Our Happiness Habits project has just finished running a 5 week Making Connections confidence building course in the Cheviot area of the Scottish Borders.  The aim of the course was to bring together people who feel socially isolated and lack confidence to look at various aspects of their lives and share their skills, abilities and experiences.  They also looked at a variety of voluntary and community opportunities available in their area.

Seven people joined us.  The first 2-hour session was all about ‘Look at Me’ we concentrated on what each of the participants wanted to achieve at the end of the 5 weeks.  Week two was all about ‘Presenting Myself’ where we looked at how we present ourselves confidently and positively. Week three was about ‘Making Changes’ and how to cope with change.  In week four we were ‘Exploring Options’ by helping the participants to explore all the different possible options and opportunities available in their local community and the final session was about ‘Reflection and Moving on’.

In such a short period of time the participants’ confidence and self-worth grew more than we could ever have imagined.  On week one they were telling us things like “ I don’t deserve something like this” and “I would just like to be normal, just like everybody else”.  Five weeks on people were saying “Its good learning about yourself “, “Initially unsure, then looked forward to it” and “Make the course longer! Just getting to know each other.”

So what now….

The group said that they had really enjoyed meeting together and would like to continue to do so! So that is exactly what they are going to do in the New Year! We are really excited to be continuing to work with this group and looking forward to sharing with you what they have been up to so watch this space…

We are also planning our second course as more people have heard about it and want to take part.  We plan to have similar courses in other parts of Borders – please let us know if you want to talk about what will work for people in your area.

There is more information about the Happiness Habits project on our website. If you would like to speak to one of the team contact jan@otbds.org or call her on 07793028368.