Emotional Skills Workshops

Hi, I’m Anna the Digital Fundraising and Engagement Officer at Sue Lambert Trust, recently facilitators of the Emotional Skills Workshops, Bev and Danny offered the opportunity for staff to take part in the ESW workshops they offer to our clients before they begin counselling.

It was explained that the workshops would last 2 hours each week for a total of 6 weeks, it was important to commit to attending all the workshops and they would usually accommodate 6-8 participants.

I signed up, pledging my attendance for the 6 weeks. I decided it would be a good opportunity to gain some insight and understanding about them, so I could better explain what was involved and in addition for my own personal development and understanding around emotions.

The identified aims were:

• to increase ability to manage emotional well-being.
• to identify and explore positive coping strategies.
• to feel more resilient and aware of our choices.
• to feel ready for when counselling becomes available. (not applicable for us but for our clients)

I am hoping this blog may answer the following questions you may have, and that I too also had before taking part:

1. What are Emotional Skills Workshops (ESW)?
2. What do they involve?
3. What difference will they make?

I’m not going to give you a full account of what we covered each week for 6 full weeks but an overview of what was covered throughout the whole series of workshops. This is mainly because reading what I did session to session in depth wouldn’t be a great read and I also don’t want to ruin the full experience if you decide to take part in them in the future.

I want to start by saying from the outset we were all made to feel welcome, at ease and involved with the group. We began the first session by sharing our names and something we considered to be our favourite thing to do (mine was archery, as it increases my focus but also requires relaxation). As a group we worked together to talk about our concerns and hopes, what would be covered in the coming weeks including safety in the group. Once this was done, we were ready to move forward together for the coming weeks. It was quite a common theme that we all felt a little nervous and apprehensive at the thought of exploring our emotions and what was to come but we worked through these feelings.

Over the course of the remaining weeks, we explored different emotions including, Sad and Joyful, Scared and Peaceful, Anger and Powerful. We talked about what each of these emotions meant to us, how they may make us feel and what we may notice when we are experiencing them. We were given techniques we can use to acknowledge emotions or even move away from them if we wish including grounding techniques, relaxation exercises and we even built our own self care packages to support link us to our 5 senses in a grounded way.

We talked about how our thinking, feeling and behaviour can come from different ego states being Parent, Adult or Child and how we often experience primal feelings, exploring how our senses connect us to the world around us and feed data to the brain to give a fight, flight or freeze response. We explored interpersonal neurobiology and how we can work to re-wire our brain, we got to watch a great video about addiction highlighting a London to Brighton pathway which was a great way to learn about neural pathways and the rection to dopamine. We explored how trauma can impact how we function in daily life and thought about where we may sit in the drama circle or circle or serenity.

Two of the emotions I really enjoyed exploring were peaceful thinking about ways in which I can find peace in my life (having 5 minutes with a cup of tea in nature, listening to the birds and observing my surroundings) and anger as it made me think about how I feel when I am angry and better ways of expressing this instead of perhaps burying it (we were given good food with thought with volcanos and icebergs).

We were asked to complete a couple of questionnaires at the start of the workshops, which we repeated at the end and were invited to give feedback on the sessions too.

Overall, I want to highlight the course was worthwhile. While at times we all may have felt a bit nervous or uncomfortable talking about our emotions we learnt that that was ok; and to embrace and accept them so we can better understand how we are feeling and to manage these feelings.

I think for clients that have experienced trauma it will support them to think about how they process and recognise their emotions, perhaps trying out some new techniques when things do feel a little intense to help keep grounded and balanced ready for counselling, to heal and move forwards in their lives.

If you are interested in taking part in the next workshops and are either waiting for counselling or have completed counselling then please get in touch email groups@suelamberttrust.org.