I was at the Greenbelt Festival last week and I heard a beep from a passing Land Rover. I was talking with beautiful humans Jackie and Bex.
The Land Rover was all decorated with the word 'Fire'.
Big and Butch!
It was one of the Fire Engines for the Festival.
The driver reached out his hand as I approached and introduced himself. He told me his name, forget it already - stink! and said thank you to me for my first book - published some twenty years ago. He said that the chapter on 'Emotional Deprivation' was significant to him and his work as a Youth Worker.
When I worked with Street Gangs in East London - the most violent and professional criminals you could meet, I had concluded that these beautiful humans were strong and skilled in many ways - but lacked any depth in emotional security. Often relationships and behaviour displayed a deeper need that rich takings from robbery and criminality did not satisfy.
So my mission included an objective to assist the development of each human person to enable them to have more skills in their toolbox and therefore be able to make steps to a more whole lifestyle. Ten or twenty years in prison did not assist in a persons growth very much!
The big development need, I concluded, was the ability/skill to manage their emotions and therefore their lives generally. Some times, a decade later, this is referred to as 'Emotional Intelligence'.
It is a need we all have in the street, the office, our family life and indeed right here right now.
All this is an intro into a course I am about to lead at London Central YMCA - right in the heart of London town. Call in a see if you can sign up for it - if you hang out near there.Will you consider?
The course is called::
'The Road Less Travelled'
……………………………. About assertiveness, listening, feelings, skills, awareness, life management and general human development - and don't we all need it?
I have been leading this course for 15 years or more. In several YMCA's and out in the Community. Always different because it is about the humans present.
It is great and satisfying. It is also only 6 hours spread over three session - two hours a week.
Will you consider joining a course like this? If not - ask yourself 'why'.
Have a think, especially if you don't want to.
Cheers - thanx for reading my stubby finger clicks .........
"Growth does not reside in a place called comfortable"
