Welcome back! Did you miss me?

Hi and welcome back I'm sorry I have been away, did you miss me? I bet you did really it ok we won't tell anyone?
I have finally allowed the Covid-19 situation to catch up with me and had to take some time off from working through the stress and anxiety the situation has caused me.
In this episode, I discuss the recent events and the effect this situation has had on me and what I hope to change in the future.

I hope you like it, it is the true first cut unedited version.

You can find out more details about me right here

https://www.horizonplymouth.co.uk/

Transcript

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Thanks for listening.

Hello, and welcome back to the therapy Guy.

It's been a while since I've spoken with you and

I have to apologise for the people that do listen

regularly that I've been away just for a while. Today

I'd like to explain about what's been

happening over the past few weeks.

Why I haven't been updating or keeping you as

informed is what I'd hoped in the past, obviously

a few weeks in during this recent outbreak of

the COVID-19, there's lots been going on.

Initially I found the whole Covid 19 outbreak and

the lockdown process extremely stressful and it was coming

out of the blue for a lot of people,

a lot of businesses, and for myself, obviously.

I was really concerned about the welfare

of my staff and my colleagues and

the people that we help and support.

I found it really difficult that we couldn't continue

to see the people we support face to face,

help them in the way that they needed, as

I knew that there were quite a few people

in difficult situations that were using our service.

So initially there was a lot of anxiety in

myself trying to manage the thoughts about business, the

thoughts about finances, and obviously the responsibilities and the

pressure of that that I felt for other people.

I'm not trying to say that I've had it

worse than anybody else, there's lots of people who

experienced some terrible things, some loss in bereavement and

terrible times in hospital with a COVID-19 and all

the fantastic key workers have been working exceptionally hard.

So I'm not trying to compare myself to anybody.

All I'm trying to do here is relay maybe

some of the reasons why I haven't been obviously

with you for the past few weeks.

Now, it may seem strange that for the first

couple of months I was here week after week,

obviously giving you updates, giving you information.

And even during my last podcast about three weeks ago,

I was sort of giving you a rundown of the

things we had planned and coming up in the future

around mental health and well being, asking for your support

and feedback on what sort of information and what areas

you would like us to cover that you felt would

help you in the coming months.

I really appreciated all the people that took the

time out of their day to respond to us

and send us some great feedback and information.

And I always welcome people's comments, good and bad.

The bad comments help me improve and help

keep me on my toes and obviously we

all love receiving that great feedback.

So for the first sort of month I was really

swept up in the whole concept of trying to survive.

Like a lot of people, a lot of people were businesses.

We unfortunately had to furrow some people.

We had to unfortunately make some people redundant.

This is an area that I really struggled with.

These people had employed and used to build

the business and they were an integral part

of the business as we grew.

And here I was unfortunately in this position where I

didn't know if the business was viable and I was

going to have to let them go and obviously I

knew the impact that would have on them and their

families and possibly obviously their future employment given the situation.

So it was a really difficult time for me and

I really struggled and I had a lot of anxiety

and stress about how to do it, when to do

it, and in what way that I could do it.

That would ease the sort of burden for my colleagues.

Fortunately, my colleagues are as amazing as ever.

The people that I had to make

redundant understood and they thankfully worked with

me, which helped me through that period.

But it was a very difficult period and I think

it taught me a lot about myself and how I

handle those sort of things and how in the future

I want to deal with people and bring them into

the business and support them in different ways.

It's very easy to get tied up in

the anxiety and the stress, the situation.

The media, I feel, didn't help.

They were sensationalising.

Quite a lot of information, focusing obviously at

times, rightly so, on a lot of the

negative outcomes and statistics around, obviously the deaths

that we were experiencing during the outbreak.

But my own worries as well as the business was for

my family and not being able to see my family.

Like lots of you had a

really big impact on me initially.

As I said the first month or so, I was swept

up with keeping the businesses going, trying to plan what was

going to happen, the what ifs and maybe of the future.

I'm trying to deal with this unknown

sort of thing that was happening to

myself and everyone else, compounded with that.

I love my family, I love seeing

my children, I love seeing my grandchildren.

And I found that really difficult being isolated away

and told that I couldn't see them, I couldn't

actually experience them visiting us or me visiting them.

I appreciate, as I said, lots, thousands and hundreds of

thousands of people were in the same situation and I'm

sure you'd all be saying the same thing.

I think for me it was one of the

most difficult areas outside of the business side of

things that I've had to deal with.

It's really made me think about the importance of

what I'm actually doing, why I'm working so hard

in the business, why I'm pushing as much as

I do and the hours that I do now.

I've had time where I've had this forced stop and

for me it was been a useful learning experience.

Although I've had a bit of a delayed

reaction, which hence the reason why I've had

the past few weeks off, really.

I focused quite heavily initially on just trying to

manage everything, trying to do what I could.

I was trying to sort the business out, get

everything up to where I wanted it to be

and I didn't really give enough time, I just

tried to keep myself busy as a distraction technique.

Now I've done almost to my to do list.

Otherwise, like everybody else's, that's never ending.

It's really gives me time to sit

down and focus on the why.

What am I doing this for?

What is the reason I started my own business?

What is the effect that it's having on

myself and my family who are around me?

Like a lot of people, I love and adore my family,

it was one of the reasons that I started the business

was because I wanted to work when I wanted to, I

wanted to spend more time with my family and I suppose

most small business owners like myself will tell you the same

thing, it really works out that way.

So having this time where I've been sort of

cut off from the majority of my family and

forced to actually think about the reasons and what

reasons why we're doing what we do.

I think it's been a difficult but really useful experience

and I hope some of you have found a similar

experience and had similar situations going on where you've learnt

a little bit about yourself and maybe hopefully going to

start doing things differently in the future.

I know my aim in the future is going

to try to spend more of that quality time.

Now, before I am definitely a culprit of this.

It was very much, very quick, sort of dropping,

see people dash off, focus on what was important,

going places, doing things, sort of having an entertainment,

but always with a cost, where I think the

advantage of this situation that we've been in has

forced me to realise that, as I always knew,

that the best things really don't cost anything.

Spending time with my loved ones, seeing my

family, my children, my grandchildren and my lovely

wife, spending time just being with them, talking,

walking, being outside, that is invaluable to me

and I can't really put a cost on

it, although it's really been a delayed reaction.

Yes, it took me a couple of months to catch

up because of that distraction I had at the start

and the panic I felt about my businesses surviving.

I think it's been a really useful thing

I had to go through that process.

My personal way of coping with stress

and anxiety is to keep myself busy.

I've suddenly become super active to try

but work my way through it.

Now, you might find that strange that a therapist is actually saying

that the first thing I do is not talk about it, not

deal with it, but it is my way of managing.

I cope with it better that way.

It gives me time almost to work it out for

myself so that I can then sit and speak with

people, I can then make sense of it.

I just give myself enough time to deal with things.

So what I'd encourage yourself to do is do the

same, is when something happens, when a situation happens, try

to give yourself some time to actually think about the

impact, think in a rational way if possible.

Again, that sometimes takes a little bit of

time to get to that rational point.

I know for me it did at the start of this,

but it helps to have that moment away, that quiet reflection,

and it helps to give you this new balanced approach.

My life has been a bit of a

roller coaster at times and there's lots that's

happened in my life, both good and bad.

And again, I'm not saying mine is

any worse or better than anybody else's.

We each have our own things going on.

But I do know even more as I get older, as

I become to appreciate the people that are around me more,

start to value things differently, start to realise how lucky I

do have it at times, to have that family around me

now who I can rely on and the friends that I

have and my colleagues who I can rely on.

It's vitally important and I want to make sure that another

thing that I'm going to do is make sure they know

how grateful I am and how thankful I am for what

they do for me in the way that they support me

as we move forward into the future.

My new mindset, obviously, like I would say, a lot of

people, is to try to get this work life balance.

We hear all these cliche comments,

but what does that really mean?

What is that for you?

What is your work life balance?

For a lot of us, we are unable to get that

balance without working and acquiring the money and trying to do

things to provide even the essentials for a family.

For me, I think what I'm going to do is

mostly not my hours of work isn't going to change.

I really enjoy the work that I

do, I enjoy the client work.

I know my colleagues here love working with clients.

I also enjoy running my business, I

enjoy the challenges that it brings.

It can be stressful at times, but I

think I'm starting to thrive on that challenge

now as I see things differently.

So for me, the work life balance comes

from the time off I do take.

I want to make it as special as possible.

I want to start concentrating on what I want to do

just as much as what other people want to do.

I want to spend it with more people who are

supporting and encouraging me, rather than the people that take

things from me and ask things of me.

I wonder how many of you have maybe gone through

a bit of a process like this and I want

to change things and change the people around all the

things that you do from now on.

I'm really interested in hearing some of your

feedback, some of the comments that you have

on how this whole situation has changed you,

either for the good or the worst. Yes.

It doesn't make no difference.

I definitely have been affected, like a lot of

other people, even though I haven't been directly affected

by the cold with, thankfully, and I know I've

been myself and my family have been extremely lucky

not to have been affected by this.

My thoughts always go out to the people

that obviously have lost relatives, have been through

really difficult times, people have lost their jobs

and lost their livelihoods through the circumstances.

Our thoughts obviously also go out to the

people who have had to keep working.

The key workers in the NHS, the police and

the fire service who were always there, who didn't

have a choice but to keep working.

I thank them every day and I know that I

will do whatever I can to help those key workers

as much as possible as we move forward.

I seem to be saying that

a lot tonight that move forward.

It's a bit of a statement that I try not to

use, but I think I've used about three times tonight so far.

So what I'm trying to say today is, like a

lot of other people, we tend to get wrapped up

in our lives, we tend to focus on our bubble.

And although this situation has been extreme, I would

like to think it's opened my eyes and people

around us to what is really important, what is

going on with other people too, how we can

support and encourage each other.

We don't always have to put other people down.

We're very quick to undermine

and criticise other people.

What about supporting people?

I've seen lots of great businesses, lots of fantastic

people out in society offering their help and support.

What about if we kept that going?

Just how different would society be if we stepped

away from the materialistic, cash driven side of things

and look towards helping each other just to be

happy and enjoying the time with our friends and

family, enjoying helping out our neighbours and the people

around us, the people who are there for us?

I wanted to say tonight that I apologise

for leaving you for a few weeks.

Over the next few podcasts.

I'm sort of going to put on pause my planned projects.

The planned topics I had.

And I want to share with you a bit more of

my personal journey through life and the effect that it has

when I deal with clients and some of their stories of

the people that I've been seeing and how we can all

help each other a little bit better and how we can

help each other through difficult times when people are experiencing mental

health just by supporting each other.

Not actually having to do very much.

Just being by the end of the phone.

Having those conversations that we

all suddenly have been doing. Bringing up.

Texting people instead of working every day.

Being busy.

We've made time during this situation.

Why can't we carry on with that?

How are you going to carry on with it?

I know I'm asking the same for myself and I hope

that I'm going to I'm going to work incredibly hard at

keeping those contacts going, keeping the changes that I've made to

myself and what I think about the future.

And I hope you do too.

So next time when I speak to you, I'm going to

be talking to you about my new mindset, about how I've

come to that, some of the things I'm doing differently, some

of the things I'm going to be doing differently from now

on, and how I feel that's going to impact on myself

and the people that are around me.

I really hope you're going to find it interesting and

I hope you listen in for the next episode.

I'm going to be recording it quite soon and

as usual, we're going to try to start getting

these out a bit more regularly, just so that

all you fantastic guys you do listening can hear

the sound of my lovely Janner tones.

As usual.

And just for tonight, I really want you to take

care of yourselves, go and do something nice for each

other and I hope to speak to you soon, but

for today, I'm going to sign off.

Thanks for listening.

The therapy guy.

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