Perspective Is Fascinating

Perspective is fascinating. Shortly after the pandemic emerged last year, I remember writing from the perspective of being able to recall what life was like immediately before that and to look to a time after that, in the belief (laughably naïve) that we would move through it all relatively quickly. From where we all stand now the pandemic times stretch back into the past and seemingly well into the future at the moment.

These are the times when keeping alive a vision of what the future could be, is more important than ever. It's like being part way across the river - too far from one bank to be able to easily turn back, and not close enough to the other bank to comfortably walk forwards and out.

If you are a healthcare professional or administrator of any sort, I encourage you to take time to reflect on your own health and well-being and to put in place strategies that will support you to be where you want to be as the pandemic draws to a close, whenever that may be. For all of us, it will be a long march.

Our clients and patients need us and our skills more than ever at these times too. Those trained in the evidence based skills of health coaching have the capacity to support others to build their own stores of resilience, to uncover capacities for change, to develop efficacy to manage the challenges of life and moreover, to continue to thrive, despite the context or circumstances they find themselves in.

The Roman emperor and Stoic, Marcus Aurelius (Meditations 5: 20 ) wrote: “While it's true that someone can impede our actions, they can't impede our intentions and our attitudes… for the mind adapts and converts any obstacle to its action into a means of achieving it... the obstacle on the path becomes the way.”

Despite what life throws our way, be it a pandemic or a personal health challenge, having the capacity to develop intentions and attitudes for good will see us manage in the best way possible. And to my mind, there is no more exciting work than supporting another to cultivate in themselves these intentions and attitudes.