Hello and welcome to the Brentwood Buzz, a podcast
celebrating all that's good about the people and places of
Brentwood, Essex. I'm Kay Bellwood.
Last time on the Brentwood bus, we were at King George's Playing
Fields hearing from Keely Heasman about all that's on
offer at the Pavilion. This week I visited one of the
groups who meet at the pavilion, Create Yourself Calm to hear
from directors Lindsay, Julie and Sue and some of those who
attend the sessions about how a combo of art and mindfulness
works wonders for well-being. Hello, my name is Lindsay.
I'm from Create Yourself Calm CIC.
OK, so tell me a little bit about create yourself calm.
So we're a community interest company we set up a couple of
years ago and where the business came from.
I'm a counsellor and Sue is an artist.
One of our other, my other colleagues and Julie's also a
counsellor and I was off work during a period of burnout
following a couple of bereavements.
I worked in the NHS as a counsellor and I attended art
classes which were with Sue. She was the teacher and I
noticed quite quickly that the two hours I spent in Sue's class
were the best I felt in the week.
So I sat tight, booked another class, considered whether I
could get back to my job, didn't work out, and then approached
Sue because I, I have a background in counselling,
obviously. And I'm a always been a
mindfulness practitioner. And I had taught courses, I
worked at the hospital and I taught courses there with my
colleagues who led them. And I decided to train as a
mindfulness teacher. And I thought it would be really
lovely if we could create something in the well-being
space that, that could combine the arts.
And, and what I got from Sue's class was very much what other
people got as well. There was a sense of everybody
settling. You know, people had things
going on in their lives that they were able to leave outside
the room. And we thought if we
conceptualized it as a, as a, as a thing that that was combining
them both from the get go, you know, really explicit about
that. We we just started by selling
tickets to family and friends. We very rapidly, we collected
feedback. We've both got, we're both
primary teachers as well. So we've got background and
collecting information and feedback.
Yeah. So we started with feedback
forms from write the get go and the data and the feedback we
were getting was that people were really feeling the benefit
of this. And we, obviously, again, both
having a background in public sector, wanted to start
delivering it to people that couldn't necessarily pay for a
ticket. We wanted to be able to apply
for funding. And we looked at different
models to do that. Community interest company was
something neither of us knew about.
So it was a steep upward learning curve.
Yeah. It was a long old journey.
And we realized that we needed a third unrelated director.
And Julie had attended a few of our workshops as a colleague.
Julie and I trained as counsellors together and she has
a background in HR, so she, she had a kind of interesting angle
on it and she just was so enthusiastic about what we were
doing that we all had a coffee and some cake and here we are.
So we, yeah, joined forces and, yeah, became the community
interest company. So lots to learn because it's
quite a complex process doing that, but here we are, yeah.
It, it is fascinating cause quite a lot of the businesses
I've interviewed for the Brentwood Buzz, yes, are made-up
of women who have for some reason needed to change career
or they've had children or have you.
And some of the most interested and enthusiastic people come out
of that things. So it it, it, it feels like
you're, you're fitting a pattern somewhere.
It's it's midlife for women is complicated, right?
And I think it's complicated internally and it's complicated
externally in terms of the life events that are happening around
you. And you know, people can can
call it unravelling or they can call it a reinvention.
And that's very much how I feel. And it, it, it's a bit phoenix
from the flames, but this is life, right?
We have to swerve and redirect and swerve and redirect and
swerve and redirect. And actually, I lost my parents
rapidly during COVID. Julie's had a caring
responsibility, Sue also. So we've, we've got this kind of
passion for helping people that are in a situation where they're
really struggling to support themselves because they're so
busy supporting others, which is again, midlife women, right?
Often. So we have a variety of projects
that we're doing. The one we're doing here today
is a creative Commission for rural Brentwood.
So we've, we've set up and fall locations across Brentwood, but
we have another project we're doing for carers specifically.
We work with carers groups of prosthetics.
So yeah, it's been a been a lot to learn, but really good.
Fun. And, and we started today by
doing a little mindfulness session and it, there was a
strange kind of feeling of peacefulness and almost
religious quality without it being religious.
Yeah. So the the meditation that we
did today is a very traditional one.
It's based on the meta meditation from the, the
Buddhist philosophy. But it is it's made, you know,
non secular for for modern life. It's actually the meditation
that comes with the most research as well in terms of the
benefits. If you practice a loving
kindness meditation regularly, daily, if you can, it, it's the
one that has got huge amounts of research behind the improvements
that can make in people's lives in terms of how how they feel
about themselves. It's often about improving that
relationship with yourself and giving yourself permission to to
stop, to rest, to breathe, You know, just take a deep breath.
How about that? And it's, it's nice because it,
I, I could feel my brain kind of switch off, which I really
enjoyed. And also with the art, it's
using the left side of your brain and yeah, just a different
part of your brain that just isn't anxious and worried.
Exactly. And we, one of the things that
tools me, I haven't used it today is a glitter jar.
And I always talk about the fact that the glitter represents what
your brain, we shake it up. It's like a snow globe.
You shake it up and it's this whirl of colour and, and
busyness and all the rest of it. And we can't meditation
mindfulness, creative mindfulness is, which is what
we're doing here essentially. So even if people don't want to
practice the seated mindfulness, they're doing creative
mindfulness. It's allowing your brain to
settle. It's not magic.
It can't remove all the pressures and the stresses and
the strains. But actually what you end up
with is, is a brain that feels quieter from them.
That's the byproduct. I always tell people, you know,
people are sometimes told with mindfulness, relax, you know, we
will empty your mind. That's not possible.
I mean, I'd like to see them try and empty mind, you know, So
it's, it's not about emptying your mind, but it's about just
giving yourself permission to breathe, to stop, to notice how
full your mind is. Sometimes that's, that's
sometimes enough, you know, and then and then doing an activity
that kind of builds on that feeling of settling is, is
really what we offer. I am just giving myself some
time out from yeah busy life and it's a time where I can just
stop and only focus on something that's right in front of me and
not the whole world outside. Yeah.
And, and have you found you've been able to do that today
because you've got a beautiful kind of almost a flower fairy
woven? Page here.
Yeah, yeah, no, I am. I'm actually, I came here to
originate because I'm quite a perfectionist and art has always
been something that challenges me because I want it to be the
best star ever. So I kind of come here with the
intention of just, you know, being kind to myself and, and
just having a go. And I've been really, yeah, I've
been really impressed with just being able to get things wrong
now and, and not beat myself with a stick about it, you know?
So, yeah, this weave has been really lovely to do.
It's taken me back to days of brownies, actually, and it's
childlike and I think that's really good as well.
You know, it's quite, it's just, yeah, a little bit of inner
child work as well. Hi, I'm Sue Mills and I'm one of
the directors of Create Yourself Calm.
OK, now you are, I'm going to say the arty one of the three is
that is that your you've got an artistic background.
Yes. So my background is I was a
primary school teacher for 15 years and I was the art
specialist in primary schools. But now I teach more workshops,
teach at the fold in Billericay once a week, multicolor class.
But I do workshops with all ages from three to 103 probably at
some point I imagine. Who are the most difficult to
work with? The primary school age children
or the the ones who are adults? Well good question.
Could be either or depending on the mood.
They're all, they all can lack confidence.
If they're new they can all compare themselves.
So when they get younger kids don't they just get on with it
and enjoy the process. But as you get older, in time,
you lose that creative confidence and you become more
aware. And that's partly why a lot of
it we say we want, we want you to remember what it's like being
a child. And you know, when we put a
bunch of children, we give them some stuff, whether it's Lego or
construction material or paints or gluing scissors, they will
just happily go and play with it and not worry about it.
And we want that for adults as well, just to enjoy the process
and not thinking we're being creative to hang it on the
gallery and it would be lovely and and sell it for £1,000,000.
But that's not what it's about. We just want them to enjoy it
all. I think that's the thing about
art is that in primary school, you know, so you must copy this
picture of some sunflowers and you must copy this picture of a
pond that's a bit blurry and, and you're not allowed to really
deviate from that. And so you think you have to do
things right. And that's not always the right
way of going about this. Yeah, I mean, obviously my
primary teaching background, you know, the teachers got to cover
these lesson objectives. You've got the office office
inspector looking over your shoulder.
You've got they've got have all done this and progressed this
this way. And of course that's what we get
job. You know, you've got to do all
these things by a certain time in a certain way because they've
got all the boxes to take. And that's what we want to try
and forget when we're being creative.
Definitely because. I think one of the things I
found most fascinating about art is that I'd always been brought
up to kind of look at old masters and that kind of thing.
You think that's good art. And then you see things by Tracy
Emin that's like an unmade bed. You go, well, that's what
anybody could do that. And then you see the different
shapes and colours and, and what's the word negative space
within it. And that's, I think I find
that's fascinating that you could have art in anything.
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think that is part of
it. I mean, you can it would
certainly admire the masters and how the skill of painting those
folds of fabric in the delicate details and how they show the
shadows on the faces. But there's also, well, how did
this person produce this piece of abstract art?
And as you say, like, you know, a good old Jackson Pollock
flicking all the paint everywhere.
But it's knowing how he was feeling when he was creating it
and what colours, what mood was he in?
Why did he pick those colours? Or unlike anybody's dating, you
know, there's, you might not consciously think of it, but
subconsciously I'm feeling I want the calming colours today
and I'm doing it in this way. And this might have inspired me.
I might have seen this the sunrise in the morning.
I saw that brilliant orange and I want to use that in my
painting. So, and I know, I know I
struggled when I first looked at looking at more abstract art.
I was think I always thought the same thing.
When you actually try it yourself, you realise what the
thought that goes into it and it's not not as easy as it might
look. Yeah, yeah.
And. And I love the fact that here,
by doing the mindfulness first, it just lets you check in with
your brain, just let it organise itself a little bit and just
let's get rid of some of those thoughts and then we'll bring in
just kind of lovely stuff. It's, yeah, it's, that's, that's
switching off. And I've taught classes for
years and, and I, I became more aware of the mindfulness by, by
accident in a way, because people were saying to me, oh,
I've forgotten about, I don't have to worry about what I'm
cooking for dinner tonight. Or, you know, we've got people
come to my classes. They've got, you know, their
partners are not well or they've got, you know, think difficult
things going on at home. And it's, you know, they've come
and they've just forgotten about it.
Even if it's just for 5 minutes, you know, they've got absorbed
and not worrying about that. They can then enjoy, Yeah.
Enjoy the process of it all. You come up with the ideas
because today we're doing paper weaving and weaving little slats
of paper into other slats of paper using colour or design or
just however you want to do it. So how do you come up with those
ideas? Well, that, that's the very,
very good question, because it, it, we, we can change it last
minute because it's just get inspired all the time.
And I've and I've got all these, all these ideas or we could do
this, we could do this. So it's it that could be the
hardest bit. Sometimes we've got to make a
decision. We've got to buy the resources.
But what we try offer is we've got a starting point, but if
people go off on a tangent and do something totally different,
which they regularly do, it doesn't matter.
So if they do something as you know, and that's what we like
about it, you know, it's what it's not.
It's nice not to worry. It's here's some stuff, have a
nice play with it. And I'm hoping to take some of
the artwork done today as part of the Brentwood Art Trail as
well. With fingers crossed if Berlin's
listening, but whatever we we'd like to produce something a
piece of joint artwork between the groups just to show
everybody what we've what we've, you know, a couple of sessions
what we've been doing and, and it's also trying to show
everybody that it's not scary. You're not having to do have
done GCSE art or been O level in my case.
And and probably quite a lot of people that come O levels and
it's just part of is enjoying the process and whether you've
not done. I mean, I've taught lots of
people before that haven't done art since school and it can be.
And they've retired and so they're a bit nervous,
understandably. Now, if the art trail is is is
coming up, you will probably see some of your individual work
around town as well. What are what are you going to
be doing? Yeah, so this year normally I
have three pieces. I've done one this year because
funnily enough, I've been a little bit busy elsewhere.
But yeah, so I've got one piece. I've done a portrait.
A lot of portraits is what I tend to go back to.
I've always enjoyed portraits. I've done some quite abstract
ones, bit of collage. I've done one.
I use alcohol inks quite a lot, which I tend to do in the summer
because they're a bit smelly and you have to have the windows
open because I teach watercolours once a week.
So I've done a watercolour one this time.
I'm here just to participate and fill, fill the day.
I'm currently in recovery from addictions, so I've discovered
art within that time sort of focuses me on one individual
thing. And yes, just being around other
people is quite important at the minute and just sitting and
chatting with random people. I I heavily enjoy it.
I don't know if they they would say the same, but yeah, no, I
just, I'm just trying loads of different things in the area at
the minute and this is the first time here.
So yeah, loving it because. I suppose if you've had an
addiction to anything, there's some, there's a gap to be
filled. If you're taking something out,
you've got to fill it with something else.
So this is this is quite a quite a positive way of filling time.
The day is a lot longer than you realise, so yes, definitely.
While I'm sort of not back into work and things like that, it's
art and these types of things play a huge part really, and in
getting together with people I already know, but also meeting
new people and I just really enjoy it, yeah.
I'm looking at a sweatshirt and it's either a designer
sweatshirt or you've been painting somewhere else.
What have you been up to? I'm just loving art at the
minute and I am rather lazy, so don't walk to the sink to wash
my brushes. I just cover them on myself.
But yeah, no, it's just, it's just one of the things and it's
sort of because I'm in recovery. It's really exciting learning
about yourself. So I would never have done art
before. I filled all my time with
negative activities and now it's sort of doing all these positive
things and discovering I really do enjoy art.
I like going to galleries at the minute and things like that.
So it's you just sort of start discovering yourself and there's
activities on that help you to do that as well, which is just
brilliant. It's just looking for a space to
do some art, like get back into it.
I'm not working at the moment so wanted somewhere to inspire me.
Yeah. So have you done art before in
any form? Yeah, just kind of do doodle
type Zentangle type things. I did art GCSE actually, but
yeah, just not that in the last few years of trying to get back
into it and. And what, what have you been
doing today? Because there's there's quite a
lot of weaving going on. Yeah, weaving.
Yeah, yeah, just finding lots of different patterns and different
colours, trying to weave them all together.
I came to 1 and I absolutely loved it.
One of these creative classes and I think my if I needed an
excuse, I've got very high blood pressure.
So this is great to come and just calm down.
And that's what it does. And, and what about the, the
people? Do you get to chat to, to people
while you're here or you've focused entirely on your, your
weaving and your artwork? Well, I moved from that table to
this table because I wanted to chat.
Hello, my name is Julie and I'm one of the directors of Create
Yourself Calm. Now I've spoken a little bit to
Lindsay already about create yourself calm and what it does.
But tell me and and and the background story.
But, but tell me a little bit more about being a a community
interest company because that sounds you've been, you've got a
background in HR in the city, so you'll be able to explain it
really well. Oh, no pressure there then.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
So Community Interest Company is a not-for-profit company.
So the idea is that we're not a charity, but we don't make any
profits. We can pay ourselves and we can
pay people to do the work when we get to that big, but not at
the moment. But being a CIC is quite
important in terms of applying for funding.
So when you're applying for government funding for local
authorities, even just trusts and charities, they quite often
want you to be a CIC. So you're kind of doing what I
suppose they used to do in church halls or Wis is kind of
like bringing something to the community that people want to
do. It's free or very low cost, but
it has to be done within a a kind of a parameter these days
for for accountability. Yeah, absolutely.
So when we are pitching for work, we have to demonstrate
what the benefits will be. So we get lots of feedback from
all the different sessions that we've run.
We have run public sessions that people have played to come to in
the past and we will continue to do that when we can.
But we get the feedback and particularly we ask people how
it's affecting their mental health, how it's supporting
them. There's a lot of research around
which talks about how important creativity is for mental
well-being. And so, you know, we can quote
that, we can talk about, we can demonstrate the link between
what we do and improved outcomes for mental health.
So it, it doesn't mean, I mean, we've got about what, 15 people,
12-15 people here today. We're not sitting here and
saying there's something wrong with all these people and
they've got to come along. This is an enjoyable thing that
you can come to if you're feeling a bit down, if you're
feeling a bit lonely, but just if you've got a spare couple of
hours on a Tuesday afternoon. Absolutely yes.
You don't have to have anything wrong in inverted commas with
you at all. We all need space.
We all, we're all on the go all the time.
We all have these 70,000 odd thoughts that we all have in our
minds every day and it's about taking a bit of time out and a
bit of focus, being creative and just feeling everything settle a
bit. And we all need that.
What I mean, we all have lots of stuff going on in our lives, but
whatever it is, we all need that.
Yeah, and coming from a a city background, what did you do in
the city? I was in human resources.
I was HR Director of a city law firm for 15 years.
OK, so quite a big job. So is this as complex as that or
is it a different vibe? Oh, very different, very
different vibe. It's Gee, I did enjoy my career,
I did enjoy it, but it was really full on and I got quite
burnt out, which I didn't recognise.
And it's really only now looking back, I can see how burnt out I
got, how tired I got. This is incredibly rewarding in
a different way. HR can be very rewarding as
well. It can also be, it's a
nightmare, but it can also be rewarding seeing people develop.
That was the sort of stuff I like, seeing people coming and
their careers develop for this. You feel like you're giving
something that I feel like I'm giving something back.
I trained as a counsellor about 10 years ago.
That's How I Met Lindsay and part of that was having
experience counselling myself and realizing what a difference
it could make. It's I just wanted to give some
of that back to people. Yeah.
And and so where do you go from here?
Because for all that it's it feels like a very calm and
lovely environment. And it's not like being in HR in
the city it you still have to have a vision to where you're
going to go. So I mean, could you see
yourself setting this up in franchising it across the
country and and building an entire empire, I think.
Global domination is really where we're going for.
It's interesting you say franchise because one of the
things I said to Lindsay and Sue when I first met them and talked
about it was I said you should trademark the name, which we
have. And I said I could see this
being a franchise. I don't know.
We've just started. We're three, been in our 50s,
just like don't quite know how we found ourselves here.
I think we love doing what we're doing.
I'd love to go to different areas and do it.
So not just the Brentwood area but other areas in Essex or in
East London and just get it out to as many people as we can.
It is nice though, that three local people have got together
and doing something to celebrate Brentwood and celebrate the
people of Brentwood. Absolutely.
And it's, I moved here, I've lived in Romford all my life and
I moved here a couple of years ago and I love hearing, I love
the vibe of Brentwood. I think it's a really nice area.
The people are really friendly. It's just, it's interesting.
It's 10 miles down the road from where I grew up and yet it's got
a completely different feel to it and it is back giving back to
this community, definitely. I've done courses in jewelry
making and creative crafts. Excellent.
And is it something that you enjoy doing?
Oh definitely. I've I've enjoyed doing crafts,
especially jewellery making for like making presents for
Mother's Day, birthdays, those sort of things.
It's been very therapeutic and rewarding.
Yeah. And having the the kind of
mindfulness and meditation at the beginning is, it was very
freeing, I think. Yeah, definitely.
It was really relaxing and it's, it's definitely different when
you've got people around you and do it for the first time, you
know, can feel a bit strange, but after a while you feel more
relaxed. I'm here because I love crafting
and I know it's very therapeutic and it helps me.
So what what brought you here in the in the first place?
I did do a six week course with the same group of people.
And then I I was on their Facebook.
Page and I saw that they had these, so I thought that I would
join because I enjoyed that six week course and it did.
Help me a lot. Because at the time I was going
through a bad period at work and the creative aspect helps me to
relax. This is my sixth time of coming
so I like it very much. It's very relaxing.
It's a shame it can't be longer but I know it's to do with
funding. The ladies here run it are very
friendly and helpful and everyone.
It's nice social really and you also get a free coffee and cake
with extra bonus on top. And what brought you here for
the first time? If this is your sixth time, what
what made you come in originally?
The first one I went to was at Snap at Wooley and to be honest,
I'm going through perimenopause and I started so I started
overthinking. So I thought, well at this rate
I need something to help me try and turn my brain off with the
overthinking. And so I went to the first one
and really enjoyed it. So now I just, yeah, it's just a
normal thing that I come to. Thanks to Lindsay, Julie, Sue
and everyone at the Create Yourself Calm session.
They meet in various places around Brentwood each month, so
do check out the Create Yourself Calm website next time on the
Brentwood Buzz. We head back to Ingatestone to
find out about the trials and tribulations of setting up a new
business. Please like, comment, and share
the podcast wherever you can.