Thriving in Crisis

I am a cancer nurse working at the Royal Surrey Hospital. I am also a mindset coach running my own coaching business and volunteer at the Fountain Centre, a local charity that provides emotional and psychological support to cancer patients.

Prior to COVID-19 I had been growing and developing my practice locally, engaging with local communities running Action for Happiness Courses and cancer support groups at the Haslewey Centre, and I also opened my own coaching practice in Guildford. When the pandemic hit like many other healthcare professionals, I had to step up and fully emerge myself in supporting the NHS. I was lucky to be given the role of Health and Wellbeing Lead for the cancer division and focus on developing and implementing health and wellbeing strategies to support teams facing this challenging time.

My personal life also had many of its own challenges. During the first lockdown my husband lost his full time job in the city and most of his work with his corporate events photography business. Losing this employment and majority of his work had a huge financial impact on our family.

Despite having the option as a key worker, of being able to send our children to school my husband and I decided very quickly that we would not. Instead, we decided to use this time to build their emotional resilience, but quickly learned that this is a whole family resilience building exercise. It was not the easiest task which I am sure many parents can relate to!

It was an interesting experience of role division when my husband fully committed himself to home-schooling and running the household. He did a great job as chief teacher, so I could completely devote myself to supporting others in my NHS role, as well as my private practice.

What really helped me during the first lockdown, was the support of the local community, my neighbours, my friends, my husband but also all the tools and techniques that I have been implementing and teaching to my own patients and clients for years.

We all had to rearrange our lives, redesign routines that would optimise our minds and bodies so we can operate in this high stress environment, as well as routines that will allow us to recover and rejuvenate very quickly. Stress levels were high whilst I worked during the pandemic at the hospital. Our children also had their own levels of stress to manage with the overload of technology, the emotional burden of being isolated from the school missing their old routine and friends.

I specialise in co-creating wellbeing strategies with my clients, focusing on increasing resilience and self- reliance but this time I needed to use this approach for myself, my friends and my family.

Long before COVID-19, I had created a framework for my cancer coaching clients which they found really useful. The pandemic provided a great opportunity for me to fully implement and utilise it not only on myself, but with others outside of my cancer practice during this very stressful and uncertain time.

I quickly recognised that there is a common denominator in how we deal with stress and uncertainty and what the best strategies are to support our health and wellbeing. This absolutely includes strategies for our children. Which is why I passionately and wholeheartedly advise people to introduce this framework into their lives.

The framework that I have created focuses on 3 aspects supporting functioning in the challenging reality VUCA World (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous)

1. Body, mind and energy optimisation (morning, evening routines and stress mindset)

Morning routine:

Focus on 3M movement, mindset and mindfulness.

What I personally find the most effective and works well for me, is to practice 10 minutes of yoga, a 5 minute meditation followed by writing for a few minutes in my gratitude journal.

For the kids it was all about their Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) workouts which they loved and gave them something to look forward to each morning. We also have a daily mindful moment, when we encouraged them to think about one aspect of the day that made them happy.

Evening routine:

Focus on 3R routine, relax and restore.

Repeated actions, read a book, no screen, reduce overload - simple but effective.

2. Grounding techniques for safety

Grounding techniques bring you back to safety, especially when experiencing anxiety. There are many different tools to use but my favourite one is EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique (tapping) which is fast, efficient and can be used on children as young as 5 years old. I have been using tapping for my children, patients, colleagues and clients for many years and it is a powerful combination of well evidence based interventions.

3. Recovering from stress

Using conversation to encourage a reflection, ask questions about why you react to this situation in this way. This is a great way to open the conversations with yourself but also great practice to teach your young people. It's normal to feel whatever you are feeling but get into a habit of redirecting the attention from person to behaviour or reaction. Use EFT tapping to defuse this growing pressure.

Unlike the first lockdown a year ago, the second and third lockdowns have felt different; there were less stress hormones running throughout my body and I put in extra effort to be more intentional with my daily activities, so that I could stay motivated and optimistic.

Note that I didn’t say happy. Happy is a great word but I like to use positive mindset as an alternative. Happy means ‘’feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.’’

While positive mindset is more ‘’Positive thinking”, or having an optimistic attitude, it is the practice of focusing on the good in any given situation. It can have a big impact on your physical and mental health. It simply means you approach the good and the bad in life with the expectation that things will go well.

As human beings we naturally scavenge for a threat, so it takes more effort for us to see the positives and maintain this mindset. The good news is that we have the ability to influence, control or even change our negative mindset.

We are all going to have to find our ‘way’ again. However, routines and frameworks can be very useful but only if implemented with understanding and kindness to self and others.

And if you at any stage need any support please reach out.