Even before COVID, it was stated that “a global epidemic of burnout had been diagnosed” . Since COVID I have been invited to work with both individuals and organisation to help overcome or develop self-care plans to avoid burnout or compassion fatigue.
The aim is to provide individuals and organisations with the education and practical resources to promote positive health and well-being and maintaining good mental health.
Over the last seven years I have worked with Circle, Stellar Omada, National Manufacturing Institute Scotland Group, Home Start UK, Fife Education, Fife Cultural Trust, NHS and Social Care staff, Scottish Ambulance Service, Police, St. Andrew University, Edinburgh University, UK military veterans to name a few.
Counsellor and Facilitator: A wee bit about Bill
I come from humble beginnings. I’ve worked hard. I’ve been lost. I mean really lost. But I found love and hope when I least expected. I slowly developed a sense of purpose and meaning that required the confidence to take the ‘road less travelled’.
Many years ago, at my first mindfulness class a stranger said to me “All human beings seek to be held and heard, Bill. If these are denied, people will often find unhealthy ways of suppressing or meeting these needs”. I often hear these words echo in me. So I made a commitment to learn how to ‘hold and hear’ those human beings that had been denied these basic needs. The result has been the creation of Be Mindful Fife.
My career path is not conventional but I think that is a good thing. It means I have met so many diverse people. All with different ways of seeing the world because of their unique life experiences. I did not go to university until I was twenty-seven, but this meant I could connect the teaching to my learning from my life experience. I remember running a pub in Leith Edinburgh and thinking “why do we live like this?” The attraction of life long learning kept me in academia to complete a PhD in Philosophy and then to lecture and write about power relations from the individual level to global institutions. Since 2014, I have worked at the frontline of mental health and trauma in Fife.
This has required me to explore and to take a further journey of study and practice with some amazing teachers and organisations. For example I am a qualified Person-Centred Counsellor and Psychotherapist (BACP), which was inspired after years of delivering Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy to people experience anxiety and depression and providing Mindfulness & Compassion training to organisations in the public, private and third sector of Scotland (BAMBA).
I still live in Dunfermline with my family. I love the hills, the woods, the beaches, the seas and the people. I’m proud to be working as a volunteer counsellor with DAPL .
I can often be found out n about with the Fife Wild Swimmers in the Forth or in lochs near and far.
