you know, for example, that might be suicidal or might be self-harming; or might be in extreme poverty; or might, you know, have these problems; it’s quite hard to switch off from that, you know. If you do a therapy session, and I’ve been on both sides of this – you know, where I’ve been the client, I finished the therapy session in floods of tears because I’ve been triggered and something very difficult for me that I’m trying to deal with, trauma, or whatever has been triggered, I don’t always leave that therapy session feeling that great, right? Sometimes, when you’re working through stuff, it’s not brilliant. And when you’re on the other side and you’re a therapist, you’re thinking, “Oh, am I really helping? Are they ok?” And they come back the next week, and they’re like, “Oh god, I’m glad to have worked through that”. And it’s all cool. But for that period where you’re not seeing them, you can’t help but be compassionate and empathetic and sometimes worry. So, I think there is an element of needing to put things in place, whatever that is, that works for you to give that bit of space. But I also think it comes down to priorities. And I know that everyone’s priorities are different. If you’ve got a family, for example, and you’re doing work from home, and you’ve got three kids, you know, under school age, and that you’re trying to teach them all different things and whatever, that’s much more difficult than somebody that doesn’t have those situations. But are you prioritising 10 minutes of meditation; or are you prioritising that episode of whatever you’re watching on Netflix which is an hour long? Are you prioritising 10 minutes of doing some form of exercise in the morning or are you prioritising pressing snooze for 10 minutes? you know, it doesn’t always have to be these massive leaps towards wellbeing. I think, if you do mini daily practices and you aim for a 1% increase in your wellbeing per week…super achievable…by the end of the year, you’re 52% better wellbeing than you were at the start of the year, you know. And if you aim for 2% a week, you’re 100% better at your wellbeing by the end of the year, you know. But I think people look at these massive leaps, like, from depression to being happy, from having panic attacks to being happy. It’s like how about these little daily steps. This week, I’m just going to meditate for three minutes a day; this week, I’m just going to make sure go for a walk in nature for 10 minutes, or whatever. It doesn’t have to be, you know, doing hours of therapy or doing all this stuff. And I think if you can prioritise those little moments for yourself daily, that’s what’s going to end up with everybody having better wellbeing.
Veronica Gordon
That’s beautiful. And with you being a fully trained practitioner as well, Rachel, how can we spot the signs? Or how can we prevent burnout?
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
I think, number one is self-awareness, always. If you don’t have a baseline for what your normal is, it’s very difficult to know when you’re going up or down; and we will go up or down. that’s life. What’s that cheesy saying? “You can’t affect the waves, but you can learn how to surf”. So, I think number one is self-awareness and that is built through, you know, techniques like regular journaling, doing meditation, observing your thoughts, those kinds of things.
The second thing is to be aware of some of the symptoms of burnout, which are things like ongoing exhaustion. So, you know, maybe you are sleeping eight or nine hours a night, but when you wake up, you’re still exhausted. Maybe you’re being or feeling particularly cynical about the world. Feeling like you can’t cope, but you’re not sure why you can’t cope because everything that you used to be able to do, you just can’t seem to keep up with anymore. Key behavioural patterns or things like not being able to stay on top of keeping your house tidy; your washing pile might be getting a bit out of hand; you know, those kinds of things. Or the weekly shop isn’t getting done; you’re eating more takeaways than normal, because you just seem to run out of time, and you don’t know why. So, it’s just keeping an eye on these kinds of things. Especially, if you’re at the point where you’re super tearful. Basically, we need certain levels of stress in our life. Stress is important, we need it; it’s actually good for you. If we don’t have any stress, we’re going to not ever want to move. That’s what depression is, right? There’s no motivation; there’s no oomph. But I always talk about imagine yourself as a car. You’ve got the brake and the accelerator. And your brake is, you know, doing a yoga class, going to therapy, sitting with a cup of tea and not thinking about anything, getting away from your screen, going out in nature; you know, whatever it is for you. The accelerator is the action – doing stuff, the go, go, go. And we tend to just drive our car as if the brake did not exist. And eventually what happens is we get to a sharp corner, and we just swerve off the road and crash into a wall and that’s burnout. So, we just need to get better at driving the car with the brake and the accelerator. It’s these little times that we can breathe. Because if you’re really close to burnout, you’re probably going to need to maybe take a month off work. Now it might seem extreme, and not everybody obviously has the option to do that, but if you do have the option to do that, and you can just take a proper break two weeks a month, you’re going to be much better after that than you will be if you try and push on through. So yeah, I think it’s just recognising the signs and taking those little steps and asking for help. You know, when you’re in that vulnerable position, this is what happened to me. I should have asked for help way before I did. And if I had, I think I would have prevented my breakdown and I think I would have healed a lot quicker.
Veronica Gordon
Those are such crucial, crucial tips. So, as we close the podcast, I have a question for all of you. And I would like you all to answer the same question. I’m going to start with you, Jabo. What is your go to wellbeing practice and why would you recommend it? Obviously, I know everyone’s preferences are personal. But what is yours and why would you recommend it to others?
Jabo Butera, DBI
That’s a big question. Yeah, it’s the conversation with my wife. Maybe sometimes in the early mornings, or those hours when we cannot sleep when we have that conversation. That’s my wellbeing where I go to. As Rachel said, speak about it and ask for help.
Veronica Gordon
And Lucy, over to you. What is your wellbeing go to and why would you recommend it for others?
Lucy Dossor, Growing Sudley
Yeah, my go to is Qigong. It’s the kind of health energy work area of Tai Chi. And I have used it for years going to classes and we have classes in the garden. So, I go to that whenever I can. It might be like once a week. But funnily enough, this is something that COVID brought to me. One of the good things that COVID brought to me was that since the start of the first lockdown, I started to do the Qigong every morning on YouTube, on the television. And the difference of doing that practice every day has been amazing.
Veronica Gordon
That’s beautiful. And Rachel over to you. What is your go to wellbeing activity and why would you recommend it to others?
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
I’ve been sitting here like trying to weigh it up. Can I have two? Am I spoilt if I have two?
Veronica Gordon
I’m trying to whittle down three. So yeah, go for it; have two.
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
I was the same. I was like in my head, I’m getting really nervous. It’s like Sophie’s Choice. I would say, meditation 100%. Like, that has been one of my biggest teachers ever. And whether you use silent practice or mindfulness or you know, transcendental…like there’s so many different types of meditation that you can do. And I think, you know, if you do decide to practice meditation, don’t practice getting good at meditation, just practice getting to know yourself better. And then for, you know, kind of panic and anxiety and just that internal mindset, Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, or tapping, as it’s often known. A literal game changer.
Veronica Gordon
Okay. And for me, one of mine is…I’m going to do two; I’ve whittled them down to two. For me, one of them is definitely meditation. You know, I’ve been meditating for quite a few years now and I think my whole wellbeing improved when I started meditation. My second wellbeing go to his forest walks. I love being in the forest. I love being amongst the trees. I love touching the trees.
Rachel Welford, Welford Wellbeing
You can mix the two. There’s this beautiful little park near where I live, and there’s this weeping willow tree and it’s got this mad branch. I sit on the branch, and I meditate. I go there and sit under the weeping willow, and I meditate, and it is literally one of my favourites.
Veronica Gordon
That sounds beautiful. We’re going catch up for a meditation session, right?
Thank you ever so much, Rachel, Jabo and Lucy for today’s conversation. It has been really, really enlightening. And it’s really clear that even us as community business leaders, you know, looking after your communities, it’s really clear that you also need to step back and look after yourself and your own wellbeing at the same time.
That’s it for now and I’ll be back in two weeks’ time for our last episode of the Then One Day series, when Ian Boyd from Notts County Foundation will be back to give us his thoughts on how to thrive and adapt after lockdown. Thanks to Power to Change who brought you this podcast and to Pixiu for producing. I’d love to hear what you think about the stories that we feature on Then One Day. So please leave us a rating and a review or send us a message on social media. We’re on Twitter at @peoplesbiz. That’s spelt People’s B-I-Z. Thank you for listening.