About me...
How I use journaling to navigate to calmer tides...
To see more of my creative expressions, visit me on Instagram!
My own experiences with mental health
I was diagnosed with depression over 2 decades ago and have always been driven to understand myself, instinctively recognising that this knowledge would empower me to support and heal myself. However, I am a deeply visual person who experiences many feelings as shapes, movements, colours, or sensations and, as I began what would become many years of therapy, I realised that if I wanted to get the most out of the support I was offered, I would need to adapt the often dry and academic psychological teachings into more accessible strategies for myself. And so I began adapting therapeutic support into more accessible, creative, and visual mediums for myself. This practice of taking the valuable teachings and reflections from therapy sessions and ‘translating’ them into more creative tools for myself emerged via journaling, poetry, art, metaphor, and visual or interactive strategies to embed therapeutic lessons and organise my thoughts into infographic-type writings and images. Through immense darkness, confusion, fear, and uncertainty, this process has empowered me to accept that I may always experience visits from 'The Unwelcome Guest' that is depression, but to also believe that I have the tools and resilience to endure and support myself through these visits. And, although shame prevented me from this for many years, I can now see that sometimes this support looks like reaching out to others for help, alongside my self-support.
The influence of the Deaf community
I used to say that I processsed visually because I studied Deaf Studies and British Sign Language (BSL) at university, but I've come to realise that I have always experienced the world visually, BSL just gave me a language to match my inner world. Working for 10 years with learners who are Deaf and/or have Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs, I could wholeheartedly relate to the need for visual communication. I began to recognise that it is not just mental health support but also educational support that is offered as a 'one size fits all' model, often reliant on reading and writing, without thought to those who function in and learn from a visual or visceral inner world. My developing skills of translating concepts into visual/creative forms and adapting their accessibility both supported and was strengthened by working with learners who needed the same creative provisions that I did. Having worked and lived for so many years practising the mindset of internally 'translating' information into its most accessible form, this is now the lens I look through when creating resources - how accessible are these in their language, their colour, their layout? How could image, phrasing, text style, and placement aid in the delivery of meaning? What are the potential barriers to access and understanding here, and how can they be overcome?
As I become more disillusioned with the educational system and how it fails so many, I left mainstream provision and began working with Deaf, SEN and SEMH learners in a Forest School instead, simultaneously training as an Integrative Counsellor and Forest School Level 3 Leader. I was surprised and intrigued to reflect on how complementary these two approaches are – just as Forest School ethos promotes a ‘child-led-learning’ approach; recognising that children learn best through play, safety and freedom and that learning opportunities are in every moment; so too does Integrative Counselling recognise that a ‘client-led-therapy’ approach is beneficial; with support and resources adapted to the bespoke needs of the individual and delivered once a safe environment has been created through a trusted therapeutic relationship. As Integrative Counselling blends many models of support, I was particularly interested in incorporating aspects of nature-therapy into my practice, drawing from my growing knowledge, and lived experience of the benefits of time spent in nature on our wellbeing and mental health. I was also privileged to spend 2 ½ years supporting an incredibly imaginative little Deaf boy, who stretched my creative capacities to their maximum. Resourcing materials gathered from the woods to turn into all manner of playthings, I began to see that supportive strategies don’t need to be confined to a room or set equipment, and I now use this resourcefulness in my client work and wellbeing workshops – using whatever objects or spaces are around us to deliver strategies and articulate information. Working in a Forest School setting whilst training as a therapist has also opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of using natural spaces for therapeutic support – as I learned of strategies and interventions, I would challenge myself to think how these could translate to a woodland or outdoor setting, using natural materials to support processing and reflection.
Forest School meets Integrative Counselling
Making mental health support more accessible
I never anticipated that my own experiences with mental health, my youth work with Deaf, SEN and SEMH learners and my training as an Integrative Counsellor and Forest School Leader would equip me with such an unexpectedly complementary skillset. But, looking at the journey I’ve taken to get here, I can see the influence of each in the work I do today – my compassion and understanding for those who also struggle with mental health, the need for support and information to be more accessible and adaptable to individual needs, and the skills needed in order to identify and overcome barriers to support, and translate support and resources into languages beyond just the written and spoken. When I developed Long Covid in September 2021, I felt the need for more accessible support more than ever. Too mentally fatigued to journal and reflect in my usual ways, I felt clueless as to how to support myself to navigate the emotional process of accepting such a life-changing diagnosis. Digging deep into the toolkit of strategies I have accumulated over the years, I slowly began to expand on my journaling techniques - breaking processing down into manageable chunks and combining image, colour, and written word more, to reduce the cognitive load of pure reading and writing. As I began to develop the resources for myself that I couldn’t find elsewhere, I considered that I couldn’t be alone in needing more accessible resources and decided to turn my own journaling into journals that may support others – blending my personal and professional experiences to provide therapeutically rooted prompts in creative and accessible ways. And so Calmer Tides was created – a platform to share my tools with others. To offer empowering and accessible mental health and wellbeing support to those who may not have had opportunity to develop their own resources as I did. I am passionate that illness, learning styles, language, and life experiences or circumstances should not be a barrier to accessing mental health information and support. I know what it's like to feel as though you're drowning but, when resources are offered to us in the language we are able to understand - be that the language of the mind, heart, soul, or body - we are, each of us, empowered to realise that we can equip our boat, brace against the stormy waters that life brings our way, and navigate ourselves to calmer tides.
From my heart to yours,
Rowan xo
