New Year New Start

2010 and an observation

After a well deserved break I returned back to the office seeing patients and working on Healthy Audio Limited projects in mid January. This is the first opportunity I have had to say Happy New Year, although belated no lesser meant than if said on the 1st of the month.

I am amazed at how quickly time passes, February in just couple of days. There is so much to do, patients to help, planning and development and lots more besides.

I do hope that we don’t talk ourselves into more economic decline, though the US economic figures released yesterday show growth, the UK certainly has some way to go at a mere 0.01% growth.

I am puzzled how, in the UK at least, we have to have two consecutive quarters of economic decline to say we are in recession, and yet only one quarter to say we have come out of it! I am sure there are greater brains than mine which will have an official reason (whether it will hold logic though that is another thing) for this but I am yet to learn it.

As a therapist however, I and many therapists like me are at the ‘coal face’ working with the human cost of recession and economic decline. It is not only the economy a recession breaks, but also people, families and societies.

Economists speak of possibly 3 million unemployed in the UK in 2010, it is a frightening number, but all the more frightening when we remember that figure represents individuals. Lost jobs, lost homes, dreams, relationships.

That is what I see in my working day, and the ill health which these bring, the higher stress and anxiety, the drops in confidence and self esteem, the fear and worry in peoples eyes, looking, searching for solutions to problems not of their own making.

The anger aimed at greedy bankers and uncaring and allegedly dishonest politicians many of whom in the UK at least are simply waiting for their pay off when they leave office, leaving the whole sorry mess behind for others to clear up.

There is an injustice somehow to a recession, the innocent and hard working individuals and families paying the price for the recklessness of those who should know better, those in trusted positions having betrayed that trust of the people.

While the bankers are out of voters reach, politicians are not, and with a general election due in the coming months, it is any ones guess what the outcome will be. But I suspect the long memories of the millions of economic victims will play a key role in their decision making at polling booth. I know from the patients I work with, they are itching to exercise their right to be heard.

Whatever 2009 brought to your life, I do hope 2010 brings you the best of your dreams and aspirations, and that things get better for us all.

Learning from 2009

As the few remaining days of 2009 tick by, I wonder how this year, and the last decade will be viewed by history. I wonder how history will view world events; view our country, our politicians, and our society? I wonder if we will be brave enough to look at ourselves and what we have and haven’t done.

Time will tell, I hope our leaders will learn from it. I hope we as individuals will learn from our past too, because it is only by remembering our past actions and our inaction that we can feel sure footed enough going into our future. As long as we learn from the mistakes, and avoid them in the future, as long as we build on the positive times, we can move into the next year and decade better than we leave this one.

Those of us who take an interest in the news headlines and look a little deeper, will not be surprised that our society is going to have some testing times over the coming few years. Economically we can expect hardships, those who are hoping to avoid those hardships will, in the main be disappointed, for only a small percentage of individuals will be untouched by the pending economic storm.

For the rest of us, it will be a case of heads down and hard work. We will need to develop innovative products and services for our businesses to survive. We will have to learn self development methods to meet the challenges which will inevitable be faced, and we will have to take responsibility for our selves.

None of the above however is beyond us; we are more than capable of meeting the economic storm which is gathering. We have done so in the past, and we will do so again. On a personal level, I developed my IBS Audio Program 100 because there was a real need for it, and the many other programs I have developed over the years were developed because there is a real need for them. Some of them I hope will be used to help us to rise to the challenges to come. Dealing with the disappointments and negative emotions of being made redundant is an obvious example. Developing greater confidence and self esteem will be necessary for many people. Dealing with anxiety should be high on the to do list too. For those who struggle with irritable bowel syndrome IBS and its physical and emotional symptoms may well find the symptoms become worse during stressful times and events and considering new options of choice may be needed.

Every day of my working life I meet and work with people who are prepared to learn, to let go of old negative thought patterns, who invest in their own self development, learning to meet challenges in their every day lives and relationships.

Meeting the challenges of highly stressful events at work, and out of work, I work with people who have chosen to take responsibility for them selves, and to help themselves to live a happier, more comfortable and more balanced life.

Some of them come from difficult backgrounds and up bringing, others just setting out on life, in their teens and early twenties but all of them exhibit one thing, a common thread through them all, and that is one of an inner strength, an inner resource which has helped them to over come, sometimes even the word survive is not to strong for some of their journeys, but that strength is there, and they have chosen to use it to help them to move on, to something better, and invariably they are successful, because they know and realise that they can do, and be better, than they are when we first meet.

And that same strength I believe is in each and every one of us. I believe that each and every one of us, regardless of background can achieve more, if we first identify the need and desire to move on, and then act upon it. Finding what we need to help us to move on, identify what we want to achieve and then find the help, in whatever form to help us be more balanced and productive human beings.

So when we see the headlines in the papers and on the news in the coming months, let us remind ourselves that headlines sell papers, and grab attention, but let us remember that we can choose to be victors or victims, we can choose to wait and see, or we can choose to go out and grab what we want, and as long are we are not scared of hard work, and don’t always expect a quick fix, if we have patience, but also a drive to move on, then we can look forward to something better.

I see the possibilities very day with patients, and receive emails from people using my programs who have trusted themselves to make a difference. And usually it all starts by acknowledging the past, and learning from it, and then moving on in a different way to create a better life for themselves and their families, and therefore a better future too. And this often ripples out and touches those around them too.

My hope for 2010 and beyond is that we use what we have learned from the past, to map a better, brighter future for ourselves and society in general.