The First.

30 days hath September. .... and so the saying goes on. It is three years since the inception of Grey Door Therapy Clinic and so more than time to begin the Grey Door monthly blog!
When I was walking on the Sussex Downs with Coco - my little dog - this morning I was struck again how busy my life is and how I just don’t take enough time to ‘stop and stare...’. Even as I was walking at a speed of knots I was thinking about client work and the Clinic generally - how to therapeutically challenge a certain client, what I need to do to encourage courage in another etc. and then other ways  to improve the running of the beautiful clinic on Blatchington Road and so on. Then my thoughts turned to family and home and all the wonderful ups and the sometimes not so wonderful downs. 
I had to make a concerted effort to stop and just look around me. Then when I did, Wow, how wonderful was that. The undulating curves of the grasslands, the zigzag of the paths, the dividing hedgerows, the tiny specks of sheep grazing in the distance, the light fluffy clouds skudding across a clear blue sky and the only sound was that of delightful birdsong. Guess what? I was smiling - yes smiling at just being and not thinking and certainly not doing. I actually felt my body relax and loosen. 
Now I know not everyone has the time to walk on the Downs but I am guessing that we could all just slow down, take a look around and take some  time out to just ‘be’ rather than always ‘do’.
I have a great book on my bookshelf at the clinic called “In Praise of Slow ” by Carl Honore. This book is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace but looking at striking a balance between fast and slow in a culture where faster equates to better.  We seem to be in a zeitgeist where resting seems to be an anathema and in the words of Brene Brown “we must learn to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self worth”.
Just one of our wonderful therapists at Grey Door is Dheeresh Turnbull who runs courses on Mindfulness which is of course another great way of learning to slow down.
September is the gateway to Autumn. In the words of John Keats - ‘the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’. I somehow think of September as the start of something new - I guess it’s having many years of school age children and September was the time of new pencil cases, new school bags, new uniform, new classroom and sometimes a whole new school. 
How about it being a new start of slowing down for you and ‘being’ rather than doing?
See you soon 

Teena Campion-Smith
Director and Psychotherapist