Give 🤗

Hello Courageous Pals,

Are there darling buds of May where you are or is it still rainy? I was lucky enough to catch these cherry blossoms in the golden hour in one of my favourite gardens in Edinburgh. Cherry blossoms are one of the best natural gifts of spring, and we’re lucky in Edinburgh to have so many around us.

You’d think I snapped those on purpose just to use them in my poster for my upcoming yoga & coaching event! Those of you here in Edinburgh still have time to sign up for my & Solas Yoga’s Buds of May event coming up on 24 May. We’d love to see you there.

This month’s Courage Pie theme is all about giving. As my gift to all courageous pals everywhere, I offer free walking coaching groups every month called Courage Pie: to go! Join us at 1 PM tomorrow, 13 May, outside the Populus Cafe at Leith Community Croft for a gentle walk (or wheel) around Leith Links. Sign up via Eventbrite to be notified of any last-minute changes! Can’t make it in person? Reach out to a courageous pal and use the Questions to Go below for a reflective walk of your own.

Courage Pie (to go): Give 🤗

This is the last in our series of the Five Ways of Wellbeing! An old adage tells us ’tis better to give than to receive, and this is true not just from altruistic or humble ideas about charity: giving also measurably benefits the giver. Not only can it improve subjective happiness, acting kindly to others also has a small but measurable correlation with physical health. Feel good – in every sense of the word – through giving.

This does not mean to give of yourself to the point of exhaustion! A lot of the work I do with clients is about examining people-pleasing tendencies that have them running around ragged seeking external approval from others and never quite feeling like they’re giving enough – because the truth is the voice that’s telling them to do more isn’t coming from anyone else’s expectations, it’s an internal force. And until that’s addressed, no amount of giving will ever really be enough. If this feels like you, have a look at past posts about the liberating power of no and the drama triangle for tips on healthy boundary-setting.

Giving also does not have to involve money: in fact there’s some evidence that the strongest wellbeing effects for giving come from informal helping rather than formal activities – perhaps because we’re more likely to engage with informal helping in our family, community or with people we know well, so we’re building social ties as well as offering a helping hand. Time is our most precious resource, and often spending time with people is the biggest gift we can offer.

Questions to Go:

• What are some ways you’re already giving to others? This can be as small as making a cup of tea for someone, loaning your umbrella, or offering to be a friendly ear during a challenging time. Or it can be as big as a regular volunteering programme or humanitarian aid work. However you give has value.
• What’s a random act of kindness you’ve done? How did you feel just before doing it? And after?
• What’s a small, spontaneous gift you could give someone this week? Some ideas: writing a postcard to someone far away, offering positive feedback or appreciation to someone, popping round with baked goods, paying for coffee for the next person in the shop, sharing a book that made you think of them. What else can you think of?
• Are there particular occasions (times of year, etc) where you notice yourself giving more? How could you make giving a more everyday occurrence?
• How could you offer the gift of quality time? This is less about tasks or physical gifts and more about presence: who in your life could use an extra chat, a space to vent, or some motivational kind words?

Science Behind the Slice:

Reminder of Julia Whitaker’s very useful Playful Approach to the Five Ways to Wellbeing.

Mind’s 5 Ways to Wellbeing Guide, Step 5: Give.

Hui, B. P. H., Ng, J. C. K., Berzaghi, E., Cunningham-Amos, L. A., & Kogan, A. (2020). “Rewards of kindness? A meta-analysis of the link between prosociality and well-being.” Psychological Bulletin, 146(12), 1084–1116. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000298

Scott Curry, O., Rowland, L. A., Van Lissa, C. J., Zlotowitz, S., McAlaney, J., & Whitehouse, H. (2018).
“Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor.”Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol.76, 320-329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.02.014.

Coming up…

It’s a busy month of events here in the Courage Pie Kitchen!

I’ll be chairing a free online panel discussion on behalf of Working With Cancer tomorrow, 13 May, at 11 AM. Join us tomorrow for Cancer in the Workplace: the Working With Cancer Approach. Know any HR managers, learning and development specialists, or organisational leaders? Feel free to pass this along – with increasing rates of diagnosis among younger people, handling a conversation about an employee’s cancer diagnosis is an increasingly likely issue to come up for most managers, and many organisations have no idea how to equip their teams for supporting someone through navigating the impacts of cancer diagnosis on a career.

As usual, Courage Pie: to go! will be taking place at 1 PM on the same day – always free; sign up here to be updated about any changes of route or venue.

On Thursday 14 May I’ll be hosting the next in our series of Creative Roots, Open Wings (CROW) wellbeing events at the Corvidaeum – this one’s all about tuning in to intuition. Stay tuned, because we’re planning a whole series of monthly events going forward, including accountability buddy sessions, resource parties, deepening communication skills, and more… 🐦‍⬛ I’ll share the full calendar when it’s ready.

And I’ll be rounding it all off with Buds of May on Sunday 24 May. Jane from Solas Yoga has prepared some wonderful ‘blooming’ yoga poses for us, so I’m really looking forward to it! Plus I’ll be guiding some gentle reflective exercises about how the year’s gone so far and what you’d like to blossom in the next season 🌸

If anything in this newsletter series has brought up a topic you’d like to work on one-on-one, here’s where you can find all the info about my coaching approach and current offers.

Very best,

Caitlin