Recently Fi and I had a day out at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre for the Mental Health and Wellbeing Scotland awards. Our friend and colleague Dr Paul White, who is based in the USA but follows us on social media, had nominated us for an award. To our great surprise, we learned we were finalists, and so we decided to attend—not for one minute thinking we might win anything! Our nomination was for making an outstanding contribution to education and even when they were speaking about our good work and why we deserved the award, I did not recognise they were actually speaking about us! Talk about discounting! Our name was called out and we had to get onto the stage and receive our prize, the bronze award! Amazing!
We were and still are delighted! But although Fi and I collected the award, we did so on behalf of all the team who make Physis Scotland what we are. Our team includes all of our tutors, assistant trainers, administrators, supervisors, academic support team, marketing and finance teams without whom none of what we do would be remotely possible. So we are feeling proud. But rightly proud of the team that we are. We are in it together.
On that day we met some amazing people who are all passionate about, and are contributing to, advancing and improving the mental health of our nation Scotland. We felt humbled. We felt excited and delighted to know that we are part of something so much bigger.
They had invited some incredible speakers including Helen Davies, a nurse supporting neurodiversity in organisations, Colin MacLachlan who is an ex-SAS soldier and hosts the TV programme Who Dares Wins, Dawn Evans the CEO of Ajuda Training Academy who organised the event and finally Simon Weston CBE, the military veteran so horrifically injured in the Falklands war. Each one of them was inspirational with their passion, courage and resilience wafted through their personal stories, but there was something else. Their physis. Their simple, humble and at times complex determination to survive and to survive well. They were breathtaking. They were thought-provoking. They were exactly what we needed to hear.
Simon Weston reminded us that whilst fate might serve us some bitter blows in life, we are all in charge and responsible for our own destiny. He reminded us to seek for and find joy in our lives – not happiness necessarily which can be so fleeting – but joy. JOY!
Sadly we know that part of being a human is that distress in all of our lives is going to be inevitable, but can we turn our pain, when appropriate, into gold and take responsibility for our future destiny? This is what we are all about at Physis Scotland where we trust and hope that we are making a positive and significant impact on education to support positive mental health and wellbeing by training counsellors and psychotherapists who are doing exactly this and are 100% committed to supporting their clients to reach their destiny as well.
A simple but profound message. Go well all. Meantime we are busy framing and displaying our award! Thank you Ajuda for a great day out.
Fiona Cook