Poeting an Alternative Future

As part of the ‘love and kindness’ series on the Black Swan Podcast, I interviewed the brilliant  and award winning Spoken Word Poet, Matt Sowerby. Matt is 18 and lives in Morecambe Bay. I find his words to be beautiful, challenging and moving. Here are the links on iTunes and Spotify if you want to hear him perform and listen to us discussing a variety of things from education, to climate change strikes and politics. Hope you enjoy! You can also find his poem ‘breadlines’, which didn’t make it onto the podcast on YouTube with his other work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Poverty Truth Commission – Podcast

One of the things I have most enjoyed and also felt privileged to be a part of over the last couple of year has been the ‘Poverty Truth Commission’. Here is a podcast I have done with some of the incredible community commissioners, here in Morecambe Bay about how a ‘together with’ approach to life makes a massive difference. It’s part of the series on how love and kindness are truly transformational. You can find out more about the Poverty Truth Commission through YouTube

 

Here are the links to the podcasts depending on your listening preferences!

 

iTunes

 

Spotify

 

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World Autism Awareness Day

Autism affects so many of our lives and families, and yet so many of us know very little about it, make unfair assumptions about people who live with it, or make crass jokes about people, using it as a derogatory term. In this episode of the Black Swan Podcast, I interview, the amazing Deborah Brownson, who recently won an MBE for her incredible work around autism. I am so glad that she is here in Morecambe Bay, though her work has a national and international reach – and rightly so!

 

World Autism Awareness Day is a good time to talk about Autism! The podcast is full of profound wisdom from a woman who has two sons with Autism and is working tirelessly to raise awareness, change perspectives and create practical resources and support networks to help people who live with Autism and the carers who support them. I hope you find it interesting, challenging, comforting and inspiring. Here are the links to the podcast, depending on your preferences!:

 

iTunes

 

Spotify

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The Rise of Antidepressants

The BBC ran a news piece today about the massive rise in use of antidepressants in England and Wales over the last 10 years. And depending on which study you believe between 1 in 11 and 1 in 6 people in England are now on an antidepressant (though we must remember, that antidepressants can be used for other conditions like pain management and irritable bowel syndrome – IBS). In the USA, antidepressants are now the second biggest group of prescribed drugs.

 

So, what should we conclude? Well, firstly, it is good news that it has become much more acceptable for people to talk about struggling with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. It is good that people are going to see their GP when they feel depressed and anxious, rather than just trying to cope with it. So, we mustn’t now necessarily insinuate that the increase in prescriptions is a bad thing, because firstly, that can heap shame on those who are taking them, which is unhelpful at so many levels and also, we need to remember that there is actually a good evidence-base behind anti-depressant medication. They really do work – I’ve seen that again and again for my patients, who choose to go on them, and for sure, I would love to see more psychological therapies available on the NHS, as an alternative or as an adjunct to medication. Waiting lists are currently far too long for such therapeutic interventions and many people choose medication because they cannot afford to pay for therapy or indeed to wait several months for the help they need. We don’t report the use of antihypertensives to control blood pressure negatively and so we need to be careful about taking a dim view of medications which help improve mental health.

 

However, when so many in our society are struggling with anxiety and depression to this extent (and it’s really positive that we’re talking about it and that people are getting help), we need to ask ourselves some big questions about the root causes of this and what we can do as a nation to improve our mental health. One of all time favourite quotes is that of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, when he says:

 

“There comes a point, where we have to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.”

 

So, in the rest of this blog, I’m going to explore some root causes, whilst recognising that for many people, endogenous depression (i.e. a neurochemical cause in the brain) IS the root cause, and therefore their depression may not have any other roots to it.  I’ve also done this vlog (which I did for mental health awareness week) about what depression is and some of the things that can help.

 

But in looking for root causes, let’s start at the beginning. I’ve written on this blog a number of times about the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences and the impact of Trauma on our lives. So many of us live with unhealed pain, which over time eats away at us and makes it harder for us to remain mentally well. Many of us go through trauma and are able to survive it better than others, but that is because we’ve had other things in our lives at the time which have helped us navigate the storm. However, we need to recognise more the massive reality of trauma in our lives, so that we can face it, and find healing together. This is one of the reasons why I’ve co-written ‘The Little Book of ACEs’ with some friends and colleagues, here in Morecambe Bay. There is a free PDF version of it, if you click here. You may also find this inspiring talk by Jaz Ampur-Farr, herself a survivor of significant trauma, really helpful. Jaz is joining us in Morecambe Bay very soon, to explore some of these issues.

 

We must also be brave enough to recognise that we have a complex corporate history, which shapes our identity and we have a society, which is by no means equal or fair. Prof Bev Skeggs, and Prof Imogen Tyler, two of the foremost sociology professors in the UK/world right now, are writing so powerfully about this. It’s well worth digging into their work, and I am so excited that they are here at Lancaster University, in Morecambe Bay, and will be exploring some of these issues with us in more depth over the next few months. We cannot underestimate how injustice, poverty, and inequality impacts our mental health.

 

Stress has a hugely negative impact on our mental health. Our work patterns have become so manic and busy and our weekends often so full, that we have forgotten how to rest, how to stop, how to switch off and take notice of the beauty all around us – of the things which really matter. This takes a huge toll on us. The girl guides took part in a fascinating survey about what causes them stress and feeds mental health issues. The number one factor was the pressure they feel to do well at school. Our very systems and the treadmill of the exams are making our young people unwell. The idea of slowing down and learning to switch off from our ever faster, consumerist world, seems laughable to so many of us – and yet I would argue that this is one of the greatest causes of our ill-being. We have created an economy which treats people like fodder for the economic machine and is literally killing the planet around us – another underlying huge but often unrecognised cause of our stress. We must rebuild an economy based on wellbeing. It’s why I’m so excited that we’ll be welcoming Prof Katherine Trebeck to Morecambe Bay in the next few weeks.

 

Another causative factor of our growing mental illness in society, perhaps caused by all the busyness, is loneliness and isolation. Despite our many frantic activities, and social networking, 20% of the UK population say they feel lonely, but that jumps to between 50 and 75% of people over 75. We were made to be in relationship. When we are disconnected from community, we become sad and low. We need to remember how to love people, and also to be loved. Our disconnection is leading to increased separation, suspicion of others and a rise in racism and hatred. This is in no way good for our mental health. Valerie Kaur explores this so powerfully in her incredible TED talk on revolutionary love. We need to reimagine a society in which relationship is at the core of our being together. Hilary Cottam’s work is so vital in helping us recover this. Again, Hilary is coming to the Bay in the coming months to help us dig deeper as a community into these ideas.

 

I am so glad that we are talking about mental health so much more seriously. I am glad that people are able to take medication that can help them and that the stigma is being broken. I am hopeful though that we can recognise together just how broken our society is, and how our current political and economic systems (including our beloved health system) cannot fix this. Perhaps, in learning to be together in the dark, when we cannot see the light, wrestling with the complexity of our pain, healing our trauma and reimagining our future, we might find that our need for medication decreases.

 

 

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A Second Brexit Referendum Would be NO Failure of Democracy and is the Only Realistic Option Available

Sick of Brexit? Me too! But we are where we are, thanks to David Cameron asking us all a question, that most of us weren’t actually thinking about. If nothing else, the Brexit debacle has shown us that complicated issues cannot be dealt with by simple yes/no answers and our current political system is pretty defunct!

 

It seems the Prime Minister, Theresa May, unlikely to remain in her post for much longer, has

(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

failed to find a way through the mine field of trying to please all sides. However had she been more collaborative and inclusive in her leadership style, reaching out across the house from the beginning of the negotiations, we might not be in quite such a mess.

 

We are now left with only 2 workable options. Realistically, there is no ‘deal’ that is going to make it through parliament. There is too much resistance from one faction or another to make that possible. Therefore, we EITHER leave the EU with no deal – something which would be potentially catastrophic for the people of Ireland (north and south) and indeed for the economy, at least in the short term, (which when you work in public services, including the NHS, after years of austerity, would be completely unacceptable ) OR we remain in the EU.

 

We certainly know far more now than we did when we voted a couple of years ago. When we voted last time, there were hyperbole and deception on both sides. We have proven that it is impossible to have a soft Brexit – it’s simply unworkable, due to the complexities and factions involved, and it basically means remaining in the EU but with far less influence. We are now much more clear about what the question actually is. So, we either leave with no deal and face the consequences, or we remain. The negotiations have failed, the options are now in front of us and there is no other way forward but to ask the people again.  We have now heard the arguments, we’ve participated in a much more detailed debate and so it is time to make sure that the British people really want to leave the EU, now that the terms are more clear. A General Election will offer us very little, especially as people seem overwhelmingly unsure of who to vote for! In my opinion, a 2nd referendum is now the only way we can clear up this mess. This is not a betrayal of democracy – it is democracy in action!

 

 

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Love and Kindness in Action

This latest podcast is a conversation with some incredible people from ‘The Well’ community, here in Morecambe Bay, talking about their own very personal journeys from addiction into recovery. Listen as they talk about hitting rock bottom, ego surrender, tough love, hard truth and transformative kindness and how in being with each other, they have learnt how to love themselves and walk into freedom. This is love and kindness in action and we can all learn from these truly beautiful human beings. Click on iTunes or Spotify links below and enjoy!

iTunes

spotify

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Recovery From Addiction – Podcast

Here is the lastest edition of the ‘Black Swan Podcast’ – available on iTunes, Spotify, Alexa and anypod.net

 

This one is with my good friend, Dave Higham, founder and CEO of ‘The Well’ – an incredible community of recovering addicts, here in Morecambe Bay. This one focuses on Dave’s own story through addiction and prison (where he’s spent more than half his life) and his journey of transformation and hope. This podcast is unmissable and (along with the next one, which is a group podcast with other members from ‘The Well’) has some of the best examples I know of how love and kindness practically restores lives and rebuilds communities – a prime example of the new politics and economics we need!

 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/black-swan-podcast/id1454670907?mt=2#episodeGuid=Buzzsprout-984751

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Knife Attacks – Whose Crime Is It?

I find myself staring at the screen, unable to comprehend how utterly devastating it must be as a parent, to have a police officer knock on your door in the early hours of the morning, to be told that your darling child has been stabbed to death. My heart weeps for the senseless loss of life, young lives stolen away in this rising tide of violence. I know what it is like to break truly awful news to people and their families and my heart goes out to the police officers on the beat or the clinicians in the Emergency Department, who have to break the terrible news to the parents and the siblings, that so suddenly, a bright shining light in their lives, has been extinguished.

 

Knife attacks are a crime, there is no denying that, but the burden of guilt is not so easily apportioned. We are seeing an exponential rise of it in our streets, with a 93% increase in recent years across England, whilst in Scotland, they have seen a 64% decrease over a similar timeframe. We need to examine what has gone on in that time and ask some very uncomfortable questions. We also need to call people to account for decisions which have been made, despite knowing the evidence, and  we desperately need a ‘whole systems’ approach to tackling this epidemic.

 

The Primeminister has stated that “knife crime” is not linked to a decrease in policing numbers. The police chiefs disagree. The truth is, that it’s not only the police who have disappeared off our streets (and these are community police officers, who knew their communities well and were respected and trusted – it takes years to build up those kind of relationships) – we’ve had a perfect cocktail of cuts right across the board which is directly attributable to the mess we are now in. Ongoing austerity, which is a political choice, has also led to the closure of youth centres, more young people than ever excluded from school, (who then have a 200 times higher chance of being groomed into violent gangs) and massive cuts to public health and local government, meaning many preventative schemes have disappeared. When policy fails, it has to be called out and challenged. Everyone with a brain knows that prevention is better than cure. And for those who have lost loved ones, there is now no comfort – this could have been prevented, but has been allowed to escalate at such an alarming rate because we do not have a form of politics or leadership that listens to what is really going on in our communities, but continues to drive through ideological changes without thinking through the consequences. This is unacceptable.

 

When Heidi Allen MP came to Morecambe, she heard the testimony of my friend, Daniel, who grew up in some really tough circumstances, forced into a gang culture in order to help put food on the table and prevent harm coming to his family. Tears streamed down her face as she heard his powerful account of what it meant for him as a young person, to have his youth centre closed, his local high school closed and being told he was not a priority when he was street homeless. She told us that she had not realised the layers to the poverty that many are experiencing across England. And this is how the (perhaps) unintended consequences of remote policy decisions affect ordinary people in droves across the UK. When school budgets are cut and mental health teams are cut and social care provision is cut and youth centres are cut, children and young people from home environments which are already struggling to make ends meet, already processing significant trauma and adversity, fall prey to gangs and criminal networks who use them and abuse them for their gains across county lines.

 

And yet in Scotland, we are seeing an altogether different picture emerging, because they saw this problem 10 years ago and decided to make a difference by dealing with complex living systems, rather than tinkering clumsily with mechanistic thinking. So it is high time that England ate some humble pie and learnt from our Celtic friends.

 

Scotland, unlike the English, are not delaying on taking a serious approach to Adverse Childhood Experiences, hoping to become the first fully trauma informed nation in the world. They have taken a public health, holistic approach to the knife crime problems in Glasgow and then spread the learning across the nation, rather than making devastating cuts to their PH budgets. What they have done isn’t rocket science – it’s plain, public health common sense. They have chosen not to criminalise, label and stigmatise young people (something the hostile environment rhetoric seems to do). They have refused to see it as a race problem – because it isn’t (but some in our press in particular, and some members of the government have stirred up this nonsense anyway) and they have invested in early and effective youth intervention programmes, amongst other things.

 

One of things my work has taught me to do, is suspend my judgements of those who we would automatically and ordinarily point the finger at, the supposed perpetrators of a crime, and really listen to the truth. The truth here is complex and I’m not saying that people who commit violent acts do not need to face the consequences of their actions. They do. But what I am saying is that we need restorative justice in our communities that breaks this horrendous cycle. We also need to recognise that there has been terrible violence done to our most vulnerable children and young people across England by a series of political decisions. The government has failed those it should have protected. In my line of work, those kind of errors would lead to massive learning events and the dismissal of those who had failed in their leadership. Perhaps people have such little faith in the political system we have because there is seemingly such little accountability. Now is not the time for silly political defence of failure. Now is the time for humility, repentance and a genuine turning of the hearts of the fathers and mothers in the nation to the rising generation, far too many of whom are no longer with us.

 

 

 

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The Black Swan Podcast

I’m super excited to announce the launch of a new podcast: “Black Swan Podcast”

 

Until 1791, people in the UK assumed all swans were white. Then a black swan was brought to these shores and so perspectives and previously held beliefs and opinions had to change. Sometimes anomalies cause us to stop and think and change our mind, or shift our thinking about something. Our current political and economics systems are not socially just for humanity and are incapable of giving us a future that is sustainable for the planet. This podcast explores anomalous examples of where other possibilities are emerging, which challenge our long held ideologies and allows us to open our eyes and reimagine an altogether different future, based on self-giving, others-empowering love, kindness and positive peace.

 

So, initially by talking with people around this amazing area of Morecambe Bay, and then looking further afield, gathering stories of some beautiful people about their lives and work, I’m looking to stir up more hope and add to the growing tapestry that is emerging of the kind of future that will be good for future generations. I’m still learning how to do this and the quality will improve as time goes on (!) – but welcome to the journey – subscribe for free and be encouraged and challenged as we all learn to see things in new ways.

 

You can listen through most podcast browsers, except google play, which isn’t available in the UK yet for uploading. The RSS feed and the iTunes link are below.

 

https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/261272.rss

 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/black-swan-podcast/id1454670907?mt=2

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Adam Smith Was Wrong!

I have recently been at a brilliant gathering of people, down in Sussex, called ‘Sparks’. I always find it to be one of the more helpful imaginariums which I spend time at and love the diversity of the people who come. What follows is some learning I’ve taken from my good friend, Mark Sampson and his fabulous PhD thesis.

 

Adam Smith famously stated: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

 

Like Mark, I disagree with him! I do not believe that self-interest is the basis for individual interaction and whatever we are told, the unrestrained free market is not benevolent!

 

We have allowed economic language not only to inform reality, but to create it. The language and vocabulary of economics is performative – it creates the world around us. Why would we think that self-interested economics will lead to goodness in society when we do not believe that in other parts of society or our own lives? It is not true of our relationships in our families nor in our friendships, so why do we allow a split mindset in how we think about work?

 

Some economists (Robertson and Summers) have argued that we should promote self-interest in policies and act out of this same motive in business, but altruism in other areas of our life, like our family and charitable work. This is ludicrous!

 

As Kate Raworth has so eloquently demonstrated, this current model of economics is dividing us, isolating us and slowly destroying us. It may, in some ways have gotten us to where we are, but it is neither capable nor kind enough to give us the future that will lead to a more connected and healed society and a more sustainable planet. Enlightenment thinking holds very little light for us now. And so, it is time to let it go, to lament its failure and discover together a new language and a more sustainable model for a reimagined future. Some of this requires exchanging the language of scarcity to one of abundance, renouncing the doctrine of growth for one of equilibrium, repenting of our obsession with competition and embracing relationship and collaboration and replacing self-interest with the notion of gift, reciprocity and mutuality.

 

This requires us to dig deeper into a spirituality and a paradigm shift in our thinking which embraces incongruity! The beauty of mutuality is that it recognises that there is personal benefit to the giver as well as the receiver in any gift-exchange interaction and it strengthens the bond of relationship. Since I watched the Christopher Robin movie, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about upsidedown triangles. Our current economies are built in pyramids, with those at the top “earning” and holding absolutely vast sums of money. What if we gave our most and prioritised those considered at the bottom as the most important? In the NHS we think a lot about ‘equality and diversity’ but often do little about it. For example, most of our waiting rooms and clinical environments are incredible unfriendly for people who have an autistic spectrum condition (ASC). What if, when designing these spaces, we didn’t tag on some kind of tick-box exercise afterwards to show we’ve considered people with ‘disability’ in a vague sense, but actually put them at the forefront of our thinking and planning? What if people living with ASC were at the very forefront of our planning decisions? Incongruous, perhaps, but a different kind of economy, which feels to me to be altogether kinder.

 

In my last blog, I explored how it is isolation (and competition caused by our need to try and overcome our human limitations) which cases poverty. What might we imagine together of an economy in which we prioritise relationships first, and worked together WITH those often left at the bottom of the pile or tagged on as an after thought? What might our planning cycles be like, if we slowed things down and really collaborated WITH our communities and truly considered all the benefits of mutuality? I believe we are at a moment in which the facades are well and truly down. We can see more clearly than ever just how broken our current economic system is, the true effects of putting our faith in the ‘free market’ to create a fair society and a sustainable planet and the realities of allowing our policies to be shaped on the notion of self-interest. It would be insane for us to continue with such a broken model, but it will take ongoing bravery to undo it’s myth in our minds, breakdown the strongholds of the many vested interests and to be part of a corporate reimagining of something based on mutuality and even incongruity!

 

In the end, I believe that when we deal with our root issues and become more healed, we are far more motivated by love than self-interest – and I see this every day! We are made in the image of God but allow ourselves to believe much less of ourselves. To quote Charles Eisenstein, “it is time for us to tell a more ancient and far more beautiful story which our hearts tell us is possible.” What if Milton Friedman was wrong and the business of business is not business? I know that may seem ridiculous, but what if the business of business is to ensure that every life matters, that we are more connected and living in a more sustainable way? What if it was the business of business to make real what really matters to us all? What else might a reimagined business of business be? And what effect might that have on how we think about economics and how we collaborate for a more mutually beneficial society and planet? I think we see this in many models and forms of business already. There are some wonderfully ethical and gentle businesses – I think this is especially true of smaller businesses where relationships are both vital and strong. It is the impersonal banking sector in particular, built on an economy of debt, with multi-lateral corporate giants that holds us prisoner.

 

The reason I am writing about this on this blog is that so much of our health and wellbeing is governed by our philosophy of economics and it is the language of economics which shapes so much of our thinking and reality. So, be careful how you speak about it, find some better words and let’s begin to shape a new future together for the sake of the wellbeing of humanity and the planet!

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