Month: April 2013

Today the group thought it would be a good idea to have a meeting where the time was spent on giving people the opportunity to talk about how they were. As there has been a few guests to the group recently it was felt that this would be a good space to do this. People talked about how hard it can be living with events from the past and how it still affect them now. Although hard for people, there was a sense of relief that they were able to get these feelings/emotions out. Seeing this encouraged others to do the same. When people felt down about themselves they said they used things people had made in the group to comfort themselves.

There were some great ideas on how people could use their talents to create possible business ventures for the future.

Today we had a big group, which was very encouraging. The support of the group was so evident today, when members showed how supportive they are when others are going through a hard time. The power of seeing people show others so much hope and compassion is very inspiring.

We had Geoffrey Baines along for the second week to show how us more about how we can find out what our strengths are. Geoffrey gave Paul an email link to the Strengths Finder website were he was asked to answer questions about himself. The questionnaire then compiles the answers into what Paul’s strengths were. Geoffrey then went over the findings with Paul so the group could see how it works. Paul found the findings to be accurate. More around the findings was discussed within the group. Geoffrey will come to the group again in the near future to do a longer piece of work with group members so they can all find their strengths within the group.

It was also great to have Keith (Napier University) along to discuss the ways to expand the group on-line.

Finally it’s great to say that we now have over 700 followers on our Twitter page, thanks everyone!!

Today we had a really good group. Some of the topics discussed were isolation and being able to keep ourselves safe. Somebody from the group brought in some literature about Psychological Assistance dogs and how they are trained to help people with mental health issues which research has shown how having a pet companion helps improve health and well-being.

Geoffrey showed us an exercise on us being aware of what our strengths are. What energizes us is a strength. We discussed how sometimes as human beings, our default position focuses on the negative and find it much easier for someone else to see our strengths than for us to see our own. The group will take “Go live your strengths” sheets away to write some ideas over the next 7 days. It was great to have Geoffrey at the group and will see him next week for the second part of the strengths exercise.