I am a qualified counselling therapist and have experience in secondary mental health settings. Due to a tragic and highly traumatic loss in 2011, I acquired my own experience of severe anxiety, which could not be eased by therapy.
During this year I have become better able to ease my anxiety to some degree, and, whether or not this improvement will be ongoing, I would like to share some of my thoughts and feelings in regard to mental health in the form of some workshops in Torbay, Devon. Everyone who attends will have valuable input to share.
I have tended to view mental health difficulties rather differently, so although clinical labels can be useful, I usually prefer to reject some of the names given to particular conditions. (My clients often felt the same.) Speaking for myself, I have found it helpful to adjust the way I describe my difficulties, and to develop particular ways to take care of myself, which have given me a sense of empowerment, albeit a modest one.
If you would like to gather for a series of workshops in Brixham or in the wider Torbay area, please contact me and I shall do my best to arrange a venue. There will be no charges, only a donation (any amount!) to help cover the materials that I will supply. (However in 'Oats', our local health store there will be a charge of £5.00 to cover materials, refreshments and venue.)
Feel free to contact me on carrie@alephway.co.uk
If you would like to know more about my background, please see alephway.co.uk
With best wishes,
Carrie.
Written by
Chaya24
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Thank you for your lovely positive response! It would be great if you could come along - are you in the Torbay area? I realise that I should have put Torbay in the title rather than mentioning it later on in the message - I'm trying to work out how to edit it. There's no date set yet - I'm waiting to see how much response I get. Even a few people would be fine. You can email me on carrie@alephway.co.uk and as soon as a few people are interested I'd let you know about some dates. (If there's very little response I'd still be happy to meet up and share my ideas.)
Oh Gloria, I'm so sorry! Torbay is in the UK. I've only just realised that Health Unlocked has an international membership. But if we co-ordinated our times, perhaps we could Skype one day, so that I could speak with you about my ideas and you could give some input too. The only thing that might be difficult is that I would be using some creative activities during a workshop, and we wouldn't be able to do those quite so well over a Skype. See what you think.
Oh! Sorry about that. I'm thinking of putting together a little 'pack' that I could perhaps simply email to anyone who was interested. I'll work on it over the weekend.
Carrie, I wish I could be part of your meeting, but I am in the states (Florida, USA). You happen to be in my absolute DREAM destination, Plymouth/Devon which makes me consider a trip but I am pretty sure my anxiety would skyrocket due to lack of job, money upon my return!! hahahahahaha Please keep us up to date on the good work you are doing. I will get to the UL soon enough!!
Hello Duchess, I do hope you can make it here one day. Although from what I understand Florida is an equally beautiful place.
Yes, it's a shame that we have to take finances into account all the time. It's said that ''money isn't everything'' and we know that, but unfortunately, the lack of it can mean real hardship and lots of anxiety.
I visited the US recently to see my brother who is very unwell. To my own surprise my practise of mindfulness on the long train journey to London had paid off, and by the time I was at Heathrow I felt completely prepared for the flight. (But it was still quite tedious to sit still for such a huge amount of time!)
I'm thinking that I could share some of the content from my workshop with others via Skype. It would be great if a few people were able to Skype at once. But I don't know how work-able that is.
Hello Johannabod. I'm so sorry you're feeling so bad. We anxiety sufferers can relate to your levels of anxiety, even if ours are not about the same things. 'Mindfulness' helped me a lot on my recent journey to the US. It was a long flight from London to Chicago. I had also needed to take a train journey of over three hours before reaching London airport, then a further train, so I used that time to do nothing but the mindfulness practice, which, as you probably know, is simply giving non-judgemental attention to the objects, sounds and occurrences that are around, and if you want to you can be aware of your own body as well. Do you think it's worth giving it a try by looking into it on the internet, or with a book?
I don't know if this other thing will help...I also began seeing myself as a spirit that just happens to have taken up residence in this body called 'Chaya' and is looking out and seeing how interesting and absurd everything is! It really helps me distance myself from a lot of the chaos in the world!
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I can't take much more of feeling like this 😫 
