Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host
Joanne Lockwood: to the Inclusion Bytes podcast. In this series, I will be
Joanne Lockwood: interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around
Joanne Lockwood: the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world
Joanne Lockwood: a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join
Joanne Lockwood: me in the future, then please do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's
Joanne Lockwood: seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on iTunes, Spotify and
Joanne Lockwood: of course, all the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a
Joanne Lockwood: decaf and let's get going. Today
Joanne Lockwood: is episode eleven with the title why Love,
Joanne Lockwood: respect, connection and acceptance matter. And
Joanne Lockwood: I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Ling
Joanne Lockwood: Salter. I met Ling online through my local
Joanne Lockwood: Rotary Social Innovation Club and Ling describes herself as
Joanne Lockwood: a formal mental health nurse of Chinese descent, living in the UK,
Joanne Lockwood: striving to thrive during this period of change,
Joanne Lockwood: disruption, whatever you want to call it. It's an unprecedented time.
Joanne Lockwood: It sure is. So I asked Ling to describe her superpower and
Joanne Lockwood: she said her vulnerability and being able to connect with
Joanne Lockwood: her purpose in a compassionate way.
Joanne Lockwood: So, hello, Ling. Welcome to the show. Hi there,
Ling Salter: Jo. Hi.
Joanne Lockwood: So tell me, why does love,
Joanne Lockwood: respect, connection and acceptance matter to
Joanne Lockwood: you? Well, Jo, they're
Ling Salter: very big concepts there
Ling Salter: that all of us
Ling Salter: need to a large extent, in different
Ling Salter: quantities. Whether we describe it as love,
Ling Salter: acceptance, belonging,
Ling Salter: whatever spear we look at it upon,
Ling Salter: it's really important because
Ling Salter: we want to be included. Right?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, for sure. And I noticed the word belonging there
Joanne Lockwood: and I really feel a connection with that word
Joanne Lockwood: and it means so many things to so many different people. But it's about being
Joanne Lockwood: listened to sometimes, isn't it? Yes.
Ling Salter: And really being listened to,
Ling Salter: being heard sometimes is quite
Ling Salter: rare. When we all like to talk,
Ling Salter: talking is great and how we articulate
Ling Salter: sort of how we see things in our world.
Ling Salter: That connection comes about when
Ling Salter: somebody else who really
Ling Salter: is listening and being attentive
Ling Salter: gets you right. And that is where
Ling Salter: the connection happens.
Joanne Lockwood: It does, and I completely relate to that. You say you're a former
Joanne Lockwood: mental health nurse, so you must have come across
Joanne Lockwood: examples where a lot of people's mental health was
Joanne Lockwood: impacted by not being listened to, maybe didn't have agency,
Joanne Lockwood: didn't have any power decision, and you must have come across those
Joanne Lockwood: challenges working with people. Yes, definitely.
Ling Salter: Certainly. I spent my
Ling Salter: time working in prison, which is
Ling Salter: a very challenging
Ling Salter: place for the people who are
Ling Salter: incarcerated and it's very chaotic
Ling Salter: and quite a lot of time. There's
Ling Salter: not a lot of opportunity to connect
Ling Salter: in the way that you wish to
Ling Salter: really facilitate for that person
Ling Salter: to be heard. There's a lot of
Ling Salter: shouting and very
Ling Salter: transient interactions, which sort of are
Ling Salter: very immediate, where they're calling you to meet
Ling Salter: a particular need. Whereas actually,
Ling Salter: in life we have needs that we might
Ling Salter: not articulate. Just at our first
Ling Salter: instance. It takes time to actually
Ling Salter: explore and find out.
Ling Salter: Sometimes when you experience a mental
Ling Salter: health issue, there's a disconnect.
Ling Salter: So almost opposite to the
Ling Salter: connection. And refinding what
Ling Salter: your purpose is and your
Ling Salter: passion, what means a lot to you.
Ling Salter: Yeah, it takes time to find that out.
Joanne Lockwood: So I'm just thinking as you're talking now, I'm thinking about this and
Joanne Lockwood: thinking, so if I'm not being listened to by
Joanne Lockwood: the people that matter to me,
Joanne Lockwood: but I do get listened to by other people, am I more likely
Joanne Lockwood: to join a different crowd? So
Joanne Lockwood: where I feel this sense of value? So maybe in prison, if I'm
Joanne Lockwood: not being listened to by authority, but I am being
Joanne Lockwood: listened to by anarchy, if you like, I may be
Joanne Lockwood: more form an allegiance with people who in that other tribe.
Joanne Lockwood: So by the impact of us ignoring people and not giving
Joanne Lockwood: people the ability to express and being hurt, then we're allowing
Joanne Lockwood: other people to steal their attention, if you like. Is that what's kind of
Joanne Lockwood: happening? Sometimes? Yes. I mean, that happens quite a
Ling Salter: lot. Areas where people are
Ling Salter: disaffected, say, by
Ling Salter: authority or places that we
Ling Salter: think we know that we trust, well,
Ling Salter: they're not meeting our needs. Right? So if
Ling Salter: then another group or entity
Ling Salter: comes by which actually are able to attend
Ling Salter: to us to a certain level, then
Ling Salter: we can swap allegiancies quite quickly, because
Ling Salter: all of us are trying to serve ourselves to a certain level.
Ling Salter: Even if we're wanting to give. Well, if you want to give
Ling Salter: to someone, you still have to have the means to be able to do it,
Ling Salter: right? And so you can't do that, then you're going to
Ling Salter: go to a place, wherever that is, so
Ling Salter: that you can do that. Simple as it doesn't matter whether that
Ling Salter: place is known for whatever kind of
Ling Salter: subject levels, we can swap.
Ling Salter: Yeah, connection is so important, but connection
Ling Salter: with kindness, which perhaps
Ling Salter: isn't really spoke about as much,
Ling Salter: I think is even more important because
Ling Salter: we're social beings. We want to try and
Ling Salter: get along in life and
Ling Salter: promote the good within each other.
Joanne Lockwood: So you mentioned well being in there. So well being is all part
Joanne Lockwood: of not physical wellbeing. There's also the mental health well being,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it? And we always associate mental health as being a
Joanne Lockwood: negative, don't we? Because you can have good mental health and bad mental health or
Joanne Lockwood: poor mental health. It's not all mental health is bad, is it? So
Joanne Lockwood: maybe there's a stigma around just saying mental health because it
Joanne Lockwood: implies there's something wrong with you. So how do we change that narrative and
Joanne Lockwood: readdress that and make mental health seem a positive thing?
Ling Salter: Yes, I think for my
Ling Salter: speaking on a personal level, the
Ling Salter: word mental in itself,
Ling Salter: when we even just say the word mental, it
Ling Salter: has negative
Ling Salter: stereotypes. So hence
Ling Salter: people talk about their emotional
Ling Salter: health or their well being, and they're
Ling Salter: really part of the same things.
Ling Salter: Sometimes some people don't like talking about their emotions, their
Ling Salter: feelings, thinking, well, what purpose has
Ling Salter: feelings got to do with life anyway?
Ling Salter: How you feel is how you feel. And sometimes we
Ling Salter: might deny
Ling Salter: how we feel, which
Ling Salter: actually feelings have a
Ling Salter: habit of actually coming back. So
Ling Salter: particularly negative feelings, if we try to suppress
Ling Salter: them and we don't attend to them, it will process them
Ling Salter: in some way, they will come back without
Ling Salter: a doubt. So
Joanne Lockwood: as you're talking, I'm thinking that
Joanne Lockwood: you said the word mental has got negative connotations. And we always think about
Joanne Lockwood: straitjackets, we talk about asylums, we think about
Joanne Lockwood: all these images of the past where
Joanne Lockwood: admitting to having poor mental health is a real
Joanne Lockwood: stigma and allowing people to open up without feeling that
Joanne Lockwood: shame, feeling of failing for not being able to handle something in
Joanne Lockwood: their life, it's a very hard for people to do. I mean, I know
Joanne Lockwood: from my own experience, four or five years ago, I was going
Joanne Lockwood: through a dark time in my life, and I was very
Joanne Lockwood: reluctant to share how I was feeling with people. I wanted to fix
Joanne Lockwood: myself, because sometimes you don't have the tools, do you
Joanne Lockwood: don't have your own tools within you? You need a lifeline or a way of
Joanne Lockwood: communicating out of it, don't you?
Ling Salter: Yeah, that's very true.
Ling Salter: When we're in a bad place, it's
Ling Salter: very easy for us to disconnect with
Ling Salter: others, and we want to protect ourselves.
Ling Salter: When we withdraw and we don't reach out to others, in a
Ling Salter: way, we think that we're protecting ourselves.
Ling Salter: I'm dealing with this even if I'm not dealing with it very
Ling Salter: well. I'm dealing it with it
Ling Salter: internally in my own little world, right? So nobody needs
Ling Salter: to know that I'm dealing with this, even if I'm
Ling Salter: struggling. And in a way, the longer we leave
Ling Salter: it, the harder it gets to reach out. Wouldn't you
Joanne Lockwood: say for sure? Yeah. It becomes
Joanne Lockwood: a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. I'm not feeling great, therefore
Joanne Lockwood: I don't feel great. And we do less exercise, we communicate less,
Joanne Lockwood: we withdraw into ourselves, don't we? And I'm
Joanne Lockwood: aware that male suicide amongst the ages,
Joanne Lockwood: or is it 25 to 40, is the highest proportion of suicides
Joanne Lockwood: in any demographic. And there's still a
Joanne Lockwood: stigma about being male and being weak, isn't there? Being able to talk about it?
Ling Salter: Yes, there is this perception that
Ling Salter: men in particular. Well, if you talk, men
Ling Salter: don't cry, those types of stereotypes.
Ling Salter: And that actually perpetuates the
Ling Salter: problem, because if they're not able to articulate
Ling Salter: how they feel or be able to reach out for
Ling Salter: support, that support can just be a
Ling Salter: conversation. And from that conversation is
Ling Salter: connection. And that's why it's so
Ling Salter: important. Well, it's important to me, but
Ling Salter: the wider message, it's important to
Ling Salter: others. And how. Well,
Ling Salter: the first port of call, in the sense of really
Ling Salter: reaching out to another person
Ling Salter: and accessing,
Ling Salter: allowing someone else to
Ling Salter: sort of a ringside seat to what you're experiencing,
Ling Salter: that makes sense. Yeah. I
Joanne Lockwood: hear the expression a cry for help. And many
Joanne Lockwood: people say that when people attempt to commit
Joanne Lockwood: suicide or attempt suicide, that
Joanne Lockwood: it's a cry for help. And they really want someone to listen
Joanne Lockwood: to them, which is why, I guess, Samaritans and services like that, and
Joanne Lockwood: maybe your own service are just someone who can listen. And that's what they really
Joanne Lockwood: want. They want someone who can just not judge, not have an
Joanne Lockwood: opinion. They just want to create a space where they can talk and
Joanne Lockwood: be heard. Yes. And part of that
Ling Salter: listening is also with compassion, with that
Ling Salter: kindness, with that care
Ling Salter: that actually
Ling Salter: you matter.
Ling Salter: What you're going through in your head is very
Ling Salter: difficult right now. However,
Ling Salter: you as a human being, your life
Ling Salter: matters. Quite often
Ling Salter: when people get to a place of feeling
Ling Salter: or contemplating
Ling Salter: suicide, they are wanting
Ling Salter: their suffering to end.
Ling Salter: Okay. And their
Ling Salter: suffering at that point, for them,
Ling Salter: is all so consuming. That's
Ling Salter: overtaking, sort of like the whole life.
Ling Salter: But that isn't all of them. What I'm trying to say is
Ling Salter: that their suffering is one area of their
Ling Salter: life. They're
Ling Salter: coming from a point of view of deficiency,
Ling Salter: where actually they have lots of other things in
Ling Salter: their life that is valuable,
Ling Salter: but it's covered when they're in that space.
Joanne Lockwood: It's quite tough being a human being these days, isn't it? With social media,
Joanne Lockwood: if you cast your mind back 1520
Joanne Lockwood: years, if someone didn't like you, they had to either
Joanne Lockwood: write you a letter, tell you face to face,
Joanne Lockwood: or maybe put something nasty on the note support at school.
Joanne Lockwood: But generally you knew who that person was, or at least you knew roughly
Joanne Lockwood: where they were. But now you've got no redRess, because anybody in the world
Joanne Lockwood: can say something about you that's not nice,
Joanne Lockwood: anonymously, without any recourse. And it must be really tough
Joanne Lockwood: to be a person who's growing up with body image
Joanne Lockwood: issues or identity issues,
Joanne Lockwood: to be able to put themselves out there into this world that's so judgmental.
Ling Salter: Yes. The Internet in particular,
Ling Salter: the mention of the Internet, how great, how it's
Ling Salter: evolved. We have access to more
Ling Salter: information than we ever have done previously,
Ling Salter: and how we communicate
Ling Salter: using the Internet. But the flip side
Ling Salter: is the Internet is less forgiving in the
Ling Salter: sense it doesn't allow us to be
Ling Salter: forgotten. Certainly when
Ling Salter: the misdemeanours, that I'm sure, Jo, you could relate
Ling Salter: to this, the things that we've got up to, perhaps in our younger days,
Ling Salter: and things that.
Ling Salter: The things that we've done that maybe we're not proud of. But
Ling Salter: nowadays, if those things are so much
Ling Salter: more, our lives are so much more under the
Ling Salter: focus with social media and the Internet.
Ling Salter: And the Internet doesn't allow you to
Ling Salter: forget, because somewhere
Ling Salter: it's stored on a server and it can be
Ling Salter: accessed. If somebody really wants to dig, they'll find
Ling Salter: it.
Ling Salter: It must be very difficult to reinvent yourself
Ling Salter: if that's what you're wanting to do
Ling Salter: in your life. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: back when I was young, I'm not quite as old as Noah
Joanne Lockwood: in the Ark, but I'm in my mid 50s now, which is old
Joanne Lockwood: enough. If you wanted to
Joanne Lockwood: take a photograph, you had to find your camera, which probably
Joanne Lockwood: wasn't with you. It's probably at home. You'd have to cheque you, had
Joanne Lockwood: some film in it, maybe find a flash gun or
Joanne Lockwood: cube or something, then go and take a photograph. Then you'd have to wait for
Joanne Lockwood: you to finish the reel of film off and then post off the boots
Joanne Lockwood: or take it off for developing, and then two weeks later you might get the
Joanne Lockwood: films back. So it's very difficult to sort of take a nasty
Joanne Lockwood: picture and post something online or post it anywhere. Whereas
Joanne Lockwood: now every moment can be captured. Everyone's got a camera,
Joanne Lockwood: everyone's taking selfies, everyone's so
Joanne Lockwood: live. There is no way of hiding and having downtime, even
Joanne Lockwood: if you're having a quiet moment. MosT people would have a camera on their phone
Joanne Lockwood: with them or be in the background of someone else's shot.
Joanne Lockwood: It's terribly difficult to switch off, isn't it? Yes. And
Ling Salter: I think it can be very
Ling Salter: overwhelming, what you
Ling Salter: just described there, Jo. Well, that's you. You doing it.
Ling Salter: And if you were to replicate you, your actions, sort
Ling Salter: of up and down the country, internationally
Ling Salter: and on particular platforms. Can you imagine?
Ling Salter: Well, no wonder all of us are feeling a bit
Ling Salter: bombarded with the amount of content
Ling Salter: and lives and choice. And
Ling Salter: sometimes that choice is great when we
Ling Salter: all like to have choice and autonomy and how we choose to
Ling Salter: engage with certain things, but then suddenly there's this
Ling Salter: deluge. It's a bit like a menu,
Ling Salter: when if you go into a restaurant
Ling Salter: and you see a menu of choices, of different
Ling Salter: foods, and great, you've got variety there, you
Ling Salter: want to have variety. But if you were presented with a menu that was
Ling Salter: just crammed full of different starters, mains,
Ling Salter: desserts, you're taking
Ling Salter: forever to make a decision. And
Ling Salter: it's a bit like that online. It can be very difficult to
Ling Salter: then stand what. What stands out. When I need to look, I need
Ling Salter: to look through and see what's there, then choose, and
Ling Salter: it's the same. But it's so hard
Joanne Lockwood: to get off the bus, to use an analogy,
Joanne Lockwood: where all of your belonging, all of your inclusion,
Joanne Lockwood: all of your circle are in this crowd.
Joanne Lockwood: And for you to protect yourself, you have to step out into a world
Joanne Lockwood: where all your friends aren't. You've lost that connection with
Joanne Lockwood: people. So in order to fix yourself and back out, you've almost got to go
Joanne Lockwood: lonely. Where do you find support
Joanne Lockwood: for people who turn themselves off? Because by definition, if you've turned
Joanne Lockwood: yourself off of social media, you're not online. And
Joanne Lockwood: how do we connect with people? How do we form new clubs of people
Joanne Lockwood: who want to switch off, who want to not be online at the time. How
Joanne Lockwood: do we connect people like that? I
Ling Salter: think ultimately it really
Ling Salter: is you grounding you in the
Ling Salter: sense how you.
Ling Salter: You know, you have to know within yourself
Ling Salter: what your purpose is, your passion
Ling Salter: is, and go from that standpOint,
Ling Salter: from the perspective of knowing yourself and knowing what
Ling Salter: you're about, then how you
Ling Salter: engage with what your passion and
Ling Salter: your purpose, the vehicles of how you
Ling Salter: engage with that becomes a lot easier in terms
Ling Salter: of which
Ling Salter: areas, which areas,
Ling Salter: which groups that might look like.
Ling Salter: And yeah, if you are
Ling Salter: fulfilling your purpose isn't just
Ling Salter: about goals, because lots of people talk
Ling Salter: about specific goals. And then obviously when
Ling Salter: people can't meet those goals, they get really disappointed because
Ling Salter: they, oh, well, I didn't achieve X, Y and Z.
Ling Salter: However, purpose and passion go a lot deeper
Ling Salter: than that. And it isn't a prescribed way to say,
Ling Salter: well, you should go to these
Ling Salter: platforms and not these platforms. It isn't a straight
Ling Salter: sort of yes, no issue.
Ling Salter: It's about finding what works for you.
Joanne Lockwood: Do you think that in this unprecedented time,
Joanne Lockwood: as everyone keeps calling it, I think one day it'll become a precedent. Won't
Joanne Lockwood: it become the norm? One day we'll get there, we'll stop talking
Joanne Lockwood: about. We don't talk about the Roman Empire as being the norm anymore. So I
Joanne Lockwood: think one day we'll get used to the idea that we are living in reality
Joanne Lockwood: again. So do you think people
Joanne Lockwood: have similar, different mental health
Joanne Lockwood: challenges now? Is this lockdown making
Joanne Lockwood: some people worse, or is it helping? What do you think?
Ling Salter: Well, it happened in different stages.
Ling Salter: When the lockdown first happened,
Ling Salter: there was a lot of shock. People
Ling Salter: didn't know what they were doing with themselves
Ling Salter: because all their routines of what
Ling Salter: they knew they were. I mean, if you've got a diary or a schedule,
Ling Salter: you've got plans. And they were all kind of
Ling Salter: mean. Did that happen for
Ling Salter: sure. For I land.
Joanne Lockwood: I was in Amsterdam the week before,
Joanne Lockwood: and when I landed, the world had changed. I didn't get the memo. I was
Joanne Lockwood: away at the time. I got back on the Friday the 13th and
Joanne Lockwood: everything had changed. And I was wondering what happened. And I threw myself
Joanne Lockwood: a pity party for a few days. I had to mourn the loss of everything
Joanne Lockwood: I had, the loss of my stability. But
Joanne Lockwood: one of the things I think the class of one of my superpowers is my
Joanne Lockwood: ability to move into Acceptance very quickly and to be able
Joanne Lockwood: to bootstrap myself out of that doom and
Joanne Lockwood: gloom very quickly into. Okay, dust myself down. What's next? Let's get back
Joanne Lockwood: on. Let's carry on doing stuff. But that's part of my own
Joanne Lockwood: resilience, which I appreciate. Not everybody has. And you have to
Joanne Lockwood: go through that grieving stage, that loss, don't you? The
Joanne Lockwood: seven stages of grieving. We still have to go through that. We'll have
Joanne Lockwood: anger in there. We'll have denial. It's not real. Or
Joanne Lockwood: I can't see zombies outside killing, eating people.
Joanne Lockwood: It's this just hidden thing. Is it real? So I guess
Joanne Lockwood: people were denying it. To start with, yes.
Ling Salter: There certainly was a difficulty accepting,
Ling Salter: which you mentioned you were able to come to
Ling Salter: a level of acceptance of where you were fairly quickly.
Ling Salter: For some people, it would have been a real struggle to accept
Ling Salter: that things completely changed. And
Ling Salter: being angry, being lost, being
Ling Salter: pitiful, and yet there
Ling Salter: were others that suddenly the flip side was
Ling Salter: I heard a lot about mutual
Ling Salter: aid, the certain sort of
Ling Salter: responses, certain sections
Ling Salter: of the community that come together
Ling Salter: and put together
Ling Salter: support locally. And then you had
Ling Salter: the things like the clap for carers, that sort of wasn't
Ling Salter: a seed of an idea. And then it just
Ling Salter: literally spread throughout the nation.
Ling Salter: Every Thursday you go out and clap. And
Ling Salter: all expected this
Ling Salter: response in terms of the
Ling Salter: pandemic getting worse.
Ling Salter: But for ourselves, it was
Ling Salter: just a huge tidal of
Ling Salter: disruption. Now, some people lost all of their work and then
Ling Salter: at the other end of the spectrum, if we look at it like a spectrum,
Ling Salter: others that were just super busy and
Ling Salter: didn't have time to even rest.
Ling Salter: So there was a big disparity, if you
Ling Salter: like, in those two groups. And then there was this dialogue about
Ling Salter: who was classed as vulnerable and who wasn't. And so
Ling Salter: all of those concerns, there were
Ling Salter: lots of things, but individually, we're all
Ling Salter: trying to negotiate that period
Ling Salter: of uncertainty. And us
Ling Salter: humans, we like things to be certain.
Ling Salter: That's why we have diaries, we plan things, we make sure that
Ling Salter: things happen at certain times. And
Ling Salter: we're still now unCertain, aren't we, in that we don't
Ling Salter: know if we're going to have this so called second
Ling Salter: spike and things can get
Ling Salter: cancelled or changed very
Ling Salter: suddenly. For example, the Spain quarantine,
Ling Salter: it seemed to have happened overnight.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, for sure. I mean, people stranded in Spain, people
Joanne Lockwood: about to take off, people who booked holidays recently, people
Joanne Lockwood: who booked holidays in advance and told that
Joanne Lockwood: you're covered on insurance up until this date, anything after that date, you're not covered.
Joanne Lockwood: And suddenly that's come into play. And I think people
Joanne Lockwood: got into this acceptance and now a lot of people have
Joanne Lockwood: now found their safe space again in
Joanne Lockwood: this, wherever we are. And I think there's a
Joanne Lockwood: new anxiety about the unlocking.
Joanne Lockwood: The government was so effective in warning people about public transport, in
Joanne Lockwood: warning people about enclosed spaces, in warning people about closed contact
Joanne Lockwood: and warning people about making sure their officers are safe. And so now
Joanne Lockwood: people are being asked to go back to work. There's now an anxiety
Joanne Lockwood: about using public transport, there's now anxiety about being in an
Joanne Lockwood: office with people and face masks and the fact that offices aren't
Joanne Lockwood: the warm, safe place they used to be. They've all changed. You go back
Joanne Lockwood: there, there's plastic screens and sanitizers and things that aren't
Joanne Lockwood: familiar. Maybe some people are on furlough, maybe the work's changed, maybe
Joanne Lockwood: the customers have changed, maybe business is struggling or busy.
Joanne Lockwood: So we've now got to adjust from the
Joanne Lockwood: status quo of lockdown and the certainty we had about
Joanne Lockwood: being safe at home to now make ourselves
Joanne Lockwood: vulnerable again by unlearning all of these things we've just
Joanne Lockwood: learned about keeping ourselves safe. And now we have to trust
Joanne Lockwood: people again. And that must be causing lots of people anxiety that you must be
Joanne Lockwood: coming across. Yes, well, you mentioned
Ling Salter: having to trust, and
Ling Salter: almost that goes back to connection again, where
Ling Salter: you're relying on something outside of yourself,
Ling Salter: essentially, to either work or
Ling Salter: the information that they give you is going to keep you safe.
Ling Salter: So we're coming back to that place of
Ling Salter: well before we're told to
Ling Salter: stay indoors, to stay safe and wash our hands and
Ling Salter: all the measures. And we're still in that process
Ling Salter: of adapting because almost that
Ling Salter: it's like an era where pre COVID seemed
Ling Salter: ages away, right, and now we're
Ling Salter: going to another sort
Ling Salter: of phase of where, okay, lockdown is
Ling Salter: easing. We don't know for sure how that looks
Ling Salter: like, okay, we might know that we need to wash our hands more. We know
Ling Salter: there's more screens, we know we need to observe social
Ling Salter: distancing where we can, but we don't
Ling Salter: know. Well, are the events that we want to go to, are they
Ling Salter: coming back? Are the arts coming back? Our
Ling Salter: theatre coming back? Our films, how we watch
Ling Salter: films, are they coming back? All the
Ling Salter: gatherings that perhaps we used to just take for
Ling Salter: Grant, we book to go somewhere.
Ling Salter: Even life has got more complicated again.
Ling Salter: If you go to a venue, they expect you to
Ling Salter: book because you can't just walk
Ling Salter: in. Because the track and trace
Ling Salter: thing, if you're close proximity with others and you think, well,
Ling Salter: if I go somewhere and then they contact
Ling Salter: you, somebody contacts you and says, oh, you've been in close proximity with
Ling Salter: somebody that's been affected, then do you have
Ling Salter: to then remember where you've been
Ling Salter: to, then pass on the information to the
Ling Salter: authorities so that they can contact other people that
Ling Salter: you've been, so that the whole
Ling Salter: thing becomes a big. And you can't keep track of it
Ling Salter: and sort of like, isn't it just easier just to stay
Ling Salter: indoors then if we
Ling Salter: always keep ourselves to ourselves? Well,
Ling Salter: that has its
Ling Salter: adverse effects, especially socially.
Ling Salter: We have found that
Ling Salter: the adverse effects to our mental health and our well being
Ling Salter: from being apart, we've
Ling Salter: become less happy as individuals. We're not functioning as
Ling Salter: well because the other things that normally
Ling Salter: keep us well, we've been denied.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I'm looking at the news like everybody does on
Joanne Lockwood: a. I don't look at it on this or a daily basis. I don't think
Joanne Lockwood: my mental health would stand looking at the news too often. But what I'm picking
Joanne Lockwood: up on is look at some of the big corporate decisions, say
Joanne Lockwood: airlines mothballing or scrapping their fleet of seven,
Joanne Lockwood: four seven and other long haul flights. Basically,
Joanne Lockwood: their message is saying we don't expect air travel to recover
Joanne Lockwood: whatever, certainly not for 24 months,
Joanne Lockwood: two years. We look at the film industries.
Joanne Lockwood: Disney and other big film producers have indefinitely
Joanne Lockwood: postponed the release of some of the blockbusters that were scheduled for this year. Indefinitely
Joanne Lockwood: postponed to me, says twelve to 18 months is kind of indefinite, isn't it?
Joanne Lockwood: That's kind of a long time. So they're saying that
Joanne Lockwood: they don't see film revenue going back to cinemas anytime
Joanne Lockwood: soon. We
Joanne Lockwood: were living in a world where we thought lockdown will come to an end, and
Joanne Lockwood: now we're realising that this lockdown is going to be, or the
Joanne Lockwood: virus is going to be with us for at least 18 months, till we get
Joanne Lockwood: a vaccine, till we can prove the vaccine works. So we're going to have to
Joanne Lockwood: be cautious for a long time. That's going to change all of our ways of
Joanne Lockwood: human interaction. We spent
Joanne Lockwood: decades of evolution going from
Joanne Lockwood: cubicles and offices to open plan spaces. Banks
Joanne Lockwood: went from environments where there's all security conscious to open
Joanne Lockwood: plan, no screens, because we started to
Joanne Lockwood: value face to face human contact. And now we're almost winding the
Joanne Lockwood: clock back 2030 years, where we're putting barriers
Joanne Lockwood: between humans again. I was at the checkouts, I think it was
Joanne Lockwood: Primark at the weekend, and there's perspective screens between these
Joanne Lockwood: tills. There's now a bigger queue to get in the shop than there is at
Joanne Lockwood: the tills. And that's quite a saying something. In the old days, you used to
Joanne Lockwood: queue for like, half an hour at the tills in Primark, but now you queue
Joanne Lockwood: for half an hour to get in and the tills are empty. So
Joanne Lockwood: we have to relearn different things. And
Joanne Lockwood: we're now learning what times a day it's better to go shopping,
Joanne Lockwood: so you're actually better off taking a half day during the week and going shopping
Joanne Lockwood: at 03:00 p.m. On a Thursday afternoon because it's empty, whereas trying
Joanne Lockwood: to go Saturday morning, you're queuing in a place. We have to relearn all this
Joanne Lockwood: stuff. So this must be having. I would consider
Joanne Lockwood: myself a fairly resilient and adaptable person, but there must be people who
Joanne Lockwood: are really struggling to come to terms with this and
Joanne Lockwood: bring this back to well being and mental health. And when you
Joanne Lockwood: see these messages coming out of large organisations, and governments. It's
Joanne Lockwood: really difficult to plan for the future. As you said, we all have diaries we
Joanne Lockwood: want to be able to plan. You can't really plan on what you're doing in
Joanne Lockwood: September. You can't really plan what you're going to do for Christmas. Now can I
Joanne Lockwood: have my family? Can I have my family? Some
Joanne Lockwood: of these things we just can't plan anymore. I
Ling Salter: think our plans
Ling Salter: as a whole might evolve
Ling Salter: around staying closer, staying much more
Ling Salter: local to ourselves that maybe don't necessarily
Ling Salter: involve travel at this stage.
Ling Salter: I watched a little input over the weekend about all
Ling Salter: the provisions they've put into airports. For example,
Ling Salter: the sanitization of all the touch points like on
Ling Salter: escalator rails and trolleys.
Ling Salter: And they have remote
Ling Salter: temperature monitoring of people. So to
Ling Salter: try and spot people who might have
Ling Salter: a fever or a temperature, which all those measures is
Ling Salter: to make the airport more safe. Okay.
Ling Salter: However, ultimately it doesn't stop
Ling Salter: anybody getting on a plane. Once they're on that plane, you still could be sat
Ling Salter: next to somebody who's got COVID. And that
Ling Salter: is one of those
Ling Salter: mean we've all flown where on
Ling Salter: a flight. I'm not sure about
Ling Salter: Yu Gi oh. But I'm more adverse to cattle class, as it were.
Ling Salter: The economy class, where people are bunched very
Ling Salter: close together. And the concept of the whole
Ling Salter: seating plan is they are trying to sell as
Ling Salter: many seats as possible to make
Ling Salter: the flight viable, to even be in the sky.
Ling Salter: So the numbers of capacity
Ling Salter: is an issue and that goes across to whether it's a plane
Ling Salter: or whether it's a restaurant, in a business or a theatre
Ling Salter: even. Okay, in theory, these places can
Ling Salter: open. But is it financially viable
Ling Salter: if in a theatre you've got to spread
Ling Salter: everybody out and you're taking perhaps
Ling Salter: 30% of people if they
Ling Salter: come, if they want to come,
Ling Salter: and it will take a long time
Ling Salter: to build that back up. But
Ling Salter: the costs of running the
Ling Salter: infrastructure for like a theatre or plane company,
Ling Salter: huge upfront to have that.
Ling Salter: Yet there is uncertainty about
Ling Salter: whether those businesses are still viable, even if they can open
Ling Salter: now. That has an
Ling Salter: impact on all of us in how we live our
Ling Salter: lives. Some
Ling Salter: areas are still yet to
Ling Salter: return. If you want a tattoo, for example, you can't get
Ling Salter: one. You can't even have
Joanne Lockwood: your eyebrows done or your laser or
Joanne Lockwood: waxing still, can you? I think there's still personal
Joanne Lockwood: things. Any personal contact in your face is hard, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Yes. Okay. As a
Ling Salter: consumer, you think, isn't it inconvenient that I can't
Ling Salter: access these things? However, for the person,
Ling Salter: the business, providing those services, it's their livelihood.
Joanne Lockwood: At a time when they've got no income, they're having to invest in PPE, they
Joanne Lockwood: have to invest in screening, they're having to change the capacity and the
Joanne Lockwood: orientation of their premises to cope with people.
Joanne Lockwood: And without any real knowledge of who's going to
Joanne Lockwood: return, even if people are allowed to return, who's going to.
Joanne Lockwood: I haven't had my nails done now for like, four months and I'm thinking,
Joanne Lockwood: I've got out the habit. I could probably wean myself off it or
Joanne Lockwood: even learn to paint them myself. Now, will I go
Joanne Lockwood: back? And some people are saying, well, I've let my hair go grey
Joanne Lockwood: and I quite kind of quite like the badger look. And maybe people are going
Joanne Lockwood: to sort of say, well, I'm taking this opportunity to go natural. I've always wanted
Joanne Lockwood: to grow my hair out, so now here's a chance. So I
Joanne Lockwood: think we're going to change our habits for some of these businesses. The coffee shop
Joanne Lockwood: culture we were developing. Will we go back to the
Joanne Lockwood: coffee shop culture? I went to the pub on Friday for a couple of
Joanne Lockwood: drinks in the evening, and a pub that normally has a capacity of
Joanne Lockwood: two or 300 was probably about 20 people in there
Joanne Lockwood: and there was room for more. It wasn't like that was the capacity.
Joanne Lockwood: So people are just not going to the pub, people are not going to restaurants
Joanne Lockwood: anymore, and you can't just turn the tap on. If you
Joanne Lockwood: talk about theatre, you're going to have to have all that time
Joanne Lockwood: to get theatre itself. Probably some mAintenance, probably
Joanne Lockwood: things need doing to it, plus all of the support staff
Joanne Lockwood: need to be brought back in, the actors and performers need
Joanne Lockwood: to rehearse and come together as a troupe, and that could probably take three or
Joanne Lockwood: four months. So you can't just say, oh, we're going to have a theatre production
Joanne Lockwood: tomorrow or a new film tomorrow. There's probably a six month,
Joanne Lockwood: eight month lead time for when you start to be able to do something. Which
Joanne Lockwood: is why, I guess people are saying, well, we can't make a decision about
Joanne Lockwood: launching this or doing that because we don't know where we're going to be in
Joanne Lockwood: January. We need to have some certainty. And there is no certainty, isn't
Joanne Lockwood: there? I think sort of
Ling Salter: habits is a very interesting one. And
Ling Salter: so from that, there could be new
Ling Salter: opportunities in the sense, well, when lockdown
Ling Salter: happened, almost the things that most, it really did
Ling Salter: focus on what really
Ling Salter: of some of the businesses we really, at that point,
Ling Salter: valued the NHS, the NHS effort. Whereas before,
Ling Salter: from a government point of view. They voted so many times
Ling Salter: not to give public sector workers a pay rise and things like
Ling Salter: that. And suddenly, week to week, we're clapping
Ling Salter: for carers and that focus on the
Ling Salter: effort and that there was this spotlight that was put towards
Ling Salter: the really valuing people who were keeping
Ling Salter: the country going. And not to say that,
Ling Salter: well, having your nails done isn't important, it
Ling Salter: matters. But just
Ling Salter: what really kept people
Ling Salter: going, what people really needed at that point
Ling Salter: was, yes, if I fall ill with
Ling Salter: coronavirus, that I would get the due treatment
Ling Salter: and I can still get to
Ling Salter: buy food or have food. I mean, the mutual aid
Ling Salter: things. A lot of community groups would give you a food
Ling Salter: parcel if you were. You could get
Ling Salter: a food parcel delivered to you whilst
Ling Salter: you're still remaining indoors, if you not have the
Ling Salter: means. Not everybody has that support network
Ling Salter: that will say, can you get this for
Ling Salter: me? However, the other flip side is, the positive is that
Ling Salter: actually people have become more neighbourly. And
Ling Salter: before, where I didn't know my neighbours quite so well,
Ling Salter: getting to know them better now, because people banded
Ling Salter: together to cheque on people, cheque on the
Ling Salter: person that's living on their own or checking on just more because we
Ling Salter: were all locked down, we kept ourselves, but we thought,
Ling Salter: well, can we just cheque to make sure,
Ling Salter: even if it's through a text or a phone call, is that person
Ling Salter: okay? Has that person got everything that they need? And that, again,
Ling Salter: goes back to connection? Yeah, no, it
Joanne Lockwood: does. Absolutely. For sure. I was looking at your website
Joanne Lockwood: early this morning before we came online,
Joanne Lockwood: compassionatecupper. Co. UK. And I love
Joanne Lockwood: your ethos, says, listen without judgement, explore what
Joanne Lockwood: is possible, motivate towards positive change and
Joanne Lockwood: guide you in the direction you want to go. So what inspired you to launch
Joanne Lockwood: compassionate Cuppa and as a social
Joanne Lockwood: enterprise, why is being a social enterprise important to
Joanne Lockwood: you? Yes, well,
Ling Salter: compassionate couple, the name was
Ling Salter: really inspired, again, through connection and compassion,
Ling Salter: how when we chat, we have that
Ling Salter: connection and talk and
Ling Salter: compassionate Cuppa really is sort of
Ling Salter: inspired from really helping
Ling Salter: people who are going through a difficult time in
Ling Salter: their life, but help them in the
Ling Salter: way they want the help or the support,
Ling Salter: because quite often with mental health services,
Ling Salter: they worked quite a lot, a long time
Ling Salter: in mental health and social
Ling Salter: care, where the
Ling Salter: service is what it is, whether it's
Ling Salter: within housing, within the National Health
Ling Salter: Service, and it is what it
Ling Salter: is, and there'll be obviously different interventions and
Ling Salter: therapies and medication obviously plays part of it within
Ling Salter: mental health services, and that's it. And
Ling Salter: sometimes you might
Ling Salter: find that, well, for a lot of people, they've
Ling Salter: experienced all of those things and still haven't found
Ling Salter: what's worked for them. So the creation of
Ling Salter: compassionate Cuppa is going from the basis
Ling Salter: of the approach has to be adapted to you. So
Ling Salter: whether you prefer a certain
Ling Salter: medium, spoken in a certain way,
Ling Salter: certain ideas, it's really
Ling Salter: listening and finding out, exploring. Because
Ling Salter: not everybody knows immediately what they
Ling Salter: need, we might think. But
Ling Salter: when we complain about something, usually it's about
Ling Salter: an underlying need that's unmet.
Ling Salter: And so finding that out and finding what's possible.
Ling Salter: So, quite often we might think it's a
Ling Salter: situation that needs changing, but we might not be able to change that
Ling Salter: situation. So, actually, sometimes it might mean
Ling Salter: changing what's going on in our heads.
Ling Salter: And you either
Ling Salter: choose to accept or not accept. Those are very sort of
Ling Salter: clear things. But the place of acceptance is
Ling Salter: something that. Well, only if I just tell you, Jo. Oh, well, you should just
Ling Salter: accept this. Well, you're not saying, oh, yeah, right, Ling, I'll just accept
Ling Salter: it just because I told you, Jo, your
Ling Salter: acceptance will come about in your own way.
Ling Salter: Would you? Oh, for sure, yeah. You can't
Joanne Lockwood: tell someone as to accept. You can't demand
Joanne Lockwood: respect. There's a whole lot of things. All you can do is be the
Joanne Lockwood: best person you can be, have conversations
Joanne Lockwood: and discuss things so that you can form your own opinions.
Joanne Lockwood: Because if you take other people's values and
Joanne Lockwood: views and just agree with them, then you don't bring them into
Joanne Lockwood: your own psyche. You don't bring them into your own sense of self, do you?
Joanne Lockwood: And I think it's very important to absorb
Joanne Lockwood: these ideas, and so they become yours.
Joanne Lockwood: So you accept because you do, not because someone told you
Joanne Lockwood: to. Otherwise, you'll do it begrudgingly or you'll do it through
Joanne Lockwood: tolerance, not embrace those
Joanne Lockwood: thoughts. I think unless you're willing to
Joanne Lockwood: advocate or stand up for your thoughts, then maybe you don't
Joanne Lockwood: hold them that strongly. Yes. I mean, when
Ling Salter: other people speak, it is about that
Ling Salter: resonance for
Ling Salter: you to accept. There is a level of agreement, a level of
Ling Salter: understanding, a level of resonance, level of synergy that
Ling Salter: happens. And it's the same
Ling Salter: in life, what we're
Ling Salter: experiencing. Sometimes
Ling Salter: it is very difficult to accept the
Ling Salter: situation as it is because,
Ling Salter: well, the situation isn't conforming. If you like
Ling Salter: to how we would like to, or prefer
Ling Salter: to. And we then start
Ling Salter: fighting. We start that fight where we're trying to change
Ling Salter: things to make it fit. Quite a lot of
Ling Salter: time we're trying to engineer it. And
Ling Salter: somEtimes, yes, the situation can be
Ling Salter: changed. And we can
Ling Salter: influence and change that to make that happen. And
Ling Salter: sometimes it's actually about the dialogue that we're
Ling Salter: present. If we've got very unrealistic expectations,
Ling Salter: then surely adjusting
Ling Salter: our mindset can be more
Ling Salter: helpful for us, more self serving and
Ling Salter: realising which bit, whether it's a situation or whether it's in
Ling Salter: our head, sometimes that can be quite a challenge
Ling Salter: to identify. And so I might be
Ling Salter: exploring that with someone when I'm working with them, what
Ling Salter: is possible, because sometimes we're talking
Ling Salter: about this situation and actually there's nothing in that situation that can
Ling Salter: be changed. So it only leaves that person
Ling Salter: the subject where
Ling Salter: and if possible, to change something about them so that
Ling Salter: they can feel differently, so that they can move on.
Ling Salter: Because quite often we might be talking about the past
Ling Salter: that's already happened, or maybe the fears for
Ling Salter: the future that hasn't happened yet.
Ling Salter: We sometimes will fear lots of
Ling Salter: things that aren't yet to happen and, well,
Ling Salter: none of us have got that crystal ball for sure.
Ling Salter: Knowing, well, what you fear might not actually
Ling Salter: transpire anyway. And if you put a lot of energy into
Ling Salter: that fear, it just grows.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've come across the acronym CIA. So
Joanne Lockwood: you think about what you change. If you can't change
Joanne Lockwood: something, if you can't make a difference, then
Joanne Lockwood: you have to think about I, which is influence. If you can't influence something, you
Joanne Lockwood: can't make a difference, then you have to accept. So stop worrying about
Joanne Lockwood: things you can't change. Stop worrying about things you can't influence and move to
Joanne Lockwood: accept and accept and adapt to what
Joanne Lockwood: you can do and what you can't do. Because if you get stuck
Joanne Lockwood: in fighting things you can't change or fighting things you can't influence, then
Joanne Lockwood: that's kind of when your mental health will suffer. But if you can move to
Joanne Lockwood: acceptance or adapt around those things you can't
Joanne Lockwood: influence or change, that's when you can start taking or having agency and
Joanne Lockwood: having power over yourself. Power of yourself gives you freedom. If you
Joanne Lockwood: have freedom, your freedom of choice, freedom of decisions, freedom of what you're going to
Joanne Lockwood: do next, that's when your mental health can be elevated
Joanne Lockwood: and you feel that passion and purpose again. If you live in a world where
Joanne Lockwood: you're always fighting against what you can't change or can't influence,
Joanne Lockwood: that's when you lose that agency, you lose that
Joanne Lockwood: sense of freedom, which is what can bring you down, in
Joanne Lockwood: my humble opinion. Yes.
Joanne Lockwood: You formed compassionate cuppa. You
Joanne Lockwood: formed as a social enterprise. Was there a reason you chose it to be a
Joanne Lockwood: social enterprise. Was that a passion behind? Oh,
Ling Salter: right. Well, it's interesting that
Ling Salter: you asked that, Jo, because in a way,
Ling Salter: I didn't realise this
Ling Salter: compassionate copper was always a social enterprise
Ling Salter: in the sense that it was a service
Ling Salter: where I wanted to other people to benefit. It
Ling Salter: was really more about, it's not all about Ling
Ling Salter: Salter and what I can do,
Ling Salter: okay, what I can do is what I can do, but it's what I can
Ling Salter: do for you, for the individual
Ling Salter: in that pivot, that purpose of
Ling Salter: compassion, helping somebody to alleviate their
Ling Salter: suffering, was always the forefront.
Ling Salter: And within the social enterprise
Ling Salter: sphere, if I call it, it was really
Ling Salter: sort of the passion and purpose that was forefront, which is great. And I thought,
Ling Salter: well, actually, yes,
Ling Salter: I want to earn money in that process. But
Ling Salter: really the social change, the social
Ling Salter: impact that I'm making is actually even bigger
Ling Salter: than compassionate cuppa in itself.
Ling Salter: If I'm saying to you, Jo, that your mental
Ling Salter: health and well being, well, that everything that you do and
Ling Salter: say comes from that place
Ling Salter: of having mental health and well being,
Ling Salter: then for me it's just so
Ling Salter: important. All the other issues arise from
Ling Salter: having that. If we don't have that, we don't
Ling Salter: have health. If we went back to
Ling Salter: the stigmas of using
Ling Salter: the word mental, well, we,
Ling Salter: without mental health, there is no health,
Ling Salter: because everything that we think, do and
Ling Salter: say stems from our minds, our agency
Ling Salter: and our autonomy happens from within
Ling Salter: us. It starts from within. And
Ling Salter: if we're lost within ourselves, how do we
Ling Salter: assert ourselves externally?
Ling Salter: That's why it's so important. And
Ling Salter: yeah, I want to make compassionate
Ling Salter: cuppa. I see the concept of this
Ling Salter: compassionate community, which
Ling Salter: may take some time, because perhaps
Ling Salter: society values. If I had this shiny,
Ling Salter: blingy product or something
Ling Salter: that I can hold and show you, Jo, that would kind of
Ling Salter: say, da Da, this is the final product that kind of
Ling Salter: says, right, I'm going to buy that, then that would
Ling Salter: be really kind of a quick sale.
Ling Salter: And us humans,
Ling Salter: we really value instant gratitude. We want things right now,
Ling Salter: and our mental health isn't something that
Ling Salter: happens in an instant.
Ling Salter: It's a journey. It's a process.
Ling Salter: And when you're
Ling Salter: exploring with someone in their journey, that takes
Ling Salter: time. And I'm working. If, like at the
Ling Salter: other person's pace, they may be rushed,
Ling Salter: they may feel rushed, and I'll try and keep up with them in that case.
Ling Salter: But other times
Ling Salter: it takes time for them to process and find
Ling Salter: out what it is that is important to someone and
Ling Salter: what the things would really help them move forward.
Ling Salter: That's not going to be a half an hour conversation?
Joanne Lockwood: No. And I think you're completely right in your outlook
Joanne Lockwood: there. We see so many companies now talk about conscious
Joanne Lockwood: capitalism, social profit, all
Joanne Lockwood: this. They're trying to retrofit their corporate
Joanne Lockwood: social responsibility into their existing business model. And I think it's really important to
Joanne Lockwood: recognise organisations such as yourselves, who, from the ground up, are
Joanne Lockwood: focusing on social capital first and foremost and
Joanne Lockwood: well being of people, well being of society. I completely admire
Joanne Lockwood: that. We got only a few minutes left to go in
Joanne Lockwood: this and I'm really keen to ask you about Reiki because I
Joanne Lockwood: noticed somewhere I read that you are getting involved with Reiki now. I think
Joanne Lockwood: you're a Reiki practitioner, so how do you bring that into your
Joanne Lockwood: work as well? Well, it's more at this
Ling Salter: stage, a hobby in the sense that
Ling Salter: I practise Reiki now. Reiki
Ling Salter: means it's energy work.
Ling Salter: It's a Japanese practise
Ling Salter: where you're harnessing
Ling Salter: the energy of the universe to heal,
Ling Salter: and that both is with physical
Ling Salter: ailments or emotional
Ling Salter: imbalances, shall we say. And
Ling Salter: I had a really bad issue with
Ling Salter: my hands, really painful wrists, and to the
Ling Salter: point. I swapped my car in the space of ten days. It was like, I
Ling Salter: cannot drive a manual car anymore, I had to drive an automatic. So it's
Ling Salter: like, if I don't do this, I won't be able to drive. And my
Ling Salter: ability to grip things, I gave up washing up and
Ling Salter: putting the Hoover around the place, things like that. It got
Ling Salter: very bad and I went through all the medical
Ling Salter: lines and I was offered a hydrocortisone
Ling Salter: injection, which steroid, and I was like, I
Ling Salter: backed out of it right at the end, thinking, I don't really know what's wrong
Ling Salter: with my wrist, but this injection is just a
Ling Salter: painkiller and it's not going to help.
Ling Salter: It's more like a plaster. If it wears off after six months,
Ling Salter: where does that leave me? And so I went back to
Ling Salter: Reiki. I bumped into it quite a
Ling Salter: few years ago and I thought, it's not going to do me any harm if
Ling Salter: it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And it took a
Ling Salter: long, I seemed to really take to it. And
Ling Salter: when I finally got to a stage
Ling Salter: of recovery with my hand, a lot less pain still
Ling Salter: there sometimes, but not as bad. I trained
Ling Salter: and so I'm a Reiki
Ling Salter: practitioner, but I don't, at this stage,
Ling Salter: charge for the Reiki healing that I give to
Ling Salter: people just because I'm trying
Ling Salter: to develop compassionate Kappa at this stage. And I think
Ling Salter: in time I will bring Reiki
Ling Salter: under that umbrella. But Reiki
Ling Salter: has made a big difference to
Ling Salter: how I can get about my day from
Ling Salter: a physical perspective, the hands. So, yeah,
Ling Salter: that's how that came about.
Joanne Lockwood: Well, many thanks, Ling. I mean, we've chatted away for an hour. I
Joanne Lockwood: could have probably carried on talking for another couple of hours, in fact, before we
Joanne Lockwood: went online, we ended up chatting for both of us beforehand. So you're a very
Joanne Lockwood: inspirational person and I love your personal values and what you're trying to do with
Joanne Lockwood: compassionate cover. And I'm sure everyone who's listening will take
Joanne Lockwood: much inspiration. There's lots to ponder there. So apart from your website,
Joanne Lockwood: compassionatecupper.co.uk how can people get in touch with you?
Ling Salter: I'm on Facebook as compassionate Cuppa and
Ling Salter: I'm also on LinkedIn and
Ling Salter: Twitter, but on Twitter as compassion
Ling Salter: Cuppa because they don't allow long handles. But it's
Ling Salter: been an absolute pleasure and honour to
Ling Salter: meet and chat with you, Jo. So thank you very much.
Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. And just so the listeners are clear, Cuppa is
Joanne Lockwood: C-U-P-P-A Cuppa in that way. Brilliant. Well,
Joanne Lockwood: a hoosh. Thank you to you and for you, the listeners, for tuning in
Joanne Lockwood: and sticking with it. I hope that you'll subscribe
Joanne Lockwood: to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bytes
Joanne Lockwood: podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Please tell your friends, please tell
Joanne Lockwood: your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up that I'm sure
Joanne Lockwood: you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and months. And remember,
Joanne Lockwood: if you'd like to be a guest, then please do let me know. I welcome
Joanne Lockwood: any feedback and suggestions you may have to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell us about future shows. Tell us how we can improve. So, my name is
Joanne Lockwood: Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you
Joanne Lockwood: today. Catch you next time.