This Village Needs You – A Call For Help

The South West Wellness Symposium needs YOU!

Why a Wellness Symposium? Why are 20+ local healthcare practitioners volunteering their time for you?

This is such a beautiful part of the world and yet many of us are stressed, depressed and anxious, and that includes our partners, our kids, our parents, our neighbours – just about everybody!

These are unusual times, but a lot of us already felt stretched to the limit even before COVID came along and shook the bedrock beneath us. So, how are we as a community handling this? Where do we go to get help, or do we just struggle along doing what we’ve always done, hoping like hell that we can make it to the other side.

We know that the public health system simply does not have the capacity to be looking after us all, and nor should it as it is there to help those most in need. So, where to for the rest of us? We feel that we do not need serious help, but we do need help in the form of information, advice and knowledge that we can take away and act on. We want to be proactive with our mental health before we slide into the in-need-of-serious-help category.

But where can we find that sort of information at a local level? Who are the people in our community who know about how to live and deal with this level of stress, anxiety and depression, who want to offer a helping-hand and be an active part of the solution? They say that it takes a village to raise a child, and I would add to this that it takes a village to get us through the tough times while still feeling connected and halfway sane. Most of us chose to live here because we wanted more of a community feel as we recognised this as missing from our lives. This was something we felt that city living could no longer provide, so it’s totally ironic that many of us are still stuck in that slipstream of isolation. We wanted the village, the connection and the lifestyle, but we find ourselves still too busy or disconnected to know where to look for it.

Here’s the hard part though, the part that we often don’t want to hear… it is up to all of us to create that “village”! It’s not some magical place where we can move to and all will be well. It’s a bitch, I know, but we are all part of the fabric of that “village”, and COVID has shown us just how important we are to each other.

So, what does that have to do with the South West Wellness Symposium?

A collection of over 20 of this “village’s” health care practitioners and mental health advocates have volunteered their time and gotten together because we are passionate about health and wellbeing and about helping our community in any way we can through this tough time. The best way we know how to do this is by sharing our knowledge, expertise, life experiences, humour and wisdom, through sitting down together and having a conversation about the stuff that is getting in the way – the stuff that can be the underbelly of stress, disconnection, isolation, anxiety and depression. We know that we don’t have all the answers, but we do know that coming together and talking about the hard things and sharing our collective wisdom is a great way to start finding our way back to a more heartfelt connected life, not only for those who attend but also for the village as a whole.

But we need you to put your hand up and answer our call for help to do this! We need your support and we need you to play your part – to say yes to strengthening the bond of connection between us that will allow all of us to understand our own importance in the fabric of a healthy village and community.

This can be as simple as attending the Symposium, asking questions and sharing your own story of healing and struggle in relation to the topics being discussed or taking home something that you’ve learnt and passing it on to others. If it comes from our hearts we cannot fail to all prosper at a deep nurturing level, and this will ripple out into the rest of this village. Together we can start a process of reconnection, even with the smallest of gestures, and if we have the collective desire to do so then we can all play our part in turning the tide of stress, disconnection, isolation, anxiety, addiction and depression that is so endemic in our community. To quote Aristotle: “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts”.

That’s why we healthcare practitioners eagerly volunteered our time and collectively put our hands up because we too know that we are a part of the whole and we want to connect at a deeper level with you and help weave the fabric of our community together to the benefit of all of us.

With Love

Genevieve Morrissey

Here are some of the names of those practitioners who have put their hands up to start this ripple, will you join us?

Adam, Annie, Joanne, Jean-Michel, Mary, Rhett, Dan, David, Glen, Shannon, Aimee-Jade, Marion, Tara, Claire, Diane, Kirsten, Tony, Tricia, Sarah, Valerie, Sara, Karen, Sana, Melanie, Joanne, Monique,  Drew, Kamma, Monique, Libby, Steve, Lindy, Lee, Penny, Chelsea, Myriam, Katie and Michael.

So, please get a ticket to the South West Wellness Symposium October 31st 2020 and become a part of the solution.

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