Over the last two months we’ve been in lockdown and the situation has been different for everybody across the country. I am very lucky as we live in a rural location with hundreds of footpaths and farmers fields. This has meant been able to go for long walks without seeing a single person.
The mental health motorbike had a plan before lockdown to go out to a number of events across the country supporting bikers where the need arose. This very quickly changed so we went online. People started coming to us through messenger, zoom and chat for support. Over the last few months we supported over 75 people. Of this 26 of these have been one to one engagements. And a number of these people were in a bad way at the point of contacting us.
Supporting people like this has been new to me so I needed to find a way of managing it. On average a one-to-one support call lasts for two hours. So I decided to take my office outdoors and walk and talk in the beautiful countryside. This has had a number of benefits. First I was with the person in the here and now, second I was using the outdoor environment and nature a way of keeping calm and being able to focus on what people were saying to me. Thirdly I’m really importantly for me I was getting fit whilst working.
I appreciate not everybody can redefine what their office is. But I would encourage you to think about how to utilise the outdoors to create a more harmonious work environment.
If you need any support go to www.facebook.com/mhmotorbike And hit the Send Message button or go to the website www.mhmotorbike.com And hit the chat button bottom right of the screen.