Health & Wellbeing

62 The West Dorset Magazine, October 21, 2022 Health & Wellbeing Walking West Dorset

with retired Dorset rights of way officer Chris Slade

FROME VALLEY TRAIL – 15TH WALK

There are a few parking places just north of the level crossing on the road leading from the A352 to East Holme. Cross the railway and continue south to Holme Bridge which has a sign describing its interesting history. After another furlong turn left along the road that takes you in a curve round to the village of East Holme. Continue along the road taking the footpath and bridge over the ford, veering round to the south until you meet a road junction. Here you turn left and head east along the road with pleasant views either side including a lake and aromatic woodland. I noticed that there were no flowers on the gorse, which means there’s no love in the world, for which I blame Putin! After a mile you come to a bridge over the Wareham –Swanage railway line (which looks a bit rusty). Carry on for half a mile and you’ll pass the first of many nature reserves: Bog Lane Natural Greenspace. There are so many reserves along this route that, in the spring, it’s worth spending a day exploring them all. At the next junction turn right and, after a short distance, take a footpath heading east, skirting another Reserve until you meet the A351. Cross over and take the footpath leading northwards to join the B3075. This leads north for a mile through Stoborough and

HOLME SWEET HOLME: Holme Bridge

crossing water meadows and the bridge over the Frome to enter Wareham. After a furlong turn left along West Street, B3070, for a furlong to meet the embankment of the ancient town wall. Head north along the embankment until the end, where you descend to join a footpath across Wareham Common, following the Piddle. The path takes you west under the main road and the railway line for a mile until it turns left, and heads south east past an oil well to meet the main road. Now we come to the difficult bit as, once, heading west, you pass the Worgret turn, there’s no pavement although there are mown verges. If you choose to walk along the white lines, use those at the edge of the road not the middle!

youcantalk.net is a new wellness and mental health resource launched by Bridport-based Kerry Miller, pictured, and Alex Fender, who now lives in Snowdonia. It features lots of free resources to help people relax and take stock.

Following recent communications with someone who knows a fair bit about this (thank you LC), I am coming to a fuller understanding of why acceptance can be so darn difficult to, well, accept. So, let’s forget the word. Let’s call it what it is in ACT, and that is expansion: finding a way to make space for/around difficult emotions, feelings and sensations. And it is willingness: being willing to feel those difficult emotions, feelings and sensations that come up and are an inevitable part of being human. There really is no better alternative to willingness that I know of, because whether you’re willing to have these feelings or not you’re going to have them. Fact. If you’re willing to have them, and if you can make a little space for them, at least you’re not at war with yourself. And they will come and go either way, but they will often hang around for longer if you struggle against them. Russ Harris (top bloke) writes about an imaginary struggle switch in the brain. When it’s switched on this means you’re going to struggle against any

Accepting acceptance is not

The West Dorset Magazine, October 21, 2022 63 Health & Wellbeing Cyclamen a real help for meditating

Andy Cole is a reiki healer based in Middlemarsh. He specialises in planting for healing. This has been a funny old fortnight. I have been out of sorts, but for no apparent reason. However, I have been working on building potting and storage sheds and not working with either plants, or the soil – it is interesting how your mood changes when doing different things. Early last week I was working in gardens digging, weeding, pruning and generally working with the soil and the plants, although I was still out of sorts it didn’t seem to be quite so bad. I have decided to spend some time with the plants again tomorrow and will see how much that improves my wellbeing and mental state. I will pay particular attention to working with hellebores, as the energies aid in releasing negative energies, and I will plant some daffodil bulbs – these will be uplifting and reduce self-doubt and low selfesteem – and borage, which encourages cheerfulness. I will continue this tomorrow after the plants have worked their magic… Well, things didn’t go according to plan. I didn’t do what I had intended to. I did work all day in the garden, what a difference to my state of mind, the garden did work its magic and I feel so much better today. We have had our first frost of the year, earlier than last year, so we will need to get the tender plants under cover or fleeced up for protection. Today I was covering up a young fig which had bounced back after the drought, it went in just as it started to dry out and has struggled until recently, even though it was watered well. It has recovered nicely, and we don’t want it to suffer now from early frosts. The energies from a fig help you to release subconscious blockages, enabling you to think more clearly, by thinking more clearly you are able to remember more of your thoughts. Now that the season has changed, and we are into autumn the trees are beginning to turn and the colours in the garden are changing. Cyclamen are flowering and the contrast of the dark green leaf with the pink or white flowers makes the flowers stand out more. Both an indoor and outdoor plant, this will depend on the variety, they are ideal by a seating area where their energies will assist in meditation, they raise your spiritual vibrational energies, allowing your journey in the meditation to be retained in your consciousness. Once your meditation is finished you will be able to recall your journey with ease so you can learn from the experience, understand the message within it, or benefit from the relaxation gained. For those who do not have a garden they will brighten up the house with their presence and can always be planted in a window box. With Halloween just around the corner we must not forget the humble pumpkin Pumpkins symbolise gratitude, generosity, harvest, and abundance. The energies from the pumpkin are full of positivity, by carving the pumpkins with scary faces known as Jack-o-Lanterns, their used to ward off evil spirits. Because of this, carved pumpkins are often associated with protection and dispelling negative energy.

COLOURS: Cyclamen

without exceptions

emotional or physical pain that shows up. You’ll try your best to avoid it or get rid of it, and occasionally this will work, for a bit, and at other times it won’t. It’s a bit like struggling in quicksand – completely understandable but not all that helpful. Alternatively, if you can imagine the struggle switch is turned off, whatever feelings show up it’s more like ‘Ahhh, OK, there’s a knot in my stomach, my chest is tight and my palms are sweating, and I can still get on with doing what matters’. The emergence of difficult ‘stuff’ doesn’t have to completely take over, you can still control your arms and legs and put your energy into doing something meaningful and life enhancing. So with the struggle switch off, sometimes we feel good, sometimes we don’t, it depends on who we are and what’s going on in our lives. With the struggle switch on it’s like a life interrupter and an emotional amplifier. And it’s exhausting. And some of the things people do to try and control how they feel can actually make life so much more difficult and complicated. For example, if you drink to excess in an attempt to not feel sad or lonely, in a few hours time you might also get to feel bad about saying and doing regrettable things, upsetting people, bingeing on crisps and wasting money. You might/might not have had some fun but the thing that was bothering you before is likely to still be bothering you now, with the addition

Health & Wellbeing Focus on solutions to provide answers

By MARGARET CAPON

The Hollywood director Woody Allen, apparently, has gone to a psychoanalyst every week throughout his life, crediting the support of his analyst for his success, though by all accounts it does not seem to have done much for his anxieties and neuroses which are his trademark. The question surely is, if psychoanalysis worked, why did he need to keep going back throughout his life? Do people who undergo psychoanalysis expect to get “better”, or merely to make their life a bit more manageable? For those of us who do not have the income of a Hollywood director, and have limits on our time, and want to have some help to deal with anxiety, or depression, fears or phobias or to stop smoking any psychotherapy must be readily available, affordable and result in a positive outcome in the briefest possible time. One route is SolutionFocused Hypnotherapy. It is one of the fastest growing psychotherapies in the UK. It was developed by David Newton who founded the prestigious Clifton Practice Hypnotherapy School in Bristol. He combined hypnotherapy with a particular kind of “talking therapy” – which is “solution-focused”. In SFHT, the therapist sees the client as a person, not as a collection of problems, past experiences, or trauma. The therapist and client work together to focus on the client’s strengths and resources, not their weaknesses and problems, enabling them to look forward to a more positive future, coping better with challenges and feeling more in control. Hypnotherapy differs from other psychotherapies as it is drug free and the conscious mind, with all its anxious thoughts, is bypassed. It is the conscious mind which can often hinder the success of other forms of psychological work such as counselling or psychotherapy. With SFHT the client and therapist work together to focus on the changes that the client wants to make in their life. Good outcomes can be achieved faster than with other psychotherapies because there is no focus on the past or on problems, but on the best hopes for the future. It is a brief therapy, six to eight sessions are usually all that is needed for a good outcome, though they can be more or fewer. Using the tool of hypnosis, the therapist guides the client into a completely relaxed state enabling direct access to their subconscious mind. There is no regression to the past as in Freudian psychoanalysis (and no past life regression!) and the client always stays in control. Solution-focused hypnotherapy is often used to help clients to stop smoking, deal with fears and phobias, reduce anxiety such as when facing dentistry, cataract operations and MRI scans, help with weight control and reduce general anxiety and depression. It has been used very successfully to enhance performance in sport or in public speaking. It is particularly effective with young people.

n Margaret Capon is a solution-focused hypnotherapist based in the London Road Clinic in Milborne Port sansomehilltherapy.com

Engage or continue struggle

CONT FROM PREVIOUS PAGE of a hangover and having some awkward explaining to do. Feeling sad, lonely, edgy, afraid etc can be borne, believe it or not, and there might be some helpful information in there about what is really important to you. Beyond the world of ACT the definition of acceptance is much broader, and I believe this is the reason why people struggle with the concept. What the word acceptance means or implies in general usage is not what it means in ACT. Even so, even in general usage I don’t think it means wallowing in your pain, allowing yourself to become completely overwhelmed by it, liking it, wanting it or choosing to suffer, and it is not giving up on ever feeling any better. You can practice expansion and willingness and commit to engaging fully in your life. Or you can carry on struggling in that quicksand – it’s your call.