Grief, Loss & The Power of Music

I had a life changing opportunity last week. It's not one that has been easy to put into words but I wanted to share one of my reflections.

I was asked by Britten Pears Arts to take part in a Thinktank on grief, loss and music. I spent 2 incredible days surrounded by inspiring musicians, composers, palliative care doctors, music therapists, researchers and music psychologists.
Our first invitation was to talk to the group for 5 minutes on - What is your perspective on the role of music in end of life, grief and loss?

One of my answers to that question was the powerful way music helps us lay down memories and revisit those memories.

Music helps us TIME TRAVEL.

Certain songs can take us back in time to moments of connection with those people or places that we miss.

And music can enable us to time travel forward too. Some pieces of music can activate a sense of hope or strength to support us in our grief and offer us a glimmer of our future selves.

Grief is not something we get over. The best way I've come to understand grief is through Jayde Perkin's children's story "Mum's Jumper" - grief is an oversized jumper that we slowly grow into. And I think music can be there to help us whilst we're growing.

(This is an image from the Britten Pears archives, so many gems hiding in there!)

Children's Mental Health Week - Free Resources

You can download a copy of the PDF here

Harrods - Learn and Connect Fest

I’m not even going to pretend this is a humble brag. This is a massive moment of pride that I will savour.

Thank you Harrods for inviting me to be part of your wellbeing journey. We kicked off our work with the Learn and Connect Fest today (learning and connecting being two big pillars of wellbeing!!)

2024 - Infinite Possibilities

I have this screen print by Eileen Revett hanging in my house. It’s titled “Infinite Possibilities”.

At first glance you might think it’s a repeating pattern but on closer inspection you’ll notice that every set of shapes is slightly different.

2024 offers infinite possibilities, things you’ll say “hell yes” to, things you’ll say “no way” to.

Each choice you make will change the pattern for what comes next.

It reminds me of my favourite quote from James Clear -

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.”

You don’t have to start the year feeling overwhelmed by the need for radical change. Make a small adjustment to the pattern and watch the infinite possibilities unfold.

Get a Grip?

At this point in the year I sometimes hear a harsh voice in my head that tells me to “get a grip”. It usually comes with a bunch of “shoulds”:

“You should have finished that by now Hazel”

“You should be able to juggle all those things Hazel”

“You should….Hazel”

But the truth is by this time of the year, I’m usually pretty tired. I’m running out of steam and I’m ready for a break.

So this year, I’ve affectionately hung “get a grip” on my tree, to remind me to speak to myself in the opposite way.

“You’re doing your best Hazel”

Things to remember during the holidays:

⭐️ It’s okay to find it hard. You don’t have to “get a grip”.

⭐️ It’s okay to feel lonely. Thousands of people feel lonely during the holidays (including me).

⭐️ It’s okay to be gentle with yourself and find a more compassionate voice.


I look forward to seeing you all in 2024. I’m incredibly grateful for all your support here on LinkedIn. Thank you for being connected. 🙏

Embedding Wellbeing into our Lives

The moments you can't write into a keynote are sometimes the most powerful.
Just as I was talking about awe and nature connectedness at the Society of Heads conference this amazing sunset appeared. So we stopped, everyone got up from their seats in conference room and we stood on the balcony on watch the sun set.

The science of wellbeing is important and when we join that with actually experiencing it - that's when we really start to embed wellbeing into our lives, our schools, our families, our organisations, our communities...

Thanks Ben Noble for sending me this photo. And thanks to all the Heads for your time, your curiosity and your warmth.

Hitting the Headlines - About Honesty

I’m not going to lie, I’ve got mixed feelings about being in The Times today. The article is exploring my work at Magdalen College School (with Helen Pike) and the workshop I recently ran for parents focused on developing the character strength of honesty.

I’m a little nervous that I’ll now become known as the expert that tells parents "yes, your child is a liar!" (based on the headline). When really our focus is much more about how we enable children and young people to build strengths of courage, kindness, honesty and leadership. To be able to focus on those strengths we sometimes have to explore the darker sides too.

Here’s a few things I say in the article:

“I’m not saying it’s great that your children lie, or to encourage more, but it’s important to recognise that there are some very complicated cognitive processes that come with the ability to be able to do that...”

“It’s really important that we don’t overreact to lying and we recognise that maybe we do sometimes have a gut reaction. What children say [initially] isn’t necessarily the story they might want to tell when they’ve had a bit more time to think about it…”

“Parents who overreact are sending a strong message to their children that it’s best to hide any lies or mistakes in the future.”

"The bigger picture is helping children and teenagers to feel resilient and OK when they are not perfect, despite being surrounded by YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, which can be their reality. Harrison says lying can be like an iceberg, sitting on top of other things."

I did like that Nicola (the journalist) picked up on my own character strengths - “Speaking on Zoom, the clinical psychologist is calm but engagingly positive, in a way that would probably reassure parents who are concerned that their child is becoming a prolific liar.”

The article is here - https://lnkd.in/ecCANsdq

A New Addition to the Team

Say “hi” to Steph, who recently joined ThinkAvellana.

Today she turned up in her “Hell Yeah” jumper - which pretty much sums up why I’m so lucky to have her as part of the team.

Thank you Stephanie Sands for boosting the positivity here and helping with the mission to improve mental health and wellbeing.

Nature Connectedness

I was so tempted to hit the snooze button but the future version of myself reminded me I have never regretted a sunrise paddle.

It was a beautiful morning and I experienced a whole range of emotional experiences.

Excitement at discovering a seal basking on a bank. Amazement at overwhelming sound of 100 geese taking off from the water. Awe at the alien like structure of jelly fish floating around my board. I felt connected to nature.

Nature connectedness is more than just spending time in nature. It’s our about relationship WITH nature.

People who have a greater sense of nature connectedness also tend to experience higher levels of wellbeing.

There are many ways to increase our nature connectedness.

Miles Richardson describes 5 pathways :

* Senses - tuning in to nature through the senses
* Emotion - feeling alive through the emotions and feelings nature brings
* Beauty - noticing nature’s beauty
* Meaning - nature bringing meaning to our lives
* Compassion - caring and taking action for nature

Life Lessons in Hiking

Three things I learned (and relearned) from hiking the Yorkshire three peaks last weekend:

Sometimes it works out well when you don’t take the route you planned.

Getting to the top isn’t nearly as exciting as the process of getting there.

Doing something hard is so much easier when you’re not doing it on your own.

Invest in Your Relationships

What can we learn from the world's longest study on happiness?

- Life is complicated.
- Sometimes the things we imagine will make us happy, don't.
- Our relationships are the biggest predictor of our happiness.

Don't leave your relationships to chance. Invest in them.

Thank you Robert Waldinger - when I get to the end of your beautiful book, I will go back to the start and read it again.

THE COMFORT ZONE IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE

3 years ago I filmed my first series with the BBC - The Brain Lab.
We explored the key themes of wellbeing including growth mindset.

When this photo memory popped up on my phone, it reminded me how much the whole filming experience was like a growth mindset experiment. There was so much I didn’t know how to do.
🎬Filming in a studio was new to me.

🎤Reading naturally from an autocue was new to me.

🔥Keeping energised after “Take 5” was new to me.

I felt out of my comfort zone and I really did learn a lot!

Step out of your comfort zone occasionally.

Try to find lightness when it doesn’t go to plan.

Surrounded yourself with people who want you to do well.

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place but nothing ever grows there.”

#growthmindset

Want a little mood boost for your Friday?

Want a little mood boost for your Friday? Recent research has found that carrying out 'prosocial' behaviours (any behaviour with the goal of benefiting another person) can boost mood and wellbeing for the individual performing the action as well as the recipient. One really simple prosocial behaviour is to express genuine appreciation to another person.

"When it comes to giver cultures, the role -modelling lesson here is a powerful one: if you want it, go and give it." - Adam Grant

#wellbeing #gratitude #mood

MATTERING

My word for 2023 - Mattering.

I've been working on my Year Compass (link here if you missed it - https://lnkd.in/ekfj7WXT). I've finally settled on my word for 2023.

Mattering means the extent to which we make a difference in the world around us. It's not just based on the facts though, it's about how we feel about our impact.

Mattering means you FEEL seen, FEEL valued and FEEL needed.

"We have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind. No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met “cut us dead”, and acted as if we were non-existing things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would ere long well up in us, from which the cruelest bodily tortures would be a relief; for these would make us feel that, however bad might be our plight, we had not sunk to such a depth as to be unworthy of attention at all" (William James, 1890).

Let's not be in these depths William James described in the 1890s. Let's learn how to make sure people feel they matter.

#mattering #matteringatwork #wellbeing

BEST BOOKS OF 2022

A few of my favourite reads from 2022 …
What have I missed that I should add to my reading list for 2023?

Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman
Switch Craft - Elaine Fox
From Strength to Strength - Arthur Brooks
Braving The Wilderness - Brené Brown
The Keys To Kindness - Claudia Hammond
Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens (because it’s important to read fiction too!)
Stolen Focus - Johann Hari
Women Don’t Owe You Pretty - Florence Givens 
The Power of Strangers - Joe Keohane

#books #wellbeing

Growing Together - Children's Mental Health Week 2022

This week, for children’s mental health week, I’ve been sharing simple ways we can support children with their mental health and “grow together.”

How to learn (and fail) like a skateboarder

How can we shift our mindset to understand that failing is a normal part of learning?

Coping With Change

My latest project with the Premier League explores how transitions can impact on our emotions, and what we can do to help the change process go as smoothly as possible.

Click here to watch the video

6 Years - 6 Lessons

6 years and 6 lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Thanks everyone for your support with my mission to improve mental health and wellbeing.