Pledging can be a daunting experience; depending on your audience and what you resolve to do, the combination of more scrutiny and less wiggle room seems to run counter to living a relaxing life. My pledge for this year’s NHS Academy of Fab Stuff #FabChanges22-23 was about acknowledging it’s ok to not be ok and that I should take responsibility for my own self-care and in doing so inspire others to not feel alone. It might initially appear redundant to state that self-care should come from the self, but as a person’s need for nurturing, restorative activity increases, their ability to perceive what they need is often in decline as they rush from spinning plate to spinning plate. The world bombards you with blueprints for perfection; optimised diets, lifestyles and bodies; one person’s recipe for restoration is unlikely to fit another’s daily routine. So instead of struggling on in willful ignorance of my body’s warning signals or feeling like I was unable to fit the cookie-cut ‘best life’, I knew I needed to try something else.
Guerilla self-care, at its core, asks you to look critically at the system that you are operating within; if you are being asked to fill systemic structural deficiencies in your workplaces function with good-will (extra hours, work-arounds, extra risk) then there is a good chance you are on the glidepath to burnout. Some organisations are better than others in recognising when deviation becomes normalised and extraordinary measures put in place to deal with exceptional circumstances become the norm; in my own experience, reminders from management and HR to look after my mental health rang slightly hollow placed up against the scale of the challenges we all faced. Resolving to undertake activities that were healing and restorative to me and complete all daily tasks required two things; initially taking time to listen to my body and soul and discover what was meaningful to me, and acknowledging that in regard to relaxing and restorative activity, little and often and possible often trumps planned long periods of relaxation activity that end up competing with daily demands.
In the course of studying Sensory Integration, I was struck by how the eighth sense of interoception, the body’s primal network of signals that cover pain, hunger and fatigue, is habitually quashed in therapists and professional care-givers; when you are focused on building a space that holds and heals your patient, you learn to ignore the hunger, the thirst, the sanitary towel that could do with changing. This learned ability to ignore the warning signals from your body helps you keep powering through; in the short term it is a great asset to you and in the long term it becomes a great asset to your employer.
In my personal experience, being out in nature and making an effort to feel all senses equally within the natural environment led to the ability to feel when my interoception was firing and when a certain stimulus or activity was needed.
There can often be a measure of elitism in the world of therapy; those who have studied and perfected their methods of relaxation are sometimes quick to dismiss the power of a small action or sensation that holds no meaning for them, but when you find the way to listen to what your body tells you, novel times and places can be found where you can take care of yourself. In practical terms, time needs to be invested to discover what combination and level of sensations allow your interoceptive sense to be felt; try different scents, temperatures, motions and sounds that might be meaningful for you.
I recently ran my first relaxation retreat under the name ‘Rewild Health’; The retreat was for health, social care, teachers and charity workers who had felt impacted by the pandemic and wanted to connect with others.
Keeping in mind that trauma is a whole-body experience, I curated a program to provide that investment that offered opportunities for connecting with the senses in sufficient time and space; nourishing with good food, opportunities for connecting and sharing the experience within a group and time for rest so the experience did not feel pressured.
From drinks on arrival to being served and waited-on at lunch time, throughout the day I introduced opportunities to ensure that people felt cared for and nurtured; this was really important to allow people to let go and to feel that they are important and held in mind.
Inspired by my training in forest bathing I took the group into the late-summer woods and offered a selection of nature-based ‘invitations’ (activities and ideas that stimulate the senses) which would offer opportunities to engage the nervous system in a playful way. I was lucky to have a team of inspiring alternative therapists and a military veteran survival walk expert to open up the spaces around us in ways that gave new perspectives on seemingly familiar things.
Using my training in EMDR, we took time to explore our own safe place and discussed checking in with ourselves and re-connecting with interoception; listening to the quiet and not so quiet cues from our body.
The retreat was run in the stunning grounds of Devon’s Powderham Castle, within the halls and out on the estate; immersion in a calm and beautiful setting was useful in allowing people to feel they were outside of their everyday stressors, almost in a fairy tale and completely away from most people’s norm. In providing the framework for small moments of self-care and relaxation, the take home message at the end of the event became that it is there are simple actions you can take wherever you are, such as gentle nudges in routine, knowing when to walk away from a job that is harming you, allowing yourself to take a break, bringing nature into the work space or a short walk outside. These were the take homes; you don’t need a Castle to create the same feelings each time but you do need to find a place or state of nurture that is meaningful for you.
Helen Mason
CEO Rise and Rewild CIC and Powderham Castle
Highly specialist Occupational therapist
Advanced sensory integration practitioner
Twitter: @Animatetherapy
