Who is Vivienne… My name is Vivienne, I am a qualified therapeutic counsellor and since qualifying a few years ago, I became fascinated by the concept and reality of Emotional Health and Well Being and realised how integral the concepts I was being taught could be helpful for my life and my relationships…and I got to thinking how great it would be to share the gems I had discovered during my life, my counselling training and my ongoing studies in this subject. For the past 5 years I have practiced on my speciality subject of Emotional Health and Well Being to a wide variety of audiences and sectors
I am hopeful that following my talks/workshops participants will have a greater ability to understand themselves, their emotional health, and their feelings and how they affect happiness. And of course, sometimes our thoughts and feelings are happy, but sometimes they are not so good, and my work is to help you sort out those not so good parts of your thinking, those parts that don’t serve you well. Those thoughts that affect not only our feelings but also affect our relationships with others
We all need to take responsibility for our own emotional health, our well-being, our happiness, our own peace of mind. Like-wise we need to be responsible for our own ‘self-esteem’. Other people cannot provide our happiness, cannot give us peace of mind nor can they give us ‘self-esteem’. If we rely on others to make us happy please remember we give them the power to make us unhappy!
With this in mind I share some specific concepts, some of which may well be more meaningful than others, and then pull them together in a closing summary to help establish something for you to take away and think about, and work upon, indeed your home work!
What do I mean by #Emotional Health & Well Being…For me it’s the ability to be more emotionally aware, to consider other’s points of view, to not take things personally, to challenge how I have always thought, to actually feel more at peace with myself and in doing so communicate with others around me more appropriately and more calmly. To focus on the fact that everyone is doing their best…not necessarily my way of thinking the best but in a way that is right for them.
I feel it is also to be aware that relationships with others begin with ‘one ship’ with ourselves. We need to feel good about ourselves as in connecting with our self. If we are not connecting with ourselves, we have little chance of connecting with others.
And to be aware that if we are not OK about ourselves that ‘lack, gap, need’ will transfer onto ‘others’ or one particular ‘other’ such as a close friend or ‘better half’. This issue could ultimately lead to the break-down of relationship and continue on to forthcoming relationships.
Having friends leads to a longer life – they boost our self-esteem and provide support and as people age we are more selective about those we spend time with, so for this reason alone I suggest it is good to ensure we are all OK about ourselves (and be good to be around) and not to emit our NOT OK stuff onto others and in doing so push others away. By NOT OK stuff I mean when we or others are always moaning about something or other – it can be hard to continually support them-perhaps you recognise the feeling of barely having enough energy for yourself let alone the energy for others.
Many call my work #Good Mental Health Education, #An Introduction to Counselling. For me the most important element of my work is that everyone, no matter their age or background will gain an insight into any relationship difficulty, whether the relationship is with self or others
