Crossroads - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief...

I have been getting a lot of interest from people who are either still serving or are now ex members of the armed forces. They are expressing the desire to move in a different direction. Their stories are all too familiar to me as I have had similar experiences that they are having. Of course these experiences are unique to each individual but the overall story is the same.

I felt the need to move in a different direction when I left the army as the world I was in no longer felt the right place to be, and I do believe I over stayed my welcome at one point but that is another story perhaps for around the camp fire on night. Please understand I am not disregarding my life in the army, in fact quite the opposite it was a very important part of my life, the experiences I had while serving in the army, have provided me with the tools to be in a position to move forward and allowed me to position myself for the work that I now find myself doing.

Like the people who are now contacting me, at the time I was leaving the army I had no idea what that direction was to be and there was no one out there for me, no one that understood were I was coming from, or so I thought. In my case I was guided to meet with my good friend Thomas Schorr-kon from Trackways. Thomas helped me to see what it was that I needed to see at that time and soon after that others came along to do the same, like sign posts pointing the way, not to tell me this is what I need to do, rather allowing me to empower myself to make that choice for myself.

This is very important without making that choice for yourself or by allowing others to do it for you, you are not in charge of your direction. I now find myself wondering how best to be of service to our servicemen and women. I am thinking of running a two day workshop where we can come together as a group and on a 1-2-1 basis, to experience the power of who we are in nature and the power we have within ourselves to move forward in life, building a sense of community one that hopefully will help to empower others, creating a sense of place. What does that mean, quite simply from the bosses at the top to those of on the ground we all, I believe are looking for the same thing.

And what is that?

Well were are our elders, do we still have a sense of family/community are we excluding others at our own expense? What goes round comes round, why are our forces people looking for a new direction. Why are the kids employing survival strategies on the our streets? Lets not forget they the armed services) are our modern day warriors on the front line there are also others on the front line, on our streets trying to make a difference warriors also.

We ask them to do the things they do in our name, so when we blame them are we not blaming ourselves. Where do soldiers come from, you do not buy a packet in the shop and then just add water and hey presto you have an instant soldier or a young person running wild on the streets, no they are all a reflection of our society, we are all responsible, so to ignore them is to ignore yourself.

Are we really still happy with the numbers game we are playing, at work, at home, in our day to day life, I wonder. For myself I cannot change everything, I do not hold the purse strings, but I do know this, like many of my friends and others out there those that do hold the strings they are also like us. I believe they also need too belong, so lets stop playing games and lets reconnect with each other and build that sense of place that sense of real community.

I love the work that I do and it is making a difference to some people, but in my heart of hearts I feel that if only I could reach the powers to be, what a difference that might make, for example when counselors would ask me I can I observe what it is you do, I say yes of course you can but only by taking part and not observing from the sideline otherwise how else are you going to understand what you're clients are going through.

I would love to take the Prime Minister out into nature and other heads of sheds and maybe, just maybe they will change direction as a result of their experiences in nature, perhaps they then will use their power bestowed onto them by us to touch others, please do not forget we are all responsible we can all do our own little bit.

Tracking - Telling a Story

During the tracking course I was running this weekend, we were working up in the sand dunes at Braunton Burrows. I had set up a sandbox exercise to see if we could pick up on peoples intentions laid in their tracks.

We later decided to tell a story instead of just placing an intention into a track. It turned out to be an interesting exercise, twice I placed a story into the sandbox which consisted of the beginning, a middle and an end, it was a very short story there were just seven tracks laid in the sandbox, which had been covered up afterwards so that Felim would have no real idea which way I had moved in the sandbox.

I asked him to find track number seven in the sandbox, while Felim was trying to locate the track without being able to see the tracks I wondered if he would pick up on the part of the story that gave me the most fun which was the middle part of the story. What followed next was very interesting Felim did indeed pick up on the middle track.

He also picked up on the important track in the second story as well, in each case it was the part of the story with the strongest intention. I realised that I could now take this exercise to another level and I am looking forward exploring the possibilities of moving this exercise to new levels.

Tree Hugging Gave Him Hope.

A friend of mine shared an experience he once had.

He was walking home after a night out on the town and as he cut across Hyde Park at 5 am, he approached a large Oak Tree, walking around it he was surprised to see a Police Officer in uniform hugging the tree.

He said it gave him hope

How does Natural Awareness work?

Natural Awareness gets participants to connect with their heart and to transfer the lessons learnt from nature (be it connecting with a tree, an animal, plant or another human being) into an opportunity to change old behaviour thus creating the potential for new healthy behaviour to manifest, by becoming more self-aware. Within an established therapeutic-programme, individuals can reflect upon their experiences through listening, discussing and processing with their peers/counsellors who have shared a similar experience, by abstracting practical insights about their behaviour and that of others.

Nature-Awareness could be seen as a “Halfway House” (Greenway, 1995, p. 133), who introduced this concept along with alternative methods like yoga and meditation into his wilderness-programme, the outcome of which was that before and after a wilderness-experience he found that “…dysfunctions almost completely ceased” (p. 133). Because Nature-Awareness comfortably functions between a residential and wilderness setting, (reducing our physical impact on the wilderness), nature becomes more accessible as part of an individuals healing process. Lau & McMain (2005) state that “… recent innovations in psychological treatments have integrated mindfulness meditation techniques with traditional cognitive and behavioural therapies, challenging traditional cognitive and behavioural therapists to integrate acceptance - and change-based strategies” (p. 863), with the emergence of mindfulness (the so called Third Wave) models like CBT are advancing, creating the potential for greater integration of alternative-therapies.

While not a stand alone intervention Nature-Awareness promotes behavioural, cognitive and affective change demonstrating an integrated approach which synergistically works with other therapies, such as Cognitive Behavioural Techniques (CBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), Gestalt (GE), 12-Steps (STEPS) which is used to deliver an end result GREATER than the use of a single therapy used in isolation, as an intervention Nature-Awareness can and does compliment main stream models.

Drawing Great-spotted Woodpecker by Geoffrey McMullan