Count Your Blessings...

One Step at a Time.

Every day, I go for what I call a 'Count My Blessings Walk.' Bronte and Nelly come too, obviously. I'm not entirely sure they understand the concept of gratitude. Their blessings seem to consist largely of interesting smells, strategically discarded food and the possibility that another dog might have walked along their path without permission, but they are very committed participants nonetheless.

The idea started very simply. While we walk, I deliberately think about the things I can be grateful for, not huge things. Not 'my life is perfect, the sun is shining and everything is wonderful' things, because sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the blessing is, 'I had an awful day yesterday — but I got through it'; sometimes it is that somebody made me laugh; sometimes it is a message from someone I haven't heard from for a while; sometimes it is that I managed something I had been worrying about; and sometimes it is simply that I am outside, walking, breathing, with two enormous Bullmastiffs plodding beside me. On particularly difficult days (and we all have them), the blessing is just that today is a new day.

There is something incredibly powerful about deliberately looking for what is still good when life feels difficult. It doesn't mean pretending that everything is fine and I think that is important. Gratitude isn't about dismissing sadness, anxiety, disappointment or stress. It isn't about telling ourselves that other people have it worse, so we shouldn't feel what we feel, and it certainly isn't about plastering a smile over something that hurts.

It is about allowing two things to be true at once: Yesterday was awful but I got through it, I'm worried but there are still things in my life that make me feel safe, something went wrong but something else went right, or perhaps, I'm struggling but I'm still moving forward. That little word 'but' can make an enormous difference.

At 'OakWell Education', we spend a great deal of time helping young people who feel overwhelmed by what is going wrong. When you are anxious, worried about school, struggling with confidence or dealing with change, your brain can become remarkably good at spotting problems such as the difficult lesson, the friendship issue, the upcoming test, the thing you said yesterday (that you've replayed approximately 4,000 times since), the thing that might happen next Tuesday at 2.15pm even though there is absolutely no evidence that it will! The brain can be spectacularly talented worrier.

A 'Count My Blessings Walk' doesn't magically remove any of those things. What it does is gently widen the picture; that difficult thing is still there, but what else is there? Maybe you answered a question today when normally you wouldn't, maybe you went into school despite feeling anxious, maybe you asked for help, maybe you completed something you had been avoiding, or just maybe you had a terrible day and simply made it to bedtime. That counts. In fact, sometimes those are the achievements that deserve the greatest recognition.

There is another reason I love doing this while walking. There is no worksheet, no screen and no pressure to produce the 'right' answer. I'm simply moving forward while thinking about what has gone well, what I've survived, what matters to me and what I want to carry into the day ahead.

Perhaps there is a metaphor in there somewhere. We don't always have to feel completely confident before we take the next step. Sometimes we just take the step, then another, then another, and eventually we look behind us and realise how far we've come.

That is something we believe very strongly at 'OakWell Education': confidence, resilience and emotional wellbeing aren't about never having difficult days, rather they are about developing the tools to move through them, recognise our own progress and remember that one difficult day does not get to define our whole story.

This is exactly the kind of mindset we help young people to develop through our coaching at 'OakWell Education'. Coaching gives young people the time and space to stop, talk, reflect and begin to recognise the things they can control. We work on confidence, anxiety, resilience, organisation, friendships, school worries and those (sometimes very loud) thoughts that tell a young person they can't do something before they have even tried.

Importantly, we don't simply tell young people to 'think positively.' We help them develop practical strategies that allow them to notice progress, challenge unhelpful thinking, recognise their own strengths and gradually build a more confident and resilient mindset because we recognise that wellbeing and learning are not separate things. When a young person feels happier, safer and more settled, they are better able to focus. When their head isn't completely occupied by worry, there is more space for curiosity, concentration and learning. Happy students are better able to learn because they are better able to focus on learning.

At the moment, we have one space available for 1:1 coaching at 'OakWell Education', either as a stand-alone service or alongside academic tuition. Sometimes a young person doesn't need another worksheet or another hour of revision, they need somebody to help them believe that they can do the worksheet, face the lesson, sit the exam or cope with whatever is worrying them, and sometimes, changing the way we think about the little things can begin to change the way we approach the bigger ones.

My Count My Blessings Walk has become one of my favourite parts of the day. Bronte and Nelly don't contribute much verbally but perhaps they understand it better than I think. They don't worry about yesterday. They don't appear particularly concerned about tomorrow. They are delighted by a good sniff, a familiar path, someone they love walking beside them and the possibility of breakfast when they get home. Actually, when you put it like that, they may have cracked it!

So perhaps today, whether you walk a mile, walk around the garden or simply sit quietly for five minutes, try counting a few blessings. They don't need to be impressive. They don't even need to sound particularly positive. "That was hard — but I did it," is sometimes more than enough. After all, mighty oaks don't appear overnight, they grow quietly, little by little, one small step at a time, and sometimes, we do too.