Every Cloud has a silver lining

The inspiration for this Blog came from a discovery I made in the weekend. When driving home from a nearby town I felt the urge to pop into a local park. There was a sign in the carpark advertising a pop up Christmas shop, run by Every Cloud. As it was dark and dingy outside I decided to go to the nicely lit converted barn housing the shop. On the shop walls hung paintings for sale, as well as Christmas decorations and seasonal preserves to buy, jams of all flavours. The warm cosy atmosphere really did create an atmosphere of Christmas.

The charity called “Every Cloud” (click here) runs the barn and shop as well as an outdoor coffee kiosk. “Every Cloud” is a collective of artists that work towards helping others over come mental ill health. But rather than me tell you all about them here’s a quote from their web page:

EveryCloudartscrafts.com

“Every Cloud is a charity run by volunteers. It offers a variety of activities, events and services to support the mental health and well-being of all in the community.

Every Cloud Arts & Crafts, a not for profit organisation, was launched in 2014. Every Cloud was set up by a small group of individually talented artists and crafts people. At the time of its formation, the artists were still on a journey of recovery. They were recovering from poor mental health and/or living with the life-long condition of Aspergers. Nearly all these members had discovered their creativity through TWIGS (Therapeutic Work In Gardening in Swindon) and or DASH (Discovering Autistic Spectrum Happiness)”

The Every Cloud story inspired and moved me. The more I heard the more I could see that the volunteers were earnest in supporting people.

Not only do the volunteers have the talent, motivation and commitment to fullfill their mission ,they are also located in a beautiful location, STANTON Park. Stanton park has woodland trails, a small lake, an orchard and an old farmhouse where craftwork shops are held. A real oasis of stillness and peace. As one of the volunteers said “All you have to do is turn up, open up and fill yourself up with the magic!”.

Oh and did I tell you about the wooden sculptures. Wooden sculptures adorn the woodland walks, they really add a je ne sais quoi to the whole experience. See the pictures below.

Motivation for writing about Every Cloud

This blog honours the work of Every Cloud and their volunteers, as well as the sculptors. It encourages you to visit Stanton Park ,if you live locally, or go somewhere similar and “fill up with the magic”.

Isolation (e.g. covid and working from home) and/or lack of purpose can impact our mental health. We are, from an evolutionary perspective, tribal creatures and need to belong to a tribe in order to feel safe and relaxed. Simply by getting out of the house and joining an organisation is all that is sometimes need to chase the blues away. That is where organisations like Every Cloud are invaluable in our communities and can literally save lives. Other examples of organisations are TWIGS and DASH (see above).

Another great initiative is run by the Wiltshire Wildlife fund:

“The Wellbeing Programme provides nature-based activities for people struggling with mental health issues like anxiety, depression, low mood and stress. Participants take part in conservation work, wildlife walks and nature-based crafts. Research shows that this type of outdoor activity can be beneficial to both mental and physical wellbeing.”

And finally during my visit to Stanton park one of the volunteers shared that “It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile”. Now I had heard of that as part of my training in hypnotherapy but it stayed as a concept. However, the way that volunteer shared that knowledge, with a twinkle in her eye, made the wisdom in that phrase really come alive for me, I could feel being filled up with the magic! (Thank you Lesley).

So how do you find in Every Cloud the silver lining? Well you find it by getting help from people who know where to look, people like the volunteers of “Every Cloud”.

Conclusion on Every Cloud

The conclusion is that often we don’t need therapy to deal with anxiety, depression, we simply need company, a sense of being valued and an engaging purpose.

In solution focused hypnotherapy this falls into the 3P strategy, positive action, positive interaction and positive thoughts. When we do the 3Ps we create serotonin the neurotransmitter that gives us that well-being feeling. And when we have that wellbeing feeling, we think more clearly and engage more with life. This creates a virtuous cycle of mental health improvement.

However sometimes more focused specific help is needed around anxiety, depression, phobias, OCD etc. This where many people have found hypnotherapy to be very useful.

So if you want to find out how ACT Hypnotherapy Swindon can help you with anxiety, depression, OCD etc., or just want to find out more about how we work, CONTACT us for a free, no obligation initial consultation. During the consultation you will learn how the brain works, how we create anxiety, depression etc., but more importantly what we can do about them. Remember you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.