I am fascinated with the mind/ body connection, behaviours and unerstanding why we do what we do.

My early career in youth wokr and outdoor education along with sports coaching raised my awareness of the body’s physiology and more so the bio mechanics in paddling as I was facinated in how we could make it more economical for long days sea kayaking or canoeing.

My early career in youth wokr and outdoor education along with sports coaching raised my awareness of the body’s physiology and more so the bio mechanics in paddling as I was facinated in how we could make it more economical for long days sea kayaking or canoeing.

Life events eventually lead me to look at the mind and all our energy zones as well as the body and lets just say the rest is history, 30 years counting of working in personal development and personal change.

Through life events I learned to look at the mind, the environment and the spirit as much as the body and undrstand how it can impact on our health.

That is one health, not physical health or mental health or emotional health- just health.  If the body is struggling then the mind can struggle and vice versa.

Studying the mind and understanding some of the science behind what we do,  I soon learned a lot about how behaviours work, quite fundamental stuff ! –  however its stuff –  no one ever teaches us, like:

• how to look after our mental health,
• how to prioritise,
• how to shift our mindsets
• how we communicate and how to improve it
• how to overcome obsticles
• how to change behaviours

No one explains to us that the way we think can effect that the way we feel and the neurophysiology that it can create, leading the brain can fall into an unhealthy habits and behaviours, over excerpt itself and with repeated use run out of balance and fatigue itself, and all done with the best intentions!

For me this was the Eureka moment for me, for years I looked into how to be efficient for long adventure travels and now their was a way to be efficient with the way we think, focus and look at the world, drop the weight we carry around with ourselves, lift our heads up from our feet and actually see the world around us.

My Story

I am fascinated with the mind/ body connection.  My early career in outdoor education and coaching raised my awareness of the body’s physiology and more so bio mechanics and in paddling how we could make it more economical for long pays sea kayaking or canoeing. Life events eventually lead me to look at the mind as well as the body and lets just say the rest is history.  Through some life events I learned to look at the mind as much as the body and look at how it can impact on our health.  That is one health, not physical health or mental health – just health.  If the body is struggling then the mind can struggle and vice versa.

Studying the mind I soon learned a lot about how it works, quite fundamental stuff ! –  but no one ever teaches how to look after our mental health.  Another aspect that people miss is the science that underpins a lot of complementary and talking therapies.  The effect that the way we feel can have on the brain, the neurophysiology that it can create and how the brain can fall into an unhealthy habit, over excerpt itself and with repeated use run out of balance and fatigue itself.

This was the Eureka moment for me, for years I looked into how to be efficient for long adventure travels and now their was a way to be efficient with the way we think, focus and look at the world, drop the weight we carry around with ourselves, lift our heads up from our feet and actually see the world around us.

A short history of my story.

Personal development has been my life for nearly 30 years! starting off as a youth worker in the early days, way back when  working a lot with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award  and young people from deprived areas, before taking the leap full time into Outdoor Education/Adventure, when I was offered a position at Outward Bound.  This provided a great spring board which saw me working with groups from young people in care and secure units up to senior management training courses, working on the front lawn to foreign expeditions.  During this time I worked as an instructor and facilitator for private companies, charities and local authorities progressing up to the position of Head of Outdoor Education for a company focusing on children in care, secure units and intervention programmes.

At this time I didn’t quite understand  the effects of pressure, stress, and secondary trauma , so when I was burnt out from the stories of the young people I was working with day in and day out, so  I decided to take a brake from the outdoor life and go into the corporate world!  After all how stressful could that be?

I looked after and ran training for a large company that had 11 sites around England, Wales and Northern France, driving around 55, 000 miles a year in the process.  It was an enjoyable position and over the years rose to the position of Head of Training and Technical Standards, building a team around me as I went and overseeing the largest apprenticeship programme in the activity sector.

So your thinking how do you make the jump from this to where I am now.  It is true I enjoyed certain aspects of the job but the stress and pressure was immense in a corporate world where the higher you rise the less support there is.  This on its own was, lets say an interesting time.

For the last number of years I had been suffering from Lyme’s disease which was (probably due to stress)was deteriorating and the strength of anti biotics was increasing.    It eventually came to a head when I came home one Christmas and collapsed – the thoughts were, I had, had a heart attack but it turned out my heart was fine.  After MRI scans, CT scans, Lumber punctures (which did not go well as I reacted really badly to the anaesthetic) but all tests didn’t really show up anything!  All that was happening was I was deuterating further.

I was seen by doctors, consultants, neurologists, psychologist’s and pushed from this person to the next, not really going anywhere.

I was effectively laid out on a bed in a darkened room with my legs raised, constantly tired and sore – struggled to walk more than 25 metres, had foot drop, a constant thumping headache, migraines, difficulty in focusing and could not face speaking or meeting with anyone.  I was informed that this would probably be my life for at least the next 5 years and I would most likely end up in a wheel chair.

It was also unclear if they thought I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, MS,ME or the Lyme’s Disease had gone Neurological.

Lets just say I was not in a good place.  Add to this that I was off Sick and after 6 weeks I went from what was a fairly good monthly wage to Statutory Sick Pay, which in itself added a whole new dimension to how I was feeling.

Life was in a dark place.

Now this was not the full story, that was the easy part to focus on, but it was just that part of my journey, the most recent events, however in making the full changes I was looking for I had to  was understanding the full journey.  Not to go into to many details ( I will save that for a book someday) lets say school and I did not get on, life was not the easiet growing up,