Latest / SoWhoCaresAnyway / SoWhoCaresAnyway E28 Creativity is like a compas

Transcript

SoWhoCaresAnyway E28 Creativity is like a compas · SoWhoCaresAnyway

0:05
Hi, I'm Ruth Germaine, and this is, so Who Cares? Anyway, a podcast shaped by my deep curiosity about who cares, what do they care about, what do they do, and why does it matter? My aspiration is to build a community that listens with intention and explores care from every angle from the North Yorkshire malls.
0:25
So behind clinical doors, each episode invites people to share their stories, their ideas, and talk about what matters to them.
0:34
Together we reimagine what care could be and how we might shape health and wellbeing through the assets, values, and the lived wisdom of our communities.
0:44
And why does it matter? Because for too long, health and care have been treated as things to be delivered, often depleting systems and the people around them.
0:54
And it's time to rewrite the narrative to center everyone as a contributor, not just a recipient, to offer joy, hope, and meaningful belonging to invite each of us to shape the future of health and wellbeing with courage, with creativity, and with care.
1:12
So who cares? Anyway, to find out more about me, head over to my link tree.
1:18
Do for Reflective Ruth.
1:20
Here you'll find links to my website, my LinkedIn profile.
1:23
And in the future, my Facebook page, and there's the option to support this show by buying me a coffee.
1:29
So now for another episode of So Who Cares? Anyway.
1:35
Hello and welcome to the next episode of So Who Cares.
1:38
Anyway, and today I am really delighted.
1:40
It's been a while in the waiting, so I'm really delighted to welcome Thomas Stella Hunt, who I also know as the hobo par.
1:48
Now Thomas is a nurse, uh, a teacher.
1:51
And quite a lot of other things, so I think it's probably easier if I pass over to Thomas and ask him to, perhaps if you would introduce yourself please.
2:00
Thomas.
2:00
Thank you so much.
2:01
It has, it's been, it's been a little while hasn't it, of kind of collecting together the kind of puzzle pieces of kind of dealing with some of my kind.
2:10
Social anxieties and kind of presentation anxieties.
2:14
And also I think we really wanted to bring in sort of sup.
2:17
I wanted to bring in support, but I've since built up the courage to kind of podcast alone.
2:22
Um, so I'm a, I'm essentially an A and e nurse.
2:25
That's my background and that's what most people will probably know me as professionally.
2:31
Um.
2:31
I started in a and e really, I started as a, as a sort of a failing academic from when I was sort of first identified as having problems in school.
2:40
And interestingly, we've just had conversations, my mom and I about, um, my next assessment, which is the, uh, underlying assessment for autism and A DHD.
2:51
Um, because she feels a certain amount of guilt associated with some of those, those feelings.
2:56
So I'm a, I'm a, a neurodiverse, as you can probably already tell, nurse, poet, and author, and what, what, what, what that really is is I've used kind of poetry to make sense of the spaces that I found most traumatic.
3:12
And obviously, you know, a and e across the globe are centers of trauma, both physical but also psychological.
3:21
Thank you.
3:22
That's really, um, helpful, Thomas, and it gives us a really broad picture actually, so as to who you are.
3:28
So let's delve in a little bit more because I know that you're doing lots of work.
3:32
Can you take us from that? A and e experience.
3:35
And you spoke to, we spoke a little bit earlier on and you spoke a little bit about trauma.
3:39
So I don't, I don't, wasn't too sure what that was about or where that happened.
3:43
Was that something that happened in A and e or was that something that you saw happening? 'cause my association straight away between trauma, uh, a and e is trauma anyway, so I might have connected that wrong.
3:54
So perhaps if you sort of talk a little bit about the a and e and perhaps where that trauma came in and what that was actually about.
3:59
It's really interesting actually, and I'm writing a piece, there's gonna be a magazine article that's coming out in the inside Kent, which, uh, is coming out at the, um, at the very end of this month, beginning of September, in their September issue.
4:12
Um, because I don't think I see trauma the same as most people, anyone that's worked with me specifically when I was in charge as a charge nurse in Medway a and e, a place that, that I still hold very dearly in my heart.
4:25
Because that was the place really where the, the hobo poet was formed.
4:30
And it's quite hard to explain.
4:31
And that's part of why we had this backwards forwards conversation, really because I've read and listened to your podcasts and I've connected with some of the individuals, obviously both professionally and now personally, on a number of levels.
4:44
And I think for me it was just like understanding what.
4:48
What, what I was trying to kind of develop as a researcher, as a PhD researcher, I've become sort of synonymously connected with this idea of something called creative therapeutics.
5:00
Um, creative therapeutics are, are sort of spaces that we can occupy a bit like this in terms of narrative, sort of supported kind of conversational therapy.
5:11
You know, you are offering people the opportunity to essentially come and share.
5:15
Um, I'm a, a, you know, an ex addict so people know me as, you know, someone who has battled with different elements to, to sort of know who I am.
5:24
And a and e was the place that I felt most at home.
5:27
Medway a and e, specifically, you know, my A DHD and all of those tendencies that are still yet statement, you know, um, I only have statement in dyslexia, um, and effectively just my chaos theory.
5:40
Really people that know me, but that's.
5:42
Not really a statement, that's just something people have to tolerate about me.
5:46
And so it's like my A DHD was actually a real asset because obviously in trauma you get a frontal flood of adrenaline and that adrenaline for most people will make them almost impossible in terms of management of that sort of sudden rush.
6:01
Whereas with A DHD, it actually really heightens and sensitizes and calms you right down 'cause it floods the frontal cortex.
6:09
So I became, you know, quite.
6:11
Well versed with the kind of management of complex trauma.
6:14
And then obviously I did my, uh, acute life, uh, um, advanced life support and my trauma nurse course up in Manchester.
6:21
And I started teaching and I started educating.
6:24
And that's where the transition across into Christchurch came because they were like, would you mind coming in and talking to our students and doing some sessional work? And obviously I didn't know what their ex.
6:36
Expect.
6:37
So I went and I told the students the truth.
6:39
I went and said, and I'm not suggesting that other academics don't, but I didn't really hold back any of the kind of, you know, the realities of working within those spaces.
6:48
And the students' responses were really, really positive.
6:51
And the university then obviously could see that there was an asset to the nature of how I taught then and how I still teach, which is.
6:59
I teach from who I am and, uh, and that pedagogy, I think that positionality, um, is quite alternative and there's no real fear associated with what I'm gonna tell people about how you have to engage with other individuals who are sustaining that trauma.
7:14
Does that sort of help give a, a sort of a perspective? No, it does make sense, but what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna just.
7:20
Quickly recap because I think that might be really helpful for, for you and I, but also people listening.
7:26
Yeah.
7:26
So we, I asked you about that trauma and what you really spoke about was working in midway a and e and actually you really, you thrived there.
7:35
And you spoke about how having a DHD you to spoke about the visit, well, what's actually happening, what's going on inside? That means that you are able to do that.
7:45
And then you went on to talk about creative therapeutics and actually teaching, talking about, you know, how you experience things and, and who you are so that people can really understand what's going on rather than, than holding back, I think.
7:58
To me, there's, there's quite a bit here because I asked about the trauma and you've spoken about how you manage trauma, but then you also spoke about the creative therapeutics.
8:08
So if you have felt that there was need for some sort of therapeutics or the talk in whatever that is, um, in that creative space.
8:17
How did that come about? Because you've said that you managed really well because of the fact of the A DHD, but then you've also spoken about the need for therapeutics, and I'm not sure whether that's for yourself or others or how you identified that need.
8:32
That's a really good link and a segue actually, because that's where my work sort of took flight, if you want.
8:36
Because the birth of the hobo poet is associated with a blog that you can go, and the lovely thing about this.
8:41
Blog is, it's completely longitudinal, you know, so you can go back five, six years to the poetic nursing heart and that blog space is held within the university on their Partners in learning website.
8:53
And I've written that blog over the last six years, and you can see the iteration of change and how I've engaged with different individuals.
9:01
Much like you are with the podcast alumni internationally, student voices are very strong.
9:06
Sort of finding out from them what is their poetic nursing heart, you know, what's.
9:10
The reality of how they engage, how they develop, how they know who they are as an, an entity entering into that space, which is ultimately traumatic.
9:20
And I think what underpinned all of my work is the seminal work by Menzies Leif, Isabelle Menzies Le wrote a fantastic piece of work.
9:28
Um, she was a, um.
9:29
You know, a brilliant researcher who sat behind kind of structures within organizations, looking at how we become self defensive and how we can become problematic and maladaptive there.
9:40
Our own tendencies, and I've worked in a number of settings, both in England and in New Zealand.
9:45
You know, uh, both within A and e, um, nursing management.
9:49
And within, um, es review a place again that I really sort of thrived and enjoyed in admission, avoidance, uh, Vanguard site, trying to stop people going into hospitals.
10:00
So my entrepreneurials.
10:01
Side has always been there.
10:02
But what built as I started to sort of spend more and more time with students was this awareness that there needed to be some deconstruction of their positionalities, understanding where their trauma helped or hindered who they were gonna become as a professional in practice.
10:18
Um, and so that's really where the kind of PhD built itself.
10:22
So my masters received a distinction, which as a dyslexic academic, was really beautiful, a real kind of marking point for me where I looked at the bias in the literature around what organizations perceived as, you know, mindfulness and.
10:37
Resilience and I, I I, I made quite a staunch argument that they misperceived what they really meant by that.
10:43
They were sort of really trying to tick box exercise people.
10:46
And so my PhD built on from that and it's, you know, only sort of three to four months away from being completed.
10:52
And, you know, you just kind of like, you don't wanna give away what.
10:55
Thesis is gonna kind of do, but I'm hoping it'll open conversations with people in power.
11:00
I hope it'll sit me at conversational, kind of, um, apexes with people who make the decisions around how we support our staff.
11:07
Because, you know, post pandemic nursing is very different.
11:11
You know, the reality of how and what we were born within and born to do and the, the, the very, uh, you know, archetype of what is a nurse has to be kind of looked at.
11:20
Quite kind of comprehensively.
11:23
And so, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm an entity that sort of sits Liminally really.
11:27
I'm sort of someone that sits between a lot of things.
11:30
You know, Nietzsche is my kind of guide.
11:33
He says, you know, if you ask why, and I'm just the boy that just always wanted to ask why.
11:39
And I, I continue to do that.
11:40
And I did that at school and was often ejected from classrooms by asking why too many times.
11:46
So now I not just work.
11:48
With adults.
11:49
You know, I work with children and one of the things that we can talk about if there's time is the Butterfly Farmer Project and my work as a a children's author because I've moved my thesis into that narrative intentionally.
12:03
Thank you, Thomas.
12:04
And what I, before we move, then I would like to go into the butterfly.
12:08
People won't be able to see this, but I was really pleased 'cause I have a blanket behind me that my mum made, um, a quilt and it's covered in butterflies.
12:15
So before I, before I came on, I thought, oh, this would be perfect when Thomas comes on.
12:19
So we will come back to that.
12:21
But I just want to, um, talk about some of the things that you've said and you've talked, you've touched on here about asking those questions, but really thinking about how we support our staff.
12:30
You spoke about how trauma hinders or helps 'em becoming who they are.
12:35
Now this links in and I know because you've listened to some of the podcasts that you probably know them.
12:39
And I constantly, so I met Dr.
12:41
Rebecca Myers the other day 'cause she was at an event that I was at.
12:44
It was the Darcy final event.
12:46
So I met her there.
12:46
But she was, and I said to her, I'm really sorry 'cause I mentioned you on more podcasts than anybody else because she was the first person that came on this podcast and really talked about that trauma, that emotional toil and emotional labor, whatever.
12:59
It however you might like to sort of think of that.
13:02
Um, but so many others have since then.
13:05
And I think what you're talking about really is that emotional labor that that toil of what we do.
13:11
So I wonder, and you're talking about then, so yeah, you was talking then about your thesis and how you're gonna use that to ask those questions.
13:20
And raise that voice nationally.
13:22
So I know you don't wanna give everything away because you writing it up, or perhaps you haven't still come to that bit yet, but I wonder if you can tell us a bit more about what those questions are.
13:32
Why, why do they need to happen? Yeah.
13:34
It's something that I adore doing.
13:36
You know, I adore talking as you know, being a narrative dyslexic.
13:39
We were kind of aware of the fact that it was gonna be a really good format for me because it allows me to use what I, I use best, which is the, the world of oratory explanation.
13:49
You know, I love.
13:50
Exploring things linguistically.
13:52
What I sort of became aware of, and we've got something quite exciting coming, is a bid with the Arts Council England, because I have created not only a play that we've played out once at the um, Canterbury free range to an audience, and it was a successful pilot.
14:07
We're gonna try to sort of help nurses understand their positionality, and the table of consciousness is based on geal therapy, which is where you have all of the different characters that make up who you are.
14:18
Around a table as a discussion, and it's built around a book called Whispers in the Waiting Room, which I can't wait to place a copy in your hand because it's poetry from the mouth of the nurse.
14:29
And so it's almost like David Bowie suggested, which is creativity isn't for the masses, it's an exploration.
14:34
It's like a compass.
14:35
And so the hobo poet, as he's being kind of developed, is really like my alter ego.
14:41
To space that I can occupy that doesn't, you know, necessarily then allow people to sort of, um, you know, character assassinate, you know, which is what we tend to like to do society.
14:52
We like to build people up and break them back down.
14:54
That's what David Bowie did with Ziggy's Stardust is he moved him across a little bit.
14:59
So then he had the piece to have his own life, but then the peace to self express.
15:04
And so my artistic tendencies are, are there, and what I've noticed is nurses.
15:09
Both student and qualified and long-term qualified ha really value having me somewhere in the mix as an alternative place of expression.
15:19
And, and so my nurses now do a module called Nursing and social Justice.
15:24
Um, and that that's one of the modules that I lead at the university and that use.
15:28
Art as a mechanism.
15:30
Art and, and, and play, and music as a mechanism to express themselves.
15:35
And it's had a really positive impact.
15:38
It's very well received by the students.
15:40
It's, you know, and so it's like I'm trying to weave, like I said, with the poetic nursing heart blog that your readers can go and find and read.
15:48
Different entities.
15:49
You know, there's a brilliant one there by a nurse that I found who had a spurges called Two Jewels.
15:54
There's, you know, work from the nurses that are now qualified.
15:58
'cause I try to keep contact as much as I can with nurses that I have helped move into the, the professional sphere because they often come back and tell me I was right.
16:07
You know, that the trauma is an entity they have to be mindful of.
16:11
They have to deconstruct it.
16:14
If I can get them to write diaries, if I can get 'em to walk mindfully, if I can get them to practice yoga, if I can get 'em to do something that helps them with that deconstruction of that trauma.
16:24
And for me, it was the car drive back from Medway.
16:26
It was that 45 minutes driving back where I could compartmentalize the trauma that I had sustained in that shift so that it didn't enter my home, it didn't enter my wife and my relationship with my wife, who's also a nurse.
16:40
And my relationship with my children.
16:42
So I was just really conscious and in the pandemic, obviously, I went back to practice and I had the same situation.
16:49
You know, I was having to come back and I was just deconstructing as much as I could, you know, that sense of.
16:56
Reflexivity who I was as an entity, but also, yeah, I, I'm, I'm learning as I go along, and the PhD is going to be a very deep dive into the nature of what we really perceive a, um, the, you know, the acceptable levels of trauma within practice.
17:14
That's just really interesting and I've, I've drawn a little picture of a car being pulled two ways while you were talking because you know that, that's so true.
17:22
You're coming home and you, you have your life at home and it's so hard to, to not bring all that trauma or those, those.
17:30
Um, fears or worries that you've had from work back with you.
17:33
So, um, it's such an important thing that you're talking about there.
17:37
One of the things I love best is the relationship that I still, the trauma bond that I have with people that I've worked with.
17:44
And even though we haven't worked together, there's something around the.
17:47
Bonding that you have with people when they pictorially represent the trauma that you've sustained? You know, I've been through a number of solution focused sort of therapies.
17:57
'cause I mentioned before, you know, I have an addictive tendency.
18:00
I'm lucky to say, you know, I'm Tom and I'm an alcoholic and I've managed to battle that for 24 years.
18:05
Success.
18:06
Fe.
18:06
But the reality is that we don't meet people at the point where they're their most vulnerable.
18:11
And that's what you do meet when you're in A and e and you're in the waiting room.
18:15
That's why whispers in the waiting room is so raw.
18:19
If you wanna read poetry, that's really talking about the manifestation of who those people are at the point where they have nothing left to offer society.
18:28
That's.
18:29
That's the book, that's the poetry.
18:31
Such an interesting concept as well that you're talking about there, that people arrive at a and e at their moment when they're the most vulnerable, and then the nurse, the doctor, the therapist, whoever it is that they see as stands, supporting them at that time.
18:49
When they feel most vulnerable.
18:51
So there's something about what, what they see, you know, what we see as professionals and I, I say the term professionals loose.
18:59
You know, I, there's lots of people who, who also do work that they're meeting.
19:03
So when I say professional, I realize there's plenty of people that meet people in a and e who aren't particularly.
19:08
Wouldn't see themselves as professional nurse.
19:10
They might be the porter or they might be in a support role or something like that.
19:14
That's the thing that I was most surprised.
19:15
'cause when I went back to practice, the first people to really identify and offer me sort of, um, you know, a hug really were security services, you know, porting services were really, really pleased to see me back.
19:28
They didn't understand obviously, where I had been and what I'd been doing, but it, you know, there's, there's something really special and I, I, I miss.
19:37
You know, I miss Michelle Redington.
19:40
I miss these.
19:40
People, you know, that I've bonded with over time and it's, you know, these are really special people.
19:46
People that I worked in Esry View with, you know, are really important people to me.
19:50
They're people that I long to see again, and there are individuals that that will understand when they listen to this, how much I kind of call out to them.
19:59
As someone who has lived all the way through that manifestation of trauma and still wants to send them a message of absolute unconditional love.
20:08
Because that's what the nurse doesn't often get told is that, you know, I love you just the way you are is the final statement in the Wandering Lamb book.
20:17
And that wasn't just by chance, that was intentional.
20:21
You know, we all, however old we are from zero to a hundred want to be told we are loved.
20:27
Just the way we are and the next book with the Butterfly Farmer is even more of an exploration of that.
20:34
Thank you.
20:35
And we have got time before we move on, 'cause I'm gonna come onto this Butterfly book, but the other thing that you talked about, so I've sort of taken us off and I think we've talked quite a bit about the trauma there, but just being mindful that there's quite a bit of what to talk about with you that you mentioned about what is it talking about, what is a nurse Now I've heard this talked about quite a lot and it's quite.
20:55
It's difficult, isn't it really to explain what even as a nurse to, because nurses are in so many places, doing so many things, I don't see people on the frontline clinically, but I still use my clinical skills and I'm still a registered nurse, um, in what I do.
21:11
Mm-hmm.
21:11
So.
21:12
There's a, there's a vast array of places where nurses are, but coming to that core and that heart of what is a nurse, and certainly the old picture was of the nurse as a, as a handmade into the doctor, uh, which was never completely true.
21:26
Um, I don't think, but I think when I started nursing back in the eighties, there was a certain amount of, you know, that hierarchy that still existed, as some might say, exists now.
21:37
So I think that question around what is a nurse and who is a nurse? And I don't mean the actual individual people.
21:43
It's quite an important one to explore.
21:45
So I don't want to explore it completely 'cause I think it's a whole conversation in itself.
21:49
But I wonder if you'd just gimme some of your thoughts.
21:51
I'd really interested in that.
21:52
That's such a pertinent question.
21:54
And you know, I love it when this happens.
21:56
I call this sort of synchronicity because that's what part of the chapter that I was writing yesterday for my PhD was the idea of where the very origin, because actually it was my supervisor, Jonathan Barnes, who's an emus.
22:08
Brilliant genius, really, you know, he was talking to a colleague of his who was an anesthetist, and, and the anesthetist was, was, was fascinated by my research.
22:17
And so I went away and looked up the origin of the word.
22:20
And really it comes from the idea of to nurture the wet nurse, which was the, the very origin story of what nursing was really about.
22:27
And then I looked historically at Nightingale Nightingale famously quoted.
22:32
That nursing was an art, and she specifically explained that the artist really more associated less, more about kind of the artistry of therapy.
22:43
Therapy, the Greek idea rather than the idea of science.
22:48
And so I think what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to draw.
22:51
Back a little bit more to the artistry, you know, and I know that that will be problematic for some because, you know, I do understand that I, you know, people don't really want to sit there.
23:02
When I talk about the fact that I write poetry, it's my only mechanism to really understand who I am in the world.
23:08
You know, that's the nature of being a dyslexic academic.
23:11
It was the thing that I could do that wasn't told.
23:13
I wasn't told was wrong.
23:15
You know, so I could misspell, I could do it however I wanted.
23:18
So I often used poetry, helped me understand why people didn't like me or didn't love me, or, you know, so I used it as a, as a way to actively navigate my teenage years and my addictions.
23:30
So the poetic nursing heart has been there from, you know, very early on, from like four to five years old, and it's just continued to sort of manifest.
23:39
So me as a nurse, I am Tom.
23:42
And that individuality is so important.
23:44
It doesn't broach the professionalism, but when people get to work with me and hopefully those people listening, and I will send it to my nursing community, you know those people listening know this is who I am.
23:56
There's no separation.
23:57
Reality is I cannot be who I am.
24:00
You know, I cannot.
24:01
Present a version of myself, which isn't true to self.
24:05
So when I practice, I'm identical as I am now.
24:08
So working in GP surgeries, I found that that's what patients wanted.
24:13
They wanted a humanistic, they wanted someone to meet with them.
24:17
Patients are exactly the same in A and E.
24:19
And people were surprised by how positively people responded to me who were considered to be marginalized communities.
24:26
So people who were on the fringes almost evoked fear in the populace.
24:30
You know, they would present in the a e waiting room with manifestations of psychosis, and I would meet with them where they were.
24:38
And there's a certain degree of.
24:40
You know, is my eccentricity, is my bound madness something that I honor and I do.
24:45
You know, Gail's work on madness as methodology comes very deeply.
24:50
You know, the very entities that, that, that make up who I am and who I know, and I think I've learn to read very deeply.
24:58
And, you know, and that, and that's helped kind of underpin where I position myself.
25:02
So my, sorry to use an academic term, but my epistemological stance is pretty sure of itself now having been, you know, occupying that space for a very long period of time.
25:13
And hopefully being, um, what they call my friend who.
25:16
A thesis kind of advisor said, Tom, for about three weeks you'll be the, the very greatest of thinkers within that field of work.
25:25
And then someone else will write about it.
25:27
So it's like you have an opportunity to really kind of be a leading light to form questions.
25:33
And I hope people will invite me to have those conversations who are very central within the very.
25:38
Structural organizations that we consider to be, um, there to, to, to benefit people at the very point of entry, which is the, the NHS.
25:47
And I've got a fascinating backstory if you want to know it, Ruth as well, which is a huge kind of, uh, familiar link to politics.
25:54
You know, there's a massive line of political theory that runs through my family.
25:59
Um, I've got amazing thinkers in, in both sides.
26:02
My grandma was a lady in waiting.
26:05
And the Honorable Lady Atley.
26:07
Um, she, she was married to David Atley who was obviously the, the, the nephew was in line to, or familiar line to Clement Atley, who was the, uh, prime minister of, of the UK and established the welfare state.
26:20
Um, so essentially established the NHS through the acquiring, um, of Bevin.
26:25
So there's some really interesting history, kind of that side, and I guess I really want to have those conversations with people.
26:33
You know, I want to know what moves governance, but I don't wanna be locked up behind, uh, you know, I don't wanna be locked up in a, a room in Whitehall and never let out.
26:42
I don't think that could happen.
26:43
To be fair, I think that it is quite obvious that you need to be out there and doing things and expressing.
26:49
So yeah, the thought of you being locked up anywhere just doesn't fit at all.
26:53
Thomas, and you were talking there sort of about your family, and I don't think we're going and sort of your history, I don't think we're going to that today, but actually what you are saying is that a lot of this was inherent and I think for mm-hmm.
27:05
Many nurses.
27:06
What you're touching on there is this creativity, which I think is absolutely paramount and I, I'll just come back to that bit, that creativity is like a compass.
27:15
Um, and I hadn't sort of thought of that, that.
27:17
Uh, thought about it in that way, but I constantly, everybody who so many guests that come on talk about be creative because actually if you can't create and you can't imagine, you can't develop the new or something different or move on or evolve.
27:30
Mm-hmm.
27:31
You need to be able to create, and I, and I agree that nursing is more of an art than it is a science.
27:37
Mm-hmm.
27:37
And, and I worry sometimes, and coming from as, as an advanced nurse practitioner space within general practice in the past, it, it puts you into that very clinical.
27:46
Mindset and expect.
27:48
Also, it's not so much the mindset, but the expectation is for you to be purely clinical, which is absolutely needed, but we all know that the majority of people who present in general practice, there's something else really going on, and it's about delving down and finding that.
28:03
And having the time and the license, which is where Wibo as a Vanguard gave people time and license.
28:10
And I've had a couple of people from Wibo on the show, as you know.
28:13
Um, hi.
28:14
I know them.
28:15
Yeah.
28:15
Yes.
28:15
St.
28:16
Carrie.
28:16
She was my line manager when I was working at Esry View.
28:19
And so there was like something really important about.
28:22
The sort of connection and the shared responsibility.
28:24
And I really enjoyed listening to her, her podcast and, and that role in the Vanguard site and admission avoidance was as close to, you know, a perfect role for me at the time that I could have written.
28:35
You know, and I, I think that that's the next iteration is like, I don't know the role that I have next, but I do know that therapy or creative therapeutics are, are vital and they're not, it's not just about the, the kind of like the, the.
28:49
The kind of compass, it's a bit like, you know, um, when, um, captain Jack Sparrow has his compass that points to his heart's desire.
28:57
You know, that, that's really, I think there's something really beautiful about, I read a lot of CS Lewis, I read a lot of Tolkien and you know, I read a lot of, and, and so my work and my children's books are like my Beats Potters, they're me, me kind of.
29:10
Synthesizing all of the things that I know.
29:12
And if you imagine the wandering lamb is effectively about 60,000 words synthesized into a children's book.
29:17
The Butterfly Farmer is bigger.
29:19
And then there's a third book called Hunter Moon, which I'm so excited about.
29:24
So these three books are essentially my three central themes of my thesis, which are trust.
29:30
Trauma and love Trust is inherently vital when you create a trusting therapeutic relationship.
29:36
And I think you understood that more than most people.
29:39
I had to trust you in order to do this podcast.
29:42
I had to feel that I was going to be okay and then that's.
29:46
Something that you did brilliantly, you know, therapeutically, you made me feel welcome.
29:50
So that trust allows you to express the trauma.
29:53
Without that trust, you won't express trauma in that room.
29:56
That's what you're talking about.
29:57
I was a nurse practitioner, still really am, and want to go back to practice and still try trying to find my way back.
30:03
Um, you know, so it's like trust.
30:05
Trauma will be expressed, and that's where you have the expression of love.
30:09
You know, that's where the shared kind of understanding and the, and the shared community that you build as a nurse with a patient is the only space that that exists.
30:20
You know, it's the most grounded of experiences that you can have when you.
30:26
Share in that identity and that understanding that you will form a relationship that will lead someone to a better outcome for their, their life, their health, their wellbeing.
30:37
You know, there's, there's no better feeling than that.
30:39
And that's what the, that's the liminality, that's the space that the nurse alone occupies.
30:45
Other professions occupy different spaces, but I really think the poetic nursing heart is the very center of.
30:53
All of it.
30:54
And I think if we were to be a little bit more careful and we were to value that space a little bit more, and I've worked in New Zealand, so I understand what cultural value feels like in different spaces, and I hope to work with more nurses in New Zealand with more nurses in Canada, with nurses in America, with nurses in Australia, to build a global understanding of what we perceptively understand as trauma.
31:16
Because Ruth, it's vital, you know, because ultimately they're the people that are gonna keep the elderly populations well.
31:22
They're the ones that are gonna help make sure that children access exercise and understand what wellbeing really looks like.
31:28
So you can see that there's a real intent and passion that's built up over the years, which is, I'm very proud of who I am as a poet, but mostly as a nurse.
31:39
I'm a male nurse for a reason, and I'm exceptionally proud of that, and I advocate that.
31:44
Heavily and I mentor very heavily the male nurses that work within Christchurch that are going out into practice.
31:52
Thank you.
31:53
And I really love that way that you've taken that trust and trauma and love and it was something I was thinking about the other day, sort of exploring that, you know.
32:01
Love and what is love.
32:02
And I think in our work, and I, and you touched on earlier on, just to go back a little bit, the fact of, um, being a nurse is inherent within us because you were talking about, you know, how that's been since you were quite young.
32:16
And, and I know I'm the same.
32:17
I knew instinctively from a child that I wanted to be a nurse before I really knew what they, what a nurse would do or what I would do.
32:25
And, um.
32:27
You.
32:27
You can't undo being a nurse when you're at home, so you might need to leave the trauma behind, but you still come home as a parent, as a mother, as a wife, as a husband, whoever you are, you still come home in those roles, but you are still inherently a nurse and it's very difficult to, to separate the two because they are one and the same thing.
32:47
Inherently, I think it's like I'm nosy, actually.
32:50
Ruth, like the reality of my persuasion is I don't necessarily, I think because of my.
32:55
Kind of different competing NeuroD diversities.
32:58
I don't often understand people and daily that changes.
33:01
And so what I try to do is I try to find out who they are and I find that the most beautiful and fascinating of human components.
33:10
You know, I read very deeply, so I read sort of a lot of Plato, a lot of, so Shop Andhow and Ki Guard and all of these individuals and Spinoza, and there's so many.
33:19
That's why I'm going to be a doctor of philosophy because it's the doctoring of words.
33:24
But I'm a nurse, you know, I, I, I'm a very proud nurse that will be a doctor, and it's something really, there's something really beautiful about the spaces that we.
33:35
Occupy, and since I was tiny, I've just wanted to understand people.
33:39
So that's why the, the very first wandering lamb was about unconditionality of love, because I had to heal myself first.
33:46
I had to understand that I was loved, no matter.
33:49
And then the butterfly farmer is building into this huge.
33:52
Program of, of kind of care across schools and poetry and reading and reasoning.
33:58
And then like I said, hunter Moon, which I'm promoting in the next few years, once these two books have moved through their, their sort of processes.
34:06
So there's something.
34:08
Building, which is inherently really, really wonderful.
34:11
And now people are starting to listen.
34:13
And I think that that's, that's what you have to just be mindful of, I think for your listeners, is like, if you've got sort of a heart song and you've got creative therapeutics in your kind of soul, then just start leaking those out a little.
34:26
Start by writing Diarizing, start by, you know, don't be.
34:30
Too conscious of the poetry not being good, just write it anyway.
34:33
It doesn't matter if it's good, my poetry has never been good enough because there's no one to tell me whether or not it's good or not.
34:40
It's written for the natural sake of it being, uh, something that I want to bring into existence, but.
34:47
You know, you need to sort of guide me onto where your readers will best sort of understand, you know, who this hobo poet, Tom Della Hunt is.
34:54
Okay.
34:55
So I think the next bit, and we're gonna go down to that bit about the, the Butterfly farm.
34:59
And, and I know you're doing a lot of work in schools and, and nobody could see, we don't share video, but you, you, your arms went up there as if you're cheering like at last.
35:09
We've got there, but there was so much to explore with you before we got there.
35:12
So firstly, just briefly, what took you.
35:16
To this space or maybe talking about it will help to explain that.
35:20
So, but I'm really interested Yeah.
35:21
How you got to, you know, nursing to this really working with young people and children.
35:27
So the won the wandering lamb effectively is a, is a story about unconditional love.
35:32
And so I, I sort of, I wrote it.
35:33
Inspired by kind of where I live up in Chatham, which is a, a country iddle.
35:38
And so it built into this collection really of, of, of thoughts and of kind of spaces.
35:44
And I worked with Caleb, the most exceptional illustrator who's working with me on the Butterfly Farmer.
35:50
And we worked together to create really a narrative and the most.
35:53
Fascinating thing was Caleb and I had one conversation about the book, and because he experienced similar trauma to me educationally, and so if you read the book, it's up to you to kind of draw your own conclusions.
36:04
But there are moments that are underpinned by thousands of words of philosophy that people don't have the intention or the need or the desire to read.
36:13
But I have, you know, and, and so it's underpinned by this massive.
36:17
Bank of work, and it took me out to schools.
36:19
And by my surprise, when I went out to schools, the children all engaged heavily with this lamb and the shepherd.
36:27
And then they engaged with me more and more.
36:29
So then I built up a relationship with three schools.
36:32
So I went out to Bridge School, and then I went tole, and then I went to Cholic.
36:37
And then all of these schools started to ask could I come back with them? And so it built up over a period of time where I started.
36:44
To be invited back.
36:45
So I'm now a poet in residence across six Kent schools, which is growing.
36:50
Um, and it's led to then the formation of the next iteration, which is the Butterfly farm.
36:56
That's fascinating.
36:57
And the fact that what you've done there is you've underpinned it by so much of the philosophy that you obviously read, and as you've said, you read deeply, yet it's come through, so the children are, if you like, getting the magic of that.
37:10
Through the story.
37:11
Yeah.
37:11
Mm-hmm.
37:11
It would really be lovely to have an example, and obviously you can't name a child, but you meet many children of somebody that's engaged with this.
37:18
Oh, and the difference that it's made, because that would be really helpful to understand.
37:22
So there was a real change in some of these children when they knew that they were also loved unconditionally just the way that I was.
37:31
And so there's something really.
37:33
Special that was building.
37:34
And then the butterfly farmer, that's the, the, the, the project that's now got the, the kind of the backing of the, uh, butterfly Conservation Trust for Kent and Roland Brown, who now comes out to schools with me where we do a little talk to the school about transformational processes.
37:51
Um, and the schools have taken it on board in their own way.
37:53
And we are building these butterfly sanctuaries.
37:55
And as of last week, um, I've got the, the 200 BA bar Chester care homes now are going to be involved in the Butterfly Farmer Project.
38:04
So we're gonna be putting butterfly sanctuaries into care homes so the residents can look out at these butterflies as they're sitting having their evening dinner or their morning tea.
38:13
So there's this re linking to my nursing.
38:16
Through that kind of positional understanding of like, what, what do we want to do, what do we want to change in terms of legacy? So it's quite a big project.
38:26
Um, but in essence it's just the next children's book.
38:30
Um, but it, it sort of feels.
38:32
Bigger than that.
38:32
I've never been at a point like this before as a, you know, as an author, as a nurse, as a poet, I've never been at this kind of sort of space where I feel quite anxious about where it's kind of going to go next.
38:43
But I've got a funding partner, um, you know, who I can mention soon.
38:47
It's just going through communication, so I have to just limit my kind of references to them for now.
38:52
But it sort of suddenly has built into something really genuine and we've seen.
38:58
Butterfly numbers rise across Kent, which was something that, you know, we can't take kind of, um, sole agency over, but we are making a difference.
39:07
And I must mention the home of where all of this is taking place, which is the Enchanted Gardens down in Kent, where the children come and they have this.
39:16
External kind of experience away from the school where they do painting and they do artwork and they plant flowers and they spot butterflies and they experience this entirely wonderful kind of holistic experience that we've now collected data because they then write a little.
39:34
Postcard, which is the most beautiful thing.
39:37
They write a postcard to the Butterfly Farm and they post it in a little post box.
39:41
So we've got 80 qualitative pieces of data that we can already see.
39:45
The children feel safe and feel valued and feel loved, and feel kind of excited and inspired.
39:51
So there's this sort of project that's building through the wandering lamb and then through the schools and then through.
39:58
Sleen have been amazing and they've named one of their classrooms for next year after me, so there's gonna be a glass de hunt moving through Lene school, which was the most, you know, I didn't expect any of this.
40:08
Ruth, you, anyone that knows me and they do, you know you, quite a few of your listeners will know me, is I struggle significantly with imposter complex.
40:16
That's why I wrote that wandering lamb was to tell myself that I'm loved, because I have to tell myself that quite often.
40:22
So my neuro.
40:24
Is, you know, a challenging web, really, that some days I feel very positive and some days I real, really do feel very kind of, um, isolated as a, as a researcher, but that's what a lot of people who do PhDs talk about.
40:36
Um, but now my publishing is picking up, you know, we've just had another piece of work published around the kind of use of creative therapeutics.
40:44
So, you know, I think it's.
40:46
It's interesting, isn't it? It's building these two parts, like I'm wearing two hats, but the one that I love most is the one that I wear as the hobo poet.
40:56
So I think I'd be, it would be amiss of me not to mention kind of my closest friends, really.
41:00
You know, I'm, you know, I've mentioned a lot of the schools that I'm working with.
41:04
Um, but also now the, the schools are being hosted by the, the space down in, in gate, the Enchanted Gardens, um, which is hosted by Donna, um, and Lucy and Rochelle, um, and Anastasia.
41:16
And it's a really important space.
41:17
Really, it is a space that's kind of, um, been built by, by us collectively where children can come and have this.
41:25
Experience and we've got now 80 postcards from those children that are, are beautiful little drawings of butterflies where they've experienced their day in the enchanted gardens with me.
41:36
And so the work is sort of taking on its own sort of form.
41:40
Now it's sort of, it feels quite strange 'cause obviously I'm a nurse if effectively that's my professional identity.
41:46
But slowly kind of, I'm building this other identity as an author.
41:50
For, and as a sort of a, a, an alternative and creative researcher, and I'm very lucky in that, you know, the Sydney Dahan Research Center have taken me on as an associate and I'm hoping to work more synonymously and closely with them after my PhD is done.
42:05
Um, because that's really important, you know, to.
42:07
To sort of value and be able to really kind of appropriately and reliably examine, you know, impacts of work that you're doing in schools is, is is quite important.
42:18
And you know, so I want to sort of, you know.
42:21
Just kind of knows those individuals, but it's, it's, it's just become something else, you know? And I'll be able to announce more over time.
42:29
But there is this, this partnership that's building as well, that's going to allow me to have funding to move seeds through, you know, these ca care homes, the bar care homes that are directed by a friend of mine.
42:41
Um, and, you know, a number of different spaces that we're going to be able to occupy.
42:45
So it's, it's quite exciting, you know, things are moving forward in a beautiful way and I, I just didn't expect any of it because like I said, you know, as we all do when we're nurses, we are just nurses.
42:55
I am just a nurse, so, you know, it feels quite alternative and, and, and sort of fanciful, but also really exciting.
43:03
Thank you, Thomas.
43:04
Yeah.
43:04
And I'm gonna take you.
43:05
Back as a little step and you started to touch on and people listening won't realize we've had a few issues with the sound, haven't we? So I just wanna go back on the fact that, um, you talked about the Enchanted Garden and the children, and I asked you about the difference that makes to the young people and children.
43:21
And I think what came through there, you talked about.
43:24
The fact that they felt valued and they felt safe and loved, but also excited and expired and inspired.
43:31
So that brings out that creativity side, which we've spoken about earlier on the importance of creativity, which I don't think young people always get the, the joy of it exploring in as we did.
43:42
Um, perhaps years back, I don't know.
43:44
But they sometimes wonder school's quite stifling and you must meet targets and you must meet these things.
43:50
But what I'd like to.
43:52
Just asked.
43:52
You spoke about the postcards as well.
43:54
What? And you just spoke about impact.
43:57
What is the impact? What, what are the children saying maybe on their postcards, but what are the teachers, are the teachers noticing? Why are they inviting you back? Why? You know, you've talked about all these wonderful things that are happening and how it's all moving forwards.
44:10
Why, why? Why is that happening? I think that probably the best school to mention in that respect is Blea School, because they're actually one of our research schools that are associated with the university.
44:20
And one of the individuals there, both Kara Slaley and also Linda, have been working quite heavily with me around creative writing.
44:28
And what they did is they used me almost like a pivot person.
44:31
So someone who went in to allow the self-expression, you know, with those children.
44:36
And then they've.
44:37
Found that, that, that children are, have gone from introversion, so not being willing to try because they're worried about making mistakes to actually writing really beautiful, um, kind of creative kind of exploratory pieces that, that are then worked with.
44:52
So it just gives a.
44:53
Other children, alternative thinking children, an opportunity to sort of self-express without fear of it being wrong.
45:01
And so there's something really important, and I think that's part of the reason why I'm invited back.
45:05
You know, you, you never really know because like I said, most of the time I'm shrouded by the imposter, but I'm just really, I'm just really honored and humbled and grateful that people are.
45:14
But willing, like you've been willing to have me on here.
45:17
You know, I, um, because I think that it's only through those spaces of exploration and conversation with these children that you might open one poet.
45:25
You know, if I find that I've inspired one individual to go from one of those six Kent schools onto being a notable writer.
45:33
That's legacy.
45:34
And that's what Jonathan Barnes has already said.
45:36
You know, he said, Tom, you don't have to impact thousands of lives.
45:39
You have to impact one, and that one impacts another.
45:42
And another bit like the wings of a butterfly, really.
45:46
And, and actually you probably are impacting more and, and they may not be going on to become.
45:52
Poets, they may well be, but actually what you talked about there is that self-expression and from introversion to, to developing safe spaces.
46:00
And one of the things that I talk about a lot when I talk about place-based learning and the fact of learning in, in the place where it actually matters, which I think is what you're doing with school children, but we, we need to think about that.
46:13
In our workplaces as well is actually people need to feel safe to try things out for, for, to get things wrong.
46:20
Obviously within a certain amount of safe safety from the points of view of nursing and clinical work.
46:25
But actually there is room to try things out, get things wrong, feel safe and, and ask for help and say, hang on a minute, I'm not sure.
46:32
And that come from a place of safety.
46:34
And trust and installing that in children at a very young age has only got to be positive because whether they go and become poets, nurses, doctors, or, you know, work in a completely different field, it doesn't really matter.
46:47
What we want is young people to grow up and to be able to have that understanding.
46:52
So I think the impact to me sounds absolutely huge.
46:56
That we're, we are giving these children, you know, they're unconditionally loved and they're learning that from a.
47:01
An early age and they're learning hopefully to love unconditionally.
47:06
And why that's important.
47:07
The interesting, yeah.
47:08
And the interesting thing is it wasn't just the children that were having this massive response to the wandering lamb.
47:13
So when they were reading it, the parent was reading it to them in the evening and they were tending to read it to the child.
47:18
And I had a message from a parent saying they read it to their child, but the parent was then coming downstairs and reading it again to themselves because actually the deconstruction of the trauma in adulthood is just as important.
47:29
And some of.
47:29
That I got a response from a parent saying, this book has completely changed my perspective.
47:35
You know, I was, I felt so guilty about my role as a parent.
47:38
You know, I felt so guilty about what I was doing or what I was doing wrong.
47:41
I hadn't even recognized that I wasn't loving myself.
47:43
And when I learned to love myself, my parenting completely changed because we were, we were gathered together, both me and my child in a sense of shared.
47:54
Mutual unconditional love.
47:56
And it was just like, she was just amazed.
47:58
She said, look, you know, this is just astounding.
48:01
'cause the final words are, you know, the, the, the shepherd turned and fed me gently from his hand and kindly said to me, sweet lamb, I know you are different.
48:09
And I know that makes you sad, but listen to my voice.
48:13
I love you just the way you are now.
48:16
Some of your readers will have heard that.
48:18
Your listeners will have heard that, and they will have this massive response to those words of being loved The way you are doesn't change.
48:25
We, all we want is to be told that we're loved just the way we are, whether or not we're, you know, born and swaddled or we are held.
48:33
As we drift into the, you know, into the, the ether, you know, uh, the butterfly farmer is building on that because it's a, a pretext of helping the child understand when they lose their matriarch, when they lose their grandmother or grandfather.
48:47
And it's written about my granddad Barbara, who was one of the only people really who made me feel valued and seen.
48:55
And he took me on these walks and it's about that.
48:58
Passage.
48:58
I'm not gonna share anything more because I want you to read it and experience it because it's taken from around the family home where he lived.
49:06
And I remember the heat of the flint wall.
49:09
I remember his workshop and you know, and the butterflies that fluttered around there.
49:13
Um, and now when I see a butterfly or a lamb, I have a completely different relationship with those entities because they're part of now my.
49:20
Life's legacy.
49:22
And that's all I really want is just to be known as someone who tries to make other people feel better.
49:27
Thank you, Thomas.
49:29
And I think that's a, a lovely place to end, that people are loved exactly for who they are.
49:34
Thank you.
49:35
You've brought so much, so much different, um, and so much new, but actually a really important place of, um, investigating, thinking about that creativity, curiosity and um, how that we can.
49:48
Think in a completely different way, whether people are nur.
49:51
You know, we talked a lot about nursing, but I think a lot of people can identify with what we've spoken here.
49:56
So I'm just gonna ask you before we completely finish, is there one last me message or maybe even a, a call to action that probably sounds a little bit harsh, that feels like a strong thing for you? Something that you'd like people to take away or to actually do after they've listened to this? Yeah, so for me it would be these words, which would be.
50:17
Just be a fantastic failure.
50:19
Like I have failed constantly.
50:22
Like I failed my 11 plus.
50:23
I failed really a lot of my GCSEs.
50:26
I failed.
50:26
I failed.
50:26
I failed.
50:27
I failed.
50:27
I failed my masters.
50:28
I'm failing my PhD.
50:30
You know, the reality is failure is one of the most important things, and that's what I tell children.
50:34
You know, the greatest of changes that have occurred in society have been as a result of.
50:40
Uh, attempts, um, multiple attempts at something and failing constantly and getting back up.
50:46
And I'm just incredibly stubborn.
50:48
You know, I've run ultra marathons where I've run all day.
50:51
I've run from seven in the morning till seven in the evening, you know, because I just don't have that tendency to want to give up.
50:58
I like to sort of push and push and push.
51:00
And so my, my, my question for you is, you know, like.
51:04
Give autonomy to your listeners to try, try to do something with grace and compassion and, you know, and an attempt, because that's the most important thing is to, is to at least try things.
51:18
And I think with poetry you've got to practice and you've got to try with journaling, you've got to practice with quilting, with any kind of creative, therapeutic, please invest a little bit of time in yourself.
51:30
And know that you are loved and important and you are loved as the Shepherd says just as you are.
51:36
I won't say anything more 'cause that's a lovely note to end on.
51:39
Thank you so much for joining me today.
51:43
I hope you found this episode interesting and inspiring.
51:46
If today's conversation has stirred something within you, please share it together.
51:51
Let's build the ripple that we need to create change.
51:55
And if you haven't yet, please follow the show and leave a rating.
51:59
You can also find on my link tree a link to my feedback form where you can share your questions, ideas, and reflections, and talk about what you'd like to hear on this podcast in the future and what matters to you.
52:12
Together.
52:13
Let's shape a space into something reflective and purposeful.
52:18
So for now, stay caring, stay connected, and stay curious.