--- title: "Why Love, Respect, Connection and Acceptance Matter" episode: 11 date: 2020-08-27 guest: "Ling Salter" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/11-why-love-respect-connection-and-acceptance-matter audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-011/audio.mp3 --- # Why Love, Respect, Connection and Acceptance Matter Joanne Lockwood is joined by Ling Salter, a former mental health nurse and founder of the social enterprise Compassionate Cuppa, to explore why love, respect, connection and acceptance matter for wellbeing. They discuss how being truly listened to can create connection and belonging, and how disconnection and unmet needs can contribute to distress. The conversation examines the stigma around “mental health,” why reaching out can feel difficult, and how compassionate, non-judgemental listening can be a first step toward support. They also reflect on the pressures of an always-on online world and the added uncertainty and disruption brought by COVID-19—from lockdown and shifting routines to anxiety about returning to workplaces and public spaces. Ling shares how her approach focuses on meeting people where they are, exploring what’s possible, and helping individuals reconnect with purpose and acceptance. The episode closes with Ling’s reflections on Reiki as a personal practice that supported her recovery from physical pain, and how it may complement her broader wellbeing work over time. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Episode with Ling Salter on love, connection. - 05:47 — People seek connection and kindness for fulfilment. - 09:10 — Stigma around mental health affects opening up. - 11:24 — Stereotypes harm men and hinder emotional support. - 16:53 — Life before was a photo-taking struggle. - 20:11 — Discover your purpose, passion, engage wisely. - 24:05 — Initial struggle giving way to community support. - 28:26 — Adapting to post-COVID life, uncertainty remains. - 32:20 — Film revenue unlikely to return to cinemas soon. - 35:29 — Economy class squeezing and viability in business. - 38:46 — Coffee shop and hospitality culture affected. - 42:56 — Inspired by compassion, helping people adapt. - 47:31 — Influencing situations, dialogue, and mindset for change. - 50:44 — Compassionate Cuppa is a social enterprise, benefiting others. - 52:27 — Mental health is crucial for overall wellbeing. - 56:34 — Chose Reiki over medical treatment, found relief. - 59:22 — Exciting upcoming guests, share feedback, join us. ## Key takeaways - The impact of stereotypes on men's mental health and the importance of articulating feelings and seeking support. - The critical role of non-judgmental listening in mental health support services. - Challenges of growing up in a judgemental social media landscape and managing the effects of constant online presence. - The struggle to find downtime and make choices in a world overflowing with online content. - The importance of grounding oneself in purpose and passion, especially when disconnecting from social media. - Reflections on the mental health challenges during the lockdown and the importance of community support. - Exploring the significance of Compassionate Cuppa in providing personalised support and promoting wellbeing in society. ## FAQs ### What impact do stereotypes have on men's mental health? Stereotypes significantly affect men's mental health by discouraging them from expressing their emotions and seeking support. Ling Salter highlights the harmful nature of these stereotypes, stressing that being able to articulate feelings and reach out for support is essential for mental well-being. ### Why is non-judgmental listening important in mental health support services? Non-judgmental listening is vital as it provides a safe space for individuals to share their struggles without fear of judgement. Joanne Lockwood underscores the importance of such an approach, particularly in services like Samaritans, where empathetic listening can be life-saving. ### How can we support individuals who may be contemplating suicide? Individuals contemplating suicide often feel overwhelmed by their suffering. Ling Salter recommends offering compassion, kindness, and a non-judgmental ear to help alleviate their distress and encourage them to seek professional help. ### What challenges do people face in a judgmental social media landscape? Growing up in a judgmental social media environment can be daunting, as negative experiences and criticisms often remain online permanently. Ling Salter and Joanne Lockwood discuss how the constant online presence can be overwhelming and make it difficult to find downtime or switch off. ### How does the lockdown affect mental health and daily routines? The lockdown has led to significant mental health challenges, disrupting daily routines and creating an atmosphere of uncertainty. Both Ling Salter and Joanne Lockwood reflect on the initial shock of the pandemic and the anxiety surrounding the easing of lockdown restrictions. ### How has the pandemic impacted businesses, particularly in travel and hospitality? COVID-19 regulations and uncertainty have hit businesses hard, especially in the travel and hospitality sectors. Ling Salter highlights challenges such as adapting to new consumer habits and maintaining financial viability in a turbulent market. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host to the Inclusion Bytes podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's seechangehappen.co.uk. You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on iTunes, Spotify and of course, all the usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode eleven with the title why Love, respect, connection and acceptance matter. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Ling Salter. I met Ling online through my local Rotary Social Innovation Club and Ling describes herself as a formal mental health nurse of Chinese descent, living in the UK, striving to thrive during this period of change, disruption, whatever you want to call it. It's an unprecedented time. It sure is. So I asked Ling to describe her superpower and she said her vulnerability and being able to connect with her purpose in a compassionate way. So, hello, Ling. Welcome to the show. Hi there, Ling Salter: Jo. Hi. Joanne Lockwood: So tell me, why does love, respect, connection and acceptance matter to you? Well, Jo, they're Ling Salter: very big concepts there that all of us need to a large extent, in different quantities. Whether we describe it as love, acceptance, belonging, whatever spear we look at it upon, it's really important because we want to be included. Right? Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, for sure. And I noticed the word belonging there and I really feel a connection with that word and it means so many things to so many different people. But it's about being listened to sometimes, isn't it? Yes. Ling Salter: And really being listened to, being heard sometimes is quite rare. When we all like to talk, talking is great and how we articulate sort of how we see things in our world. That connection comes about when somebody else who really is listening and being attentive gets you right. And that is where the connection happens. Joanne Lockwood: It does, and I completely relate to that. You say you're a former mental health nurse, so you must have come across examples where a lot of people's mental health was impacted by not being listened to, maybe didn't have agency, didn't have any power decision, and you must have come across those challenges working with people. Yes, definitely. Ling Salter: Certainly. I spent my time working in prison, which is a very challenging place for the people who are incarcerated and it's very chaotic and quite a lot of time. There's not a lot of opportunity to connect in the way that you wish to really facilitate for that person to be heard. There's a lot of shouting and very transient interactions, which sort of are very immediate, where they're calling you to meet a particular need. Whereas actually, in life we have needs that we might not articulate. Just at our first instance. It takes time to actually explore and find out. Sometimes when you experience a mental health issue, there's a disconnect. So almost opposite to the connection. And refinding what your purpose is and your passion, what means a lot to you. Yeah, it takes time to find that out. Joanne Lockwood: So I'm just thinking as you're talking now, I'm thinking about this and thinking, so if I'm not being listened to by the people that matter to me, but I do get listened to by other people, am I more likely to join a different crowd? So where I feel this sense of value? So maybe in prison, if I'm not being listened to by authority, but I am being listened to by anarchy, if you like, I may be more form an allegiance with people who in that other tribe. So by the impact of us ignoring people and not giving people the ability to express and being hurt, then we're allowing other people to steal their attention, if you like. Is that what's kind of happening? Sometimes? Yes. I mean, that happens quite a Ling Salter: lot. Areas where people are disaffected, say, by authority or places that we think we know that we trust, well, they're not meeting our needs. Right? So if then another group or entity comes by which actually are able to attend to us to a certain level, then we can swap allegiancies quite quickly, because all of us are trying to serve ourselves to a certain level. Even if we're wanting to give. Well, if you want to give to someone, you still have to have the means to be able to do it, right? And so you can't do that, then you're going to go to a place, wherever that is, so that you can do that. Simple as it doesn't matter whether that place is known for whatever kind of subject levels, we can swap. Yeah, connection is so important, but connection with kindness, which perhaps isn't really spoke about as much, I think is even more important because we're social beings. We want to try and get along in life and promote the good within each other. Joanne Lockwood: So you mentioned well being in there. So well being is all part of not physical wellbeing. There's also the mental health well being, isn't it? And we always associate mental health as being a negative, don't we? Because you can have good mental health and bad mental health or poor mental health. It's not all mental health is bad, is it? So maybe there's a stigma around just saying mental health because it implies there's something wrong with you. So how do we change that narrative and readdress that and make mental health seem a positive thing? Ling Salter: Yes, I think for my speaking on a personal level, the word mental in itself, when we even just say the word mental, it has negative stereotypes. So hence people talk about their emotional health or their well being, and they're really part of the same things. Sometimes some people don't like talking about their emotions, their feelings, thinking, well, what purpose has feelings got to do with life anyway? How you feel is how you feel. And sometimes we might deny how we feel, which actually feelings have a habit of actually coming back. So particularly negative feelings, if we try to suppress them and we don't attend to them, it will process them in some way, they will come back without a doubt. So Joanne Lockwood: as you're talking, I'm thinking that you said the word mental has got negative connotations. And we always think about straitjackets, we talk about asylums, we think about all these images of the past where admitting to having poor mental health is a real stigma and allowing people to open up without feeling that shame, feeling of failing for not being able to handle something in their life, it's a very hard for people to do. I mean, I know from my own experience, four or five years ago, I was going through a dark time in my life, and I was very reluctant to share how I was feeling with people. I wanted to fix myself, because sometimes you don't have the tools, do you don't have your own tools within you? You need a lifeline or a way of communicating out of it, don't you? Ling Salter: Yeah, that's very true. When we're in a bad place, it's very easy for us to disconnect with others, and we want to protect ourselves. When we withdraw and we don't reach out to others, in a way, we think that we're protecting ourselves. I'm dealing with this even if I'm not dealing with it very well. I'm dealing it with it internally in my own little world, right? So nobody needs to know that I'm dealing with this, even if I'm struggling. And in a way, the longer we leave it, the harder it gets to reach out. Wouldn't you Joanne Lockwood: say for sure? Yeah. It becomes a kind of self fulfilling prophecy. I'm not feeling great, therefore I don't feel great. And we do less exercise, we communicate less, we withdraw into ourselves, don't we? And I'm aware that male suicide amongst the ages, or is it 25 to 40, is the highest proportion of suicides in any demographic. And there's still a stigma about being male and being weak, isn't there? Being able to talk about it? Ling Salter: Yes, there is this perception that men in particular. Well, if you talk, men don't cry, those types of stereotypes. And that actually perpetuates the problem, because if they're not able to articulate how they feel or be able to reach out for support, that support can just be a conversation. And from that conversation is connection. And that's why it's so important. Well, it's important to me, but the wider message, it's important to others. And how. Well, the first port of call, in the sense of really reaching out to another person and accessing, allowing someone else to sort of a ringside seat to what you're experiencing, that makes sense. Yeah. I Joanne Lockwood: hear the expression a cry for help. And many people say that when people attempt to commit suicide or attempt suicide, that it's a cry for help. And they really want someone to listen to them, which is why, I guess, Samaritans and services like that, and maybe your own service are just someone who can listen. And that's what they really want. They want someone who can just not judge, not have an opinion. They just want to create a space where they can talk and be heard. Yes. And part of that Ling Salter: listening is also with compassion, with that kindness, with that care that actually you matter. What you're going through in your head is very difficult right now. However, you as a human being, your life matters. Quite often when people get to a place of feeling or contemplating suicide, they are wanting their suffering to end. Okay. And their suffering at that point, for them, is all so consuming. That's overtaking, sort of like the whole life. But that isn't all of them. What I'm trying to say is that their suffering is one area of their life. They're coming from a point of view of deficiency, where actually they have lots of other things in their life that is valuable, but it's covered when they're in that space. Joanne Lockwood: It's quite tough being a human being these days, isn't it? With social media, if you cast your mind back 1520 years, if someone didn't like you, they had to either write you a letter, tell you face to face, or maybe put something nasty on the note support at school. But generally you knew who that person was, or at least you knew roughly where they were. But now you've got no redRess, because anybody in the world can say something about you that's not nice, anonymously, without any recourse. And it must be really tough to be a person who's growing up with body image issues or identity issues, to be able to put themselves out there into this world that's so judgmental. Ling Salter: Yes. The Internet in particular, the mention of the Internet, how great, how it's evolved. We have access to more information than we ever have done previously, and how we communicate using the Internet. But the flip side is the Internet is less forgiving in the sense it doesn't allow us to be forgotten. Certainly when the misdemeanours, that I'm sure, Jo, you could relate to this, the things that we've got up to, perhaps in our younger days, and things that. The things that we've done that maybe we're not proud of. But nowadays, if those things are so much more, our lives are so much more under the focus with social media and the Internet. And the Internet doesn't allow you to forget, because somewhere it's stored on a server and it can be accessed. If somebody really wants to dig, they'll find it. It must be very difficult to reinvent yourself if that's what you're wanting to do in your life. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: back when I was young, I'm not quite as old as Noah in the Ark, but I'm in my mid 50s now, which is old enough. If you wanted to take a photograph, you had to find your camera, which probably wasn't with you. It's probably at home. You'd have to cheque you, had some film in it, maybe find a flash gun or cube or something, then go and take a photograph. Then you'd have to wait for you to finish the reel of film off and then post off the boots or take it off for developing, and then two weeks later you might get the films back. So it's very difficult to sort of take a nasty picture and post something online or post it anywhere. Whereas now every moment can be captured. Everyone's got a camera, everyone's taking selfies, everyone's so live. There is no way of hiding and having downtime, even if you're having a quiet moment. MosT people would have a camera on their phone with them or be in the background of someone else's shot. It's terribly difficult to switch off, isn't it? Yes. And Ling Salter: I think it can be very overwhelming, what you just described there, Jo. Well, that's you. You doing it. And if you were to replicate you, your actions, sort of up and down the country, internationally and on particular platforms. Can you imagine? Well, no wonder all of us are feeling a bit bombarded with the amount of content and lives and choice. And sometimes that choice is great when we all like to have choice and autonomy and how we choose to engage with certain things, but then suddenly there's this deluge. It's a bit like a menu, when if you go into a restaurant and you see a menu of choices, of different foods, and great, you've got variety there, you want to have variety. But if you were presented with a menu that was just crammed full of different starters, mains, desserts, you're taking forever to make a decision. And it's a bit like that online. It can be very difficult to then stand what. What stands out. When I need to look, I need to look through and see what's there, then choose, and it's the same. But it's so hard Joanne Lockwood: to get off the bus, to use an analogy, where all of your belonging, all of your inclusion, all of your circle are in this crowd. And for you to protect yourself, you have to step out into a world where all your friends aren't. You've lost that connection with people. So in order to fix yourself and back out, you've almost got to go lonely. Where do you find support for people who turn themselves off? Because by definition, if you've turned yourself off of social media, you're not online. And how do we connect with people? How do we form new clubs of people who want to switch off, who want to not be online at the time. How do we connect people like that? I Ling Salter: think ultimately it really is you grounding you in the sense how you. You know, you have to know within yourself what your purpose is, your passion is, and go from that standpOint, from the perspective of knowing yourself and knowing what you're about, then how you engage with what your passion and your purpose, the vehicles of how you engage with that becomes a lot easier in terms of which areas, which areas, which groups that might look like. And yeah, if you are fulfilling your purpose isn't just about goals, because lots of people talk about specific goals. And then obviously when people can't meet those goals, they get really disappointed because they, oh, well, I didn't achieve X, Y and Z. However, purpose and passion go a lot deeper than that. And it isn't a prescribed way to say, well, you should go to these platforms and not these platforms. It isn't a straight sort of yes, no issue. It's about finding what works for you. Joanne Lockwood: Do you think that in this unprecedented time, as everyone keeps calling it, I think one day it'll become a precedent. Won't it become the norm? One day we'll get there, we'll stop talking about. We don't talk about the Roman Empire as being the norm anymore. So I think one day we'll get used to the idea that we are living in reality again. So do you think people have similar, different mental health challenges now? Is this lockdown making some people worse, or is it helping? What do you think? Ling Salter: Well, it happened in different stages. When the lockdown first happened, there was a lot of shock. People didn't know what they were doing with themselves because all their routines of what they knew they were. I mean, if you've got a diary or a schedule, you've got plans. And they were all kind of mean. Did that happen for sure. For I land. Joanne Lockwood: I was in Amsterdam the week before, and when I landed, the world had changed. I didn't get the memo. I was away at the time. I got back on the Friday the 13th and everything had changed. And I was wondering what happened. And I threw myself a pity party for a few days. I had to mourn the loss of everything I had, the loss of my stability. But one of the things I think the class of one of my superpowers is my ability to move into Acceptance very quickly and to be able to bootstrap myself out of that doom and gloom very quickly into. Okay, dust myself down. What's next? Let's get back on. Let's carry on doing stuff. But that's part of my own resilience, which I appreciate. Not everybody has. And you have to go through that grieving stage, that loss, don't you? The seven stages of grieving. We still have to go through that. We'll have anger in there. We'll have denial. It's not real. Or I can't see zombies outside killing, eating people. It's this just hidden thing. Is it real? So I guess people were denying it. To start with, yes. Ling Salter: There certainly was a difficulty accepting, which you mentioned you were able to come to a level of acceptance of where you were fairly quickly. For some people, it would have been a real struggle to accept that things completely changed. And being angry, being lost, being pitiful, and yet there were others that suddenly the flip side was I heard a lot about mutual aid, the certain sort of responses, certain sections of the community that come together and put together support locally. And then you had the things like the clap for carers, that sort of wasn't a seed of an idea. And then it just literally spread throughout the nation. Every Thursday you go out and clap. And all expected this response in terms of the pandemic getting worse. But for ourselves, it was just a huge tidal of disruption. Now, some people lost all of their work and then at the other end of the spectrum, if we look at it like a spectrum, others that were just super busy and didn't have time to even rest. So there was a big disparity, if you like, in those two groups. And then there was this dialogue about who was classed as vulnerable and who wasn't. And so all of those concerns, there were lots of things, but individually, we're all trying to negotiate that period of uncertainty. And us humans, we like things to be certain. That's why we have diaries, we plan things, we make sure that things happen at certain times. And we're still now unCertain, aren't we, in that we don't know if we're going to have this so called second spike and things can get cancelled or changed very suddenly. For example, the Spain quarantine, it seemed to have happened overnight. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, for sure. I mean, people stranded in Spain, people about to take off, people who booked holidays recently, people who booked holidays in advance and told that you're covered on insurance up until this date, anything after that date, you're not covered. And suddenly that's come into play. And I think people got into this acceptance and now a lot of people have now found their safe space again in this, wherever we are. And I think there's a new anxiety about the unlocking. The government was so effective in warning people about public transport, in warning people about enclosed spaces, in warning people about closed contact and warning people about making sure their officers are safe. And so now people are being asked to go back to work. There's now an anxiety about using public transport, there's now anxiety about being in an office with people and face masks and the fact that offices aren't the warm, safe place they used to be. They've all changed. You go back there, there's plastic screens and sanitizers and things that aren't familiar. Maybe some people are on furlough, maybe the work's changed, maybe the customers have changed, maybe business is struggling or busy. So we've now got to adjust from the status quo of lockdown and the certainty we had about being safe at home to now make ourselves vulnerable again by unlearning all of these things we've just learned about keeping ourselves safe. And now we have to trust people again. And that must be causing lots of people anxiety that you must be coming across. Yes, well, you mentioned Ling Salter: having to trust, and almost that goes back to connection again, where you're relying on something outside of yourself, essentially, to either work or the information that they give you is going to keep you safe. So we're coming back to that place of well before we're told to stay indoors, to stay safe and wash our hands and all the measures. And we're still in that process of adapting because almost that it's like an era where pre COVID seemed ages away, right, and now we're going to another sort of phase of where, okay, lockdown is easing. We don't know for sure how that looks like, okay, we might know that we need to wash our hands more. We know there's more screens, we know we need to observe social distancing where we can, but we don't know. Well, are the events that we want to go to, are they coming back? Are the arts coming back? Our theatre coming back? Our films, how we watch films, are they coming back? All the gatherings that perhaps we used to just take for Grant, we book to go somewhere. Even life has got more complicated again. If you go to a venue, they expect you to book because you can't just walk in. Because the track and trace thing, if you're close proximity with others and you think, well, if I go somewhere and then they contact you, somebody contacts you and says, oh, you've been in close proximity with somebody that's been affected, then do you have to then remember where you've been to, then pass on the information to the authorities so that they can contact other people that you've been, so that the whole thing becomes a big. And you can't keep track of it and sort of like, isn't it just easier just to stay indoors then if we always keep ourselves to ourselves? Well, that has its adverse effects, especially socially. We have found that the adverse effects to our mental health and our well being from being apart, we've become less happy as individuals. We're not functioning as well because the other things that normally keep us well, we've been denied. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I'm looking at the news like everybody does on a. I don't look at it on this or a daily basis. I don't think my mental health would stand looking at the news too often. But what I'm picking up on is look at some of the big corporate decisions, say airlines mothballing or scrapping their fleet of seven, four seven and other long haul flights. Basically, their message is saying we don't expect air travel to recover whatever, certainly not for 24 months, two years. We look at the film industries. Disney and other big film producers have indefinitely postponed the release of some of the blockbusters that were scheduled for this year. Indefinitely postponed to me, says twelve to 18 months is kind of indefinite, isn't it? That's kind of a long time. So they're saying that they don't see film revenue going back to cinemas anytime soon. We were living in a world where we thought lockdown will come to an end, and now we're realising that this lockdown is going to be, or the virus is going to be with us for at least 18 months, till we get a vaccine, till we can prove the vaccine works. So we're going to have to be cautious for a long time. That's going to change all of our ways of human interaction. We spent decades of evolution going from cubicles and offices to open plan spaces. Banks went from environments where there's all security conscious to open plan, no screens, because we started to value face to face human contact. And now we're almost winding the clock back 2030 years, where we're putting barriers between humans again. I was at the checkouts, I think it was Primark at the weekend, and there's perspective screens between these tills. There's now a bigger queue to get in the shop than there is at the tills. And that's quite a saying something. In the old days, you used to queue for like, half an hour at the tills in Primark, but now you queue for half an hour to get in and the tills are empty. So we have to relearn different things. And we're now learning what times a day it's better to go shopping, so you're actually better off taking a half day during the week and going shopping at 03:00 p.m. On a Thursday afternoon because it's empty, whereas trying to go Saturday morning, you're queuing in a place. We have to relearn all this stuff. So this must be having. I would consider myself a fairly resilient and adaptable person, but there must be people who are really struggling to come to terms with this and bring this back to well being and mental health. And when you see these messages coming out of large organisations, and governments. It's really difficult to plan for the future. As you said, we all have diaries we want to be able to plan. You can't really plan on what you're doing in September. You can't really plan what you're going to do for Christmas. Now can I have my family? Can I have my family? Some of these things we just can't plan anymore. I Ling Salter: think our plans as a whole might evolve around staying closer, staying much more local to ourselves that maybe don't necessarily involve travel at this stage. I watched a little input over the weekend about all the provisions they've put into airports. For example, the sanitization of all the touch points like on escalator rails and trolleys. And they have remote temperature monitoring of people. So to try and spot people who might have a fever or a temperature, which all those measures is to make the airport more safe. Okay. However, ultimately it doesn't stop anybody getting on a plane. Once they're on that plane, you still could be sat next to somebody who's got COVID. And that is one of those mean we've all flown where on a flight. I'm not sure about Yu Gi oh. But I'm more adverse to cattle class, as it were. The economy class, where people are bunched very close together. And the concept of the whole seating plan is they are trying to sell as many seats as possible to make the flight viable, to even be in the sky. So the numbers of capacity is an issue and that goes across to whether it's a plane or whether it's a restaurant, in a business or a theatre even. Okay, in theory, these places can open. But is it financially viable if in a theatre you've got to spread everybody out and you're taking perhaps 30% of people if they come, if they want to come, and it will take a long time to build that back up. But the costs of running the infrastructure for like a theatre or plane company, huge upfront to have that. Yet there is uncertainty about whether those businesses are still viable, even if they can open now. That has an impact on all of us in how we live our lives. Some areas are still yet to return. If you want a tattoo, for example, you can't get one. You can't even have Joanne Lockwood: your eyebrows done or your laser or waxing still, can you? I think there's still personal things. Any personal contact in your face is hard, isn't it? Yes. Okay. As a Ling Salter: consumer, you think, isn't it inconvenient that I can't access these things? However, for the person, the business, providing those services, it's their livelihood. Joanne Lockwood: At a time when they've got no income, they're having to invest in PPE, they have to invest in screening, they're having to change the capacity and the orientation of their premises to cope with people. And without any real knowledge of who's going to return, even if people are allowed to return, who's going to. I haven't had my nails done now for like, four months and I'm thinking, I've got out the habit. I could probably wean myself off it or even learn to paint them myself. Now, will I go back? And some people are saying, well, I've let my hair go grey and I quite kind of quite like the badger look. And maybe people are going to sort of say, well, I'm taking this opportunity to go natural. I've always wanted to grow my hair out, so now here's a chance. So I think we're going to change our habits for some of these businesses. The coffee shop culture we were developing. Will we go back to the coffee shop culture? I went to the pub on Friday for a couple of drinks in the evening, and a pub that normally has a capacity of two or 300 was probably about 20 people in there and there was room for more. It wasn't like that was the capacity. So people are just not going to the pub, people are not going to restaurants anymore, and you can't just turn the tap on. If you talk about theatre, you're going to have to have all that time to get theatre itself. Probably some mAintenance, probably things need doing to it, plus all of the support staff need to be brought back in, the actors and performers need to rehearse and come together as a troupe, and that could probably take three or four months. So you can't just say, oh, we're going to have a theatre production tomorrow or a new film tomorrow. There's probably a six month, eight month lead time for when you start to be able to do something. Which is why, I guess people are saying, well, we can't make a decision about launching this or doing that because we don't know where we're going to be in January. We need to have some certainty. And there is no certainty, isn't there? I think sort of Ling Salter: habits is a very interesting one. And so from that, there could be new opportunities in the sense, well, when lockdown happened, almost the things that most, it really did focus on what really of some of the businesses we really, at that point, valued the NHS, the NHS effort. Whereas before, from a government point of view. They voted so many times not to give public sector workers a pay rise and things like that. And suddenly, week to week, we're clapping for carers and that focus on the effort and that there was this spotlight that was put towards the really valuing people who were keeping the country going. And not to say that, well, having your nails done isn't important, it matters. But just what really kept people going, what people really needed at that point was, yes, if I fall ill with coronavirus, that I would get the due treatment and I can still get to buy food or have food. I mean, the mutual aid things. A lot of community groups would give you a food parcel if you were. You could get a food parcel delivered to you whilst you're still remaining indoors, if you not have the means. Not everybody has that support network that will say, can you get this for me? However, the other flip side is, the positive is that actually people have become more neighbourly. And before, where I didn't know my neighbours quite so well, getting to know them better now, because people banded together to cheque on people, cheque on the person that's living on their own or checking on just more because we were all locked down, we kept ourselves, but we thought, well, can we just cheque to make sure, even if it's through a text or a phone call, is that person okay? Has that person got everything that they need? And that, again, goes back to connection? Yeah, no, it Joanne Lockwood: does. Absolutely. For sure. I was looking at your website early this morning before we came online, compassionatecupper. Co. UK. And I love your ethos, says, listen without judgement, explore what is possible, motivate towards positive change and guide you in the direction you want to go. So what inspired you to launch compassionate Cuppa and as a social enterprise, why is being a social enterprise important to you? Yes, well, Ling Salter: compassionate couple, the name was really inspired, again, through connection and compassion, how when we chat, we have that connection and talk and compassionate Cuppa really is sort of inspired from really helping people who are going through a difficult time in their life, but help them in the way they want the help or the support, because quite often with mental health services, they worked quite a lot, a long time in mental health and social care, where the service is what it is, whether it's within housing, within the National Health Service, and it is what it is, and there'll be obviously different interventions and therapies and medication obviously plays part of it within mental health services, and that's it. And sometimes you might find that, well, for a lot of people, they've experienced all of those things and still haven't found what's worked for them. So the creation of compassionate Cuppa is going from the basis of the approach has to be adapted to you. So whether you prefer a certain medium, spoken in a certain way, certain ideas, it's really listening and finding out, exploring. Because not everybody knows immediately what they need, we might think. But when we complain about something, usually it's about an underlying need that's unmet. And so finding that out and finding what's possible. So, quite often we might think it's a situation that needs changing, but we might not be able to change that situation. So, actually, sometimes it might mean changing what's going on in our heads. And you either choose to accept or not accept. Those are very sort of clear things. But the place of acceptance is something that. Well, only if I just tell you, Jo. Oh, well, you should just accept this. Well, you're not saying, oh, yeah, right, Ling, I'll just accept it just because I told you, Jo, your acceptance will come about in your own way. Would you? Oh, for sure, yeah. You can't Joanne Lockwood: tell someone as to accept. You can't demand respect. There's a whole lot of things. All you can do is be the best person you can be, have conversations and discuss things so that you can form your own opinions. Because if you take other people's values and views and just agree with them, then you don't bring them into your own psyche. You don't bring them into your own sense of self, do you? And I think it's very important to absorb these ideas, and so they become yours. So you accept because you do, not because someone told you to. Otherwise, you'll do it begrudgingly or you'll do it through tolerance, not embrace those thoughts. I think unless you're willing to advocate or stand up for your thoughts, then maybe you don't hold them that strongly. Yes. I mean, when Ling Salter: other people speak, it is about that resonance for you to accept. There is a level of agreement, a level of understanding, a level of resonance, level of synergy that happens. And it's the same in life, what we're experiencing. Sometimes it is very difficult to accept the situation as it is because, well, the situation isn't conforming. If you like to how we would like to, or prefer to. And we then start fighting. We start that fight where we're trying to change things to make it fit. Quite a lot of time we're trying to engineer it. And somEtimes, yes, the situation can be changed. And we can influence and change that to make that happen. And sometimes it's actually about the dialogue that we're present. If we've got very unrealistic expectations, then surely adjusting our mindset can be more helpful for us, more self serving and realising which bit, whether it's a situation or whether it's in our head, sometimes that can be quite a challenge to identify. And so I might be exploring that with someone when I'm working with them, what is possible, because sometimes we're talking about this situation and actually there's nothing in that situation that can be changed. So it only leaves that person the subject where and if possible, to change something about them so that they can feel differently, so that they can move on. Because quite often we might be talking about the past that's already happened, or maybe the fears for the future that hasn't happened yet. We sometimes will fear lots of things that aren't yet to happen and, well, none of us have got that crystal ball for sure. Knowing, well, what you fear might not actually transpire anyway. And if you put a lot of energy into that fear, it just grows. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I've come across the acronym CIA. So you think about what you change. If you can't change something, if you can't make a difference, then you have to think about I, which is influence. If you can't influence something, you can't make a difference, then you have to accept. So stop worrying about things you can't change. Stop worrying about things you can't influence and move to accept and accept and adapt to what you can do and what you can't do. Because if you get stuck in fighting things you can't change or fighting things you can't influence, then that's kind of when your mental health will suffer. But if you can move to acceptance or adapt around those things you can't influence or change, that's when you can start taking or having agency and having power over yourself. Power of yourself gives you freedom. If you have freedom, your freedom of choice, freedom of decisions, freedom of what you're going to do next, that's when your mental health can be elevated and you feel that passion and purpose again. If you live in a world where you're always fighting against what you can't change or can't influence, that's when you lose that agency, you lose that sense of freedom, which is what can bring you down, in my humble opinion. Yes. You formed compassionate cuppa. You formed as a social enterprise. Was there a reason you chose it to be a social enterprise. Was that a passion behind? Oh, Ling Salter: right. Well, it's interesting that you asked that, Jo, because in a way, I didn't realise this compassionate copper was always a social enterprise in the sense that it was a service where I wanted to other people to benefit. It was really more about, it's not all about Ling Salter and what I can do, okay, what I can do is what I can do, but it's what I can do for you, for the individual in that pivot, that purpose of compassion, helping somebody to alleviate their suffering, was always the forefront. And within the social enterprise sphere, if I call it, it was really sort of the passion and purpose that was forefront, which is great. And I thought, well, actually, yes, I want to earn money in that process. But really the social change, the social impact that I'm making is actually even bigger than compassionate cuppa in itself. If I'm saying to you, Jo, that your mental health and well being, well, that everything that you do and say comes from that place of having mental health and well being, then for me it's just so important. All the other issues arise from having that. If we don't have that, we don't have health. If we went back to the stigmas of using the word mental, well, we, without mental health, there is no health, because everything that we think, do and say stems from our minds, our agency and our autonomy happens from within us. It starts from within. And if we're lost within ourselves, how do we assert ourselves externally? That's why it's so important. And yeah, I want to make compassionate cuppa. I see the concept of this compassionate community, which may take some time, because perhaps society values. If I had this shiny, blingy product or something that I can hold and show you, Jo, that would kind of say, da Da, this is the final product that kind of says, right, I'm going to buy that, then that would be really kind of a quick sale. And us humans, we really value instant gratitude. We want things right now, and our mental health isn't something that happens in an instant. It's a journey. It's a process. And when you're exploring with someone in their journey, that takes time. And I'm working. If, like at the other person's pace, they may be rushed, they may feel rushed, and I'll try and keep up with them in that case. But other times it takes time for them to process and find out what it is that is important to someone and what the things would really help them move forward. That's not going to be a half an hour conversation? Joanne Lockwood: No. And I think you're completely right in your outlook there. We see so many companies now talk about conscious capitalism, social profit, all this. They're trying to retrofit their corporate social responsibility into their existing business model. And I think it's really important to recognise organisations such as yourselves, who, from the ground up, are focusing on social capital first and foremost and well being of people, well being of society. I completely admire that. We got only a few minutes left to go in this and I'm really keen to ask you about Reiki because I noticed somewhere I read that you are getting involved with Reiki now. I think you're a Reiki practitioner, so how do you bring that into your work as well? Well, it's more at this Ling Salter: stage, a hobby in the sense that I practise Reiki now. Reiki means it's energy work. It's a Japanese practise where you're harnessing the energy of the universe to heal, and that both is with physical ailments or emotional imbalances, shall we say. And I had a really bad issue with my hands, really painful wrists, and to the point. I swapped my car in the space of ten days. It was like, I cannot drive a manual car anymore, I had to drive an automatic. So it's like, if I don't do this, I won't be able to drive. And my ability to grip things, I gave up washing up and putting the Hoover around the place, things like that. It got very bad and I went through all the medical lines and I was offered a hydrocortisone injection, which steroid, and I was like, I backed out of it right at the end, thinking, I don't really know what's wrong with my wrist, but this injection is just a painkiller and it's not going to help. It's more like a plaster. If it wears off after six months, where does that leave me? And so I went back to Reiki. I bumped into it quite a few years ago and I thought, it's not going to do me any harm if it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And it took a long, I seemed to really take to it. And when I finally got to a stage of recovery with my hand, a lot less pain still there sometimes, but not as bad. I trained and so I'm a Reiki practitioner, but I don't, at this stage, charge for the Reiki healing that I give to people just because I'm trying to develop compassionate Kappa at this stage. And I think in time I will bring Reiki under that umbrella. But Reiki has made a big difference to how I can get about my day from a physical perspective, the hands. So, yeah, that's how that came about. Joanne Lockwood: Well, many thanks, Ling. I mean, we've chatted away for an hour. I could have probably carried on talking for another couple of hours, in fact, before we went online, we ended up chatting for both of us beforehand. So you're a very inspirational person and I love your personal values and what you're trying to do with compassionate cover. And I'm sure everyone who's listening will take much inspiration. There's lots to ponder there. So apart from your website, compassionatecupper.co.uk how can people get in touch with you? Ling Salter: I'm on Facebook as compassionate Cuppa and I'm also on LinkedIn and Twitter, but on Twitter as compassion Cuppa because they don't allow long handles. But it's been an absolute pleasure and honour to meet and chat with you, Jo. So thank you very much. Joanne Lockwood: Brilliant. And just so the listeners are clear, Cuppa is C-U-P-P-A Cuppa in that way. Brilliant. Well, a hoosh. Thank you to you and for you, the listeners, for tuning in and sticking with it. I hope that you'll subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bytes podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Please tell your friends, please tell your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up that I'm sure you'll be inspired by over the next few weeks and months. And remember, if you'd like to be a guest, then please do let me know. I welcome any feedback and suggestions you may have to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Tell us about future shows. Tell us how we can improve. So, my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast for you today. Catch you next time.