A day of reminiscence therapy training again. This time with Active Minds, a provider of reminiscence packs for care homes. It’s really great to see that the idea of reminiscence is now supported by dedicated providers and organisations can order ready-made packs. (This is not an advert, by the way, they are quite expensive and only worth the money if you plan to use them often!). What I personally took out of this training for my own studies was the importance of tailoring reminiscence therapy towards particular age group but at the same time keeping the clues generic enough for everyone to join in. On one hand, I have seen the materials from people’s childhood working really well (sweets are probably the best clue!). On the other hand for people with dementia sometimes very general images and items are less demanding and more meaningful – a simple photo of a cat or a flower can bring up wonderful stories too. Both approaches will work, just differently. The tailored approach will make people feel safe, connected to mutual experiences (old brands of sweets for example). The general approach will open up discussion and build connections between people who might not have the same background and context. Both work really well, even combined!

So UK is leaving the EU, the Article 50 was triggered. I should be really worried and sad. But I am OK.

There are two things I am noticing in this rather difficult time full of life challenges: I am finding a great comfort in groups that are equally affected by the same problems and in my ability to switch off and find a bit of bliss in my daily life. Brexit is bringing me closer to similarly minded people. Problems with studies are shared with students. Problems at home with family. I am not alone in my worries and troubles and so those feel a bit lighter too. I think about self-care a lot these days as it is one of the core requirements for a practicing counsellor. Can I establish a lifestyle in which my personal life challenges can be managed so that they won’t affect my work? Can I achieve a state in which I will be able to help others regardless of my own circumstances? Maybe it’s not a state but set of skills and habits? As we practice counselling sessions I am slowly realising that a lot of this work I have done already, actually. In preparation for my course, I made time for studies, I introduced happy habits (switching off screens, focus on hobbies, spending time with people who are uplifting and caring) and learned to give myself a quiet mental hug when things go wrong. I am still struggling with sleep nowadays but I do not feel like I am buried with challenges of life – I actually think I am maintaining a good balance. And so if in a period of life when almost all areas of my life are heavily affected, I can still do that, then I will probably be able to do it in easier times too.

So I continue to dream of sunny days. I take my dog for a walk to the allotment and enjoy getting my hands dirty. I love flowers. I listen to the birds. I breathe in the hot air from above my morning coffee cup and say it out loud: I am OK. It’s all OK. I am doing my best and that’s enough. I am hopeful!

It’s slowly the end of spring and I am preparing for the end of my first year of counselling studies. As I am planning my next steps I am also sometimes looking into the future and thinking about the actual therapy practice. Today I came across a wonderful tool which I think I might use in my future work: The School of Life’s 100 Questions cards. I really love what the School of Life are doing (I love their video lectures too)- all their insights, content and tools are really well prepared, meaningful and effective. The card sets I am talking about are designed to help us improve our daily conversations: learn to ask meaningful questions and dare to answer those. I have tested the set for a relationship and believe me: it is wonderful! We have learned more about each other in one evening than over the course of past few busy and really challenging months! I learn so much from using the cards already and I think they will be a very powerful tool for my future work with clients.

I was a bit cheeky too and “stole the idea” – I started making a note of my course insights in a similar format on Canva.com. When we are done with the course I will print them out with Moo and store as cards too. In the current busy world, it’s a great way of reminding myself about the core principles of this line of work. But it’s also a great format for a visual learner like myself.

I really enjoyed “Rising Strong” even though the insights are not new to me, they serve more as a reminder of my own resilience skills so very overused nowadays. I am facing challenges almost in every area of my life: country (residency application awaiting a response), family (son finishing primary school – not a happy place, cannot wait to be done with it!), work (really challenging decisions amongst a lot of good learnings), studies (sudden changes really affecting the status quo – not something I would welcome with a light heart, to be honest). In this really strange state of waiting – waiting for a lot of things to finish – I really cannot plan and look forward to much yet so I am struggling a bit. According to the new insights from positive psychology researchers, it is exactly that planning and waiting forward to things that make us happy and excited. Without that sense of anticipation, people find it really hard to remain uplifted. All we can do is wait, tap into our resilience, lean on on friends and support each other over a cuppa, I guess.

I am really grateful for those few wonderful people in my close network who support me on this journey day by day and for the books that remind me about the benefits of such phases in life. So here are a few reminders to myself from Brene Brown:

“There are too many people today who instead of feeling hurt are acting out their hurt; instead of acknowledging pain, they’re inflicting pain on others. Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they’re choosing to live disappointed. Emotional stoicism is not badassery. Blustery posturing is not badassery. Swagger is not badassery. Perfection is about the furthest thing in the world from badassery.”

“The opposite of recognizing that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends.”

“…sometimes when we are beating ourselves up, we need to stop and say to that harassing voice inside, “Man, I’m doing the very best I can right now.”  ”

The last one is really useful for my future work. If I was to assume that we are all simply doing our best, my approach to people would be so much different – more open, more understanding, more empathic. I think that’s what Carl Rogers meant in his teachings about person-centered therapy and I aim to build it into my work but also life asap! Difficult times like now are a perfect time to start.

I have just completed an online dementia course – “Living with Dementia: Impact on Individuals, Caregivers, Communities and Societies” – which gave me a very understanding of dementia and dementia care from US perspective, but also globally. I strongly recommend it to anyone who wishes to work with the elderly, but also who wants to understand how our minds work. After years of studying child development (within the communication, foreign languages, teaching methodology) I am now looking at the other side of our lives. I am really fortunate that I can apply my new learnings to work at one of our local care homes too and support few wonderful people with fun activities. It’s a very rewarding job and I wish I had time for more than few hours a week, but I need to focus on my studies. Working with the elderly I think about death a lot. I start to realise just how much gravity is in those years when we look back at our lives but also start to live more in the moment, counting our blessings. Is there a way to understand life this way much earlier in life? I think Buddhist religion and philosophy is really close to that. Japanese zen philosophy even more. But I wonder how the best elements of that thinking could be applied to people of all ages. I guess I will learn that in my studies at some point. I do want to study our approach to death in more detail. I know someone who did a listening course at Oxford Cruse and I am tempted to give it a go in autumn to dive into this topic a bit more. I suspect a lot of mental health issues or just problems in life might arise from our fear of death, I’d like to know just how much this assumption of mine is true.

Coming from a family with a longstanding tradition of family stories I never really wondered about the power of reminiscence for mental health. Up until now, that I was asked to run a reminiscence group at our local care home. As an educated teacher I have no problem with researching and designing a session but I really needed to understand the goals and benefits of reminiscence therapy in general. Reminiscence therapy basically stands for discussion about memories (past activities, events, and experiences) with a group of people. It is usually supported by tangible prompts (clues) such as photographs, items from the past, music, videos etc. There are two really effective types of reminiscence therapy – integrative and instrumental. Integrative therapy focusses on negative experiences from the past and aims to re-frame those based on evaluation of the memory – basically oftentimes we tend to remember things from a positive or negative point of view, but if we review it and dig a little bit deeper we might discover that our past failure was actually a success from another point of view. I do not think I have enough of expert knowledge to do that, but I can easily work with instrumental therapy which basically brings up past successes and the aim is to increase people’s current self-esteem. The great thing about this approach is that it can be used in mixed groups of people who are at various stages of dementia and might or might not have a linear sense of time. Talking about random events from the past that made us smile, cheer or celebrate does not have to be placed in a specific place in time. I have constructed a programme of activities where a group of people will talk freely about a topic with the use of various clues (sometimes a video, group of photos, items or even other sensory tools) with the goal of improving people’s current mood and self-esteem.

The more I read about reminiscence the more I grow convinced that it should be a habit for all of us, people of all ages. To a certain extent, it has always been a part of our cultures: we look at photos and videos from our holidays, we build wedding albums and capture all our important milestones in life. Blogging is just another way of doing just that and I hope that soon enough we will have good research on the impact of life-writing online on people’s self-esteem too. Reminiscence is fascinating but it is also a lot of fun!

(cover form the Nestle Reminiscence pack available for free online)

I really don’t know how to reflect on my attendance at the “Embrace” documentary in Wantage last night because I came out of it with mixed feelings. On one hand, I really love the mission of the film, I admire the author’s journey and the commitment to share her experience – body image issues are such a huge area of mental health problems that I don’t even dare to look into it. I know a few people who have done amazing work on it here, in the UK, and I know from their stories that the work is really demanding, hard and also very rewarding. I am angry that we live in a mainstream media landscape where both women and men are struggling to just enjoy their lives as they are. But I also expected a bit more from the movie and the screening. Here is what bothers me:

1. Choice of stories – why just women’s voices? I would love to hear more from men who have varied opinions (both in the movie and during the event)
2. Solutions – the documentary is a great conversation starter and few of us last night had a brilliant chat about it, so what are the next steps? Open up, connect, what can we really do?
3. Cost – why is the documentary not available for free online? I completely understand the need for a business model for the author of the movie but the movie itself should be free because the message is really important. I think to put a price tag on a conversation starter on such a fundamental problem we need to deal with is unethical. I also think it creates an accessibility issue – a barrier. Everyone should see the movie and ease of access is important.
4. Audience – what about children? I personally think this movie should be rolled out as a mandatory material in primary schools all across the globe and I am really sad that the local screening was so late, my son would really benefit from watching it.
5. Research – what is the current research on body image issues? I would love to see interviews with few researchers too, not just personal stories

I really enjoyed the movie and the above criticism stems from the fact that the film is actually a conversation starter, it prompts action and opens up the need for more and more: more awareness, more open conversations, more stakeholders and more research but most importantly: actual how to’s for people who wish to change their take on their own body and practice a bit of self-love.

I am really happy I managed to view the movie in our little Wantage though, what a great initiative!

While working through the first year of counselling studies I am also helping out at a local care home/residential village so some of my listening skills can be put into practice there. But it works the other way around too: a lot of what I do there results in great learnings. Recently I was asked to run a Brain Games activity with a complete carte blanche – I can design it myself. I looked at various aspects of brain games for this age group and studied its benefits (although those are pretty obvious to me) and concluded that I will probably focus on fun and socialising aspect of the activity. I want to include a bit of technology too and here I think Lumosity will come handy (I know they have struggled with proving the benefits of their product, but if we take it lightly as fun and something new, something different, I think it’s OK). I will at the core of the Brain Games activity use storytelling with the help of “Once Upon a Time” card game – why? Because it’s fun! It is easy to play. It is engaging. It leads to amazing ideas, regardless of mental abilities of players and I think it will work really well for us. I am not sure how much of the results I can share, but I will take my learnings and apply them to my work in therapy too. I think storytelling can be really powerful in fun activities but also as a core form of therapy (narrative therapy).

It’s really interesting to study open and closed questions in more detail. Open questions (starting with why, what, how, who etc) allow a wide range of answers, whereas closed questions pretty much end up with a yes or no one. I spent years learning about the underlying rules of communication. I studied it in Polish, Hungarian, English and in German. Yet, I am now looking at all those learnings from a very different point of view: with the prospect of actively listening to clients while remaining empathetic too, regardless of my own opinions. It’s such a shift after years of blogging that sometimes I do wonder I can do it. But then I go back to the years of interpreting and translations – I worked in those each summer during my studies. And all of that active listening comes back. So today when I work with my fellow students on dummy situations, I am trying to make the most of my past skills in listening from the work with foreign languages. Because in order to convey a message from one language to another one needs to speak both but equally have a really good skill of listening. And by that, I mean body language, the tone of voice, mood, cultural influences, biases and all other aspects of a sent message. I am so glad I am able to make the most of my past studies and a lot of work in the field now. I have a lot of practice to do still, but at least I get the core principles.