My guest this week on the Curiosity & Consciousness podcast is Elaine Browne of Perspective Ireland.
Elaine is a Peer Support Worker and Wellbeing Coach. Elaine set up Perspective, a peer led initiative to provide a difference in the way that we respond to mental health. Perspective provides support and wellbeing coaching to both adults and children on an individual and group basis through the centre and outside to schools and workplaces.
Elaine created the unique Tribe programme, a children’s coaching programme which teaches children wellbeing techniques, to promote positive mental health, healthy self-esteem and emotional awareness. It is a high energy and fun programme that helps see their full potential. This is a very precious programme for Elaine as she herself started struggling with anxiety around the age of 10 and sees the value in every young person learning to look after their mental health before it gets to crisis point.
By the time Elaine got to her early 20’s, the acute mental distress and struggle was so painful that she attempted to take her own life but thankfully survived. After leaving the psychiatric unit, she commenced the journey of self-discovery and the work of inner healing.
Starting with a degree in Theology, Elaine likes to be always learning and expanding her knowledge. Perspective promotes self-compassion, responsibility and each programme is written and delivered with a psychosynthesis approach, that each individual strives towards a more authentic, truer version of self. Perspective provides support locally and nationally through zoom and video calls. There are many plans for the future of Perspective and the evaluated process of peer support going forward.
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I loved this conversation with Elaine. It was honest and truthful, and Elaine shared a lot about her journey with mental distress, self-hatred and anxiety, which started at a very young age. Things got so bad in her early 20’s she attempted to take her own life and ended up spending two lengthy stays in a psychiatric unit. She knew she wasn’t going to heal in the unit, so she began to manipulate the system in order to get out and start her healing journey outside. She began to get glimpses of hope and this energy spurred her on. Her mother put her on a plane to Medjugorje as well and a conversation with a priest there changed everything for her. She felt a new energy running through her. Elaine looks on her recovery as a more spiritual journey, then a mental process.
Elaine has a wealth of knowledge and wisdom to share from her experience and recovery journey, and does so now through her work as a Peer Support Worker & Wellbeing Coach. Check her out and connect with her via her Facebook page – Perspective Ireland.
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