Hey lovely! How’s summer treating you so far?
If you follow me over on Facebook, you might have seen that I decided to keep Little Light Room going (hurrah!). This blog and the social channels are about my personal journey. Lightopia CIC is the light nutrition hub I’m creating with my directors’ support. So, I wanted to give you insight into what I’ve been up to and the new things I’m discovering. I’m excited to share it with you! 😀
Making lots of new connections
I’ve been blown away by people’s generosity in sharing their experience, advice and connection recommendations with me. I’ve held over a dozen stakeholder ‘interviews’ ranging from 30 mins to two hours. From a standing start as someone who experiences Seasonal Affective Disorder and just knows a bit, they’ve challenged my perceptions and helped me begin to form a great picture of the light nutrition industry and its challenges.
I’m incredibly grateful to contacts at Lumie, Signify, Mind UK, Tyneside and Northumberland Mind, Society of Light and Lighting, Bright Design Carbon Solutions Ltd, Lifelight Studio, The Light Review, Jordans, Robus, LightAware, Roecklein Psychology Lab at the University of Pittsburgh, NBS, Work in Mind and Slow Shopping.
I’ve got a huge list of people I’d love to speak to, which gets longer with each conversation!
In addition, I’ve attended a few events including Newcastle Startup Week, the NCVS Funding Fair and ILP Professional Lighting Summit. I’ve also become a trustee and director for Involve North East. This is a fantastic charity giving a voice to the people of the North East about their healthcare.
Getting out of my comfort zone
I’ve been doing some work to push myself out of my current comfort zone with visual media. I’ve been doing some Facebook Lives and recently started experimenting with Instagram and Facebook stories.
For me, this is quite a big step because I used to shy away from even having a photo taken on my own. I couldn’t bear the thought of appearing on video. I don’t really like ‘being seen’ – I much prefer to be behind the scenes.
I’ve got a lot more I want to learn about how to shoot and edit videos, which is in my year plan. But the important thing, for now, is to get used to being on camera!
Introducing Lightopia
Talking about getting out of my comfort zone, in June I delivered my first public presentation on light nutrition for the RSA in Newcastle.
It was a fantastic opportunity to take stock of all I’ve learned so far and share it with an engaged audience. I used the time to speak about the topic, get some feedback and held a brief discussion.
This was great for building on the one-to-one informal conversations I’ve been having with people. It’s so important for me to engage with people to understand the real problem we’re dealing with, the barriers to tackling it and what might be useful. Only then can we develop solutions that have impact.
Re-embedding habits
Eee I’m really made up about this! I’m running again! After being told ten years ago I should never run again – and with many frustrating attempts to prove the surgeon wrong -I’m now able to run two miles non-stop to the bottom of our village and back up! I can’t tell you how good that feels! 😀
I don’t know why now is the time I’ve really taken affirmations on board after many times of hearing about it. I credit this to Lisa Bean and one of her fantastic Facebook Live training sessions that form part of her DARETOGROW – The Online Course. Lisa challenged us to think about what we are telling ourselves. I chose running to work on and voila – after changing ‘I can’t run’ to ‘I frickin’ can run!’ (thanks Lisa!) I now am!
Otherwise, I’ve been trying to get enough sleep, eat well and ensure I get out for light walks.
Educating myself and removing blocks
Sometimes working towards your vision is about the enablers and removing barriers. Two of the areas I’ve been focusing on for the last few months are driving and finance.
I passed my driving test in February 2008 and never drove once since. Now I’m living in a semi-rural village I have more reason to get a car. I’ve had a course of refresher lessons and am slowly building up my confidence with getting out on my own!
Financially, I’m aware I have blocks. I caught myself telling my mentor that the level of funding she wants me to secure for covering my salary was too high and I can get by on much less. That was interesting information and gave me an indication that I need to do some work in this area, which is ongoing.
Remember in my last post I said I wanted to explore whether there could be something unconscious triggering in autumn? I occasionally work with an amazing NLP Master Practitioner/hypnotherapist and I went to see her in June. We uncovered a possible trigger, that I’d lost someone at Christmas when I was 16 and did some work around that. It remains to be seen whether it helps, but I certainly felt lighter after our session – I’ll keep you updated!
So… lots of planting seeds, working on the foundations of Lightopia and as ever, on myself!
Let me know in the comments if you’ve any questions or any topics you’d like me to cover in future posts?