Empowered Dimension

By Dr Antonia Wrigley 2016

Whether you think you can or think you can’t you are right!

Henry Ford

Reframing

– empowering ourselves by telling a different story

We can re-dream this world and make the dream come real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves.

Ben Okri, The Famished Road

Changing the story we tell ourselves can help empower us and improve our mental health. In the field of psychology and counseling this is called ‘reframing’. In the video below Ben Okri, award winning novelist, eloquently explains the power of stories to transform our lives.

“..people are as healthy and as confident as the stories they tell themselves.”(6.48)

“..what a story does is it helps you to see and the minute you can see you can do.” (15.43)

Ben Okri: Why do we tell children stories? from nowhere films on Vimeo.

Empowered Patients

What needs to happen is for doctors to come down off their pedestal and for patients to get up off their knees

Robert Johnstone, International Alliance of Patient Organizations

Feeling disempowered in life and in relation to our health undermines our health for many reasons. Empowering ourselves and enabling our patients to empower themselves can be a powerful tool for change.

Empowering consultations

A collaborative consultation style where we offer patients choice and see them as equal and active partners in the consultation is a prerequisite. Patients need access to the best quality information and with the internet this is now possible with sites such as Patient. However there is also a lot of uncertainty in medicine which can be difficult to negotiate skilfully. Access to unbiased research (where available) expressed in easily understandable ways can help us communicate the risks and benefits of treatments. Listening to patients stories or ‘Narrative Medicine’ (more later) is in itself empowering for the patient, though sometimes reframing may be needed.

Resources

Dare to Be

When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.
When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.
When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.
When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.
When times are tough, dare to be tougher.
When love hurts you, dare to love again.
When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.
When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.
When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can –At all times, Dare to be!

Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free