Help in times of crisis
Nov 1st, 2011 | By webmaster | Category: Articles by Goal Mapping Practitioners, Goal Mapping, Uplift articlesGoal Mapping can have a profound effect on people’s lives, particularly in times of crisis. Ed Hayes, one of our Goal Mapping practitioners, discovered this for himself when he was introduced to Mike…
When I first met Mike, he was a depressed and empty guy with no light in his eyes and no joy in his spirit. This gentle, quiet man had lost everything other than his family, having spent two damaging and degrading years in prison, where he paid the price for embezzlement – a mistake that nearly destroyed him. He went from financial director of a large company to a prisoner within a day.
Following his spell in prison, Mike had been unable to secure a job for a number of reasons. I believe interviewers were picking up on the negative energy that surrounded him. His state of mind and dark view of the future were preventing this qualified and capable person from getting a job, and having the chance to rebuild his life.
After our initial meeting, I convinced Mike to attend a day of positive and energising Goal Mapping. Soon after the course I received a message from him that filled my heart with great joy. He said that, for the first time in years, he felt alive and totally positive about his future.
A week later I received a text to say he’d had a job interview and had been offered a very good position, and that it was all due to “changing the way he was thinking”. A few days later he sent me this email and his goal map. It speaks for itself.
Hi Ed
I’ve attached my Goal Map, as promised. When you see it you’ll realise why I became an accountant!
My wife and I are now planning for and looking forward to the future, for the first time in quite a while. It’s remarkable what a change has occurred in the last two weeks – if it is solely due to positive thinking, I should have done it years ago.
I cannot thank you enough, and hopefully we will meet again.
Best wishes
Mike
Goal Mapping lifted Mike from despair, transforming the way he thought about the future, and pointing him towards a brighter, happier, more fulfilled life. It can do the same for you.
Thank you for sharing this Ed and thank you to Mike for sharing his map.
The first map I created was a few years back now. At the time I was diagnosed with acute anxiety and signed off work for a considerable period of time. Panic attacks were part of my daily experience. Physically I was underweight, adrenalin-overloaded and thought there was no way out – this was my life and there was little I could do to change it. My relationships were broken, my life out of control. I honestly felt that I was entering into madness.
My GP’s approach to was to numb my experience and so I was initially prescribed with Tamazepam to help me sleep, Citalopram to “take the edge off”. When I asked for counselling support I was advised to “go out and find someone to help me” – a difficult task when getting out of bed in the morning and leaving the house felt like an Everest climbing challenge! Thanks to the privilege of BUPA health cover I was eventually referred to a private clinic where I was treated for post-traumatic stress and a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to help me change my obsessive compulsive and life-destroying, coping habits. But this was, I know now, a temporary fix. A means to find the energy to get out of bed and “cope” with my life.
I don’t know about you, but merely coping with my life wasn’t my idea of a good life. I wanted a great life. The life I knew I deserved. Goal Mapping with Brian showed me I had choices. Choices about choosing my thought, becoming aware of my own feelings and that they were my responsibility and most importantly that I could change them and change my unhelpful habits. I didn’t have to accept that the Black Dog of depression was my lot. We can determine our own fate.
I firmly believe that, through my experience, the GM technique and principles are a real and genuine sustainable treatment for mental disorder. A tool for life. And I am thankful everyday.