Sarah Yearsley, Author at Wellbeing Magazine https://wellbeingmagazine.com/author/sarah-yearsley/ The State of Feeling Healthy & Happy Wed, 15 Jan 2025 11:30:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://wellbeingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/cropped-cropped-Wellbeing-W-192x192-1-32x32.png Sarah Yearsley, Author at Wellbeing Magazine https://wellbeingmagazine.com/author/sarah-yearsley/ 32 32 Ruby Wax on Defrazzling Minds: Retreating to Calm in a Frantic World https://wellbeingmagazine.com/ruby-wax-on-defrazzling-minds-retreating-to-calm-in-a-frantic-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ruby-wax-on-defrazzling-minds-retreating-to-calm-in-a-frantic-world Wed, 15 Jan 2025 11:30:34 +0000 https://wellbeingmagazine.com/?p=109374 Ruby Wax has seemingly done it all and now she now teaches individuals and corporations how to defrazzle their minds in a frazzled world.

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From the Royal Shakespeare Company to primetime TV; from best-selling author to script-editing Absolutely Fabulous; from an Oxford University Masters degree in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy to an OBE for services to mental health. Ruby Wax has seemingly done it all. She now teaches individuals and corporations how to defrazzle their minds in a frazzled world. She has created a User Manual on how to become aware of when we’re nearing our ‘tipping point’; for taking control and becoming aware of our over-stressed and over-critical minds, so we become ‘the driver not the driven’. 

“We know so much cognitively about the world, but no-one tells us how to manage our minds,” she says. “It’s like having a Ferrari on top of your head, but no-one gave you the keys.” Using her background in neuroscience, Ruby teaches us how to train our brains. “We work like neural-wi-fi. Our mental states work like viruses. If we’re wired, we pass that to everyone around us. If our minds are calm, that state will spread to our co-workers, our families, the community and eventually to the world. The key to happiness and success is to be the master of our thoughts and not the slave.”

What do you think are the biggest challenges people face today in maintaining their mental health?

I’m not going to blame social media because it’s here and I don’t believe in whining about things that are inevitable. But we’re pulled in too many directions, and we haven’t got enough blackboard space in our minds. We weren’t meant to take in everything, but the problem is everyone is pretending that to be busy is a great thing. Nobody is saying “Wait a minute, I can’t take this anymore.” I think it’s lack of honesty, because you’re considered a loser if you say that, and the truth is too many people are burning out. We don’t study what our limits are.

How important is community and connection in fostering mental and emotional health, and how can people cultivate it?

Well, that’s the problem – we don’t have community. I think that’s what’s lacking, and loneliness is the biggest killer. That’s why I created Frazzled Cafe – to eliminate the feeling that you are alone. It’s been going for seven years now and gives you the opportunity to come and speak from the heart. When people speak that way, they feel more human, and they don’t feel lonely. 

What role does humour play in maintaining a healthy mind, and how has it helped you in your own journey?

I make a living out of comedy and that is probably because I have dyslexia. When I try to form a sentence, it comes out all over the place. When you’re mentally ill, it doesn’t matter what’s funny as you’re not laughing. So I guess watching or listening to comedy is a healthy thing in maintaining wellbeing. You first have to pull yourself out of a hole and find a level of contentment. A good sign that you’re experiencing a good state of wellbeing is that you can laugh.

If you could offer just one piece of advice for navigating the chaos of modern life, what would it be?

I am going to recommend mindfulness because I have studied it. Mindfulness has the most empirical evidence that it changes the brain. But you have to practice it every day and people don’t want to do that. They want to take a magic pill. But there are other ways like Tai Chi or prayer. I mean, who am I to say? But it has to be done every day. That discipline of taking control of your mind rather than letting ‘it’ control you. So you’re taming it like you would a wild child. And that’s the only way. 

What inspired your passion for mental health advocacy, and how has it shaped your approach to life?

It all began when I was outed by Comic Relief when they put a poster image of me in the London tube station saying: One in four people have mental illness. I never would have said this for risk of losing my job. So, I had to write a show and pretend it was a publicity poster.

The show appealed to a lot of people, and in the second half the audience would stand up and tell me their stories, that’s when I realised I was onto something. 

So I opened up the theatre to the public for free to hear the big boys of psychotherapy such as Peter Fonagy and Mark Williams. And I also served cookies! From this I learnt how interesting it is when people aren’t afraid anymore and that you can form community in seconds. But it takes somebody brave to say, “Here’s what’s really going on.” I don’t want any bullshit. Don’t tell me you’re fine when you’re not fine. 

How do you personally recharge and maintain your own mental health?

Well, I’m on medication. That’s how I recharge. But it doesn’t always work which is why you have relapses. So when you relapse, you have to change the medication, but it’s not foolproof. I might have been more of a mess if I didn’t do mindfulness. I have to do it every day. But then it suddenly creeps up on you, so I have to compensate by practising mindfulness. 

How can people recognise when they need to slow down and prioritise their Wellbeing, especially in a culture that glorifies ‘busyness’?

Our minds often aren’t very good at making this assessment. For me it would have to be a friend who reminds me that I’m going at a speed that is unhealthy. The body can show me in the same way you can look in someone’s eyes and tell if they have a mental illness and are burning out. I think somebody has to call it because it can feel so shaming to slow down. It really helps if somebody can compassionately tell you that you need to slow down. Sadly, we are not trained to know how to do this for ourselves. Mindfulness is a discipline. I’m a million miles away from the top of the mountain, but at least I’m trying. 

What about therapies such as Somatic Coaching. How might this approach help people slow down and priorities their Wellbeing?

Yes, Somatic Coaching is really good. If you are going too fast you won’t be able to feel anything. So the trick is to become aware of what is really going on. When there is so much fear being held in your nervous system then it has become locked into ‘fight and flight’ and you are flooding your brain with too much cortisol which means you are unable to feel anything in the body. 

When you start to become aware of your bodily sensations you start to notice that you are holding your breath, your head is in a fog, there is pain in your heart and everything is strangling you.

A great somatic therapist would help you explore what’s going on in the body. You get better quicker when you start to feel the body. Instead of five months, it’s five days. The body can take it, your mind can’t. In fact, paradoxically, that’s all that mindfulness is – the awareness of the body!

What do you think about the growing awareness of mental health in workplaces, and what more can be done?

I don’t think it’s changed enough yet, but I do think businesses are trying. It’s sad to think that employees are still in fear that they might be fired for speaking out about having a mental illness. I often get hired to give talks within the workspace. I tell people that this talk isn’t going to change your life. It’s you who have to change your habits. 

What has been your biggest personal breakthrough in your own mental health journey?

To know when I’m not well. I can read it now because of mindfulness. I can tune into my body, and I can tell when I’m not well. Then I start to turn things down and say ‘No’ to people and not be ashamed that I have depression. I stop getting caught in a loop where I do more things, going to a thousand parties. Instead, I’ve checked in to retreats or somewhere where it is silent. 

Any advice for someone considering going on a silent retreat?

I’d say, just do two days to start, and to check the person’s credentials. I went to Oxford and studied with Mark Williams. It could be really dangerous if you aren’t working with a professional. Go to established places like Gaia House or the Sharpham Trust.  

Can you tell me about the upcoming retreat you are co-hosting at Broughton Sanctuary in February? 

We’ve been running ‘Keeping it Real in a Frantic World’, a five-day retreat for the last few years at Broughton Sanctuary. It’s a glorious 5-Star venue with incredible facilities. I co-lead it with the monk, Thubten, who is brilliant at describing mindfulness in a humorous way and I’m good at explaining the science in a humorous way. Thubten and I have a really good rhythm together. I think it’s fantastic. 

On this retreat I also teach people one-to-one. You have these delicate creatures who don’t know each other in the beginning, but they all leave exchanging numbers. You form community as well as taking them through a training. The teaching answers questions that people have right now, such as, where do our thoughts come from? Why are they so vindictive? We try and answer them, but I like to do this with science. In May we are doing a shorter version of this retreat at ‘The Big Retreat’ in Pembrokeshire. 

Do you have any tips or New Year’s resolutions that you might be able to suggest?

Come on my retreat. It will change your life!

February (19-24th), Ruby Wax is co-hosting a retreat at Broughton Sanctuary Keeping It Real in a Frantic Worldalongside Buddhist monk Gelong Thubten & creative writer Rahla Xenopoulos.  

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Wellness Offerings at Broughton Sanctuary https://wellbeingmagazine.com/wellness-offerings-at-broughton-sanctuary/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wellness-offerings-at-broughton-sanctuary Tue, 10 Dec 2024 12:01:44 +0000 https://wellbeingmagazine.com/?p=108870 We were there before we knew it. One moment the hustle and bustle of London, the next Skipton Station, gateway to the uber-beautiful Yorkshire Moors.

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We were there before we knew it. One moment the hustle and bustle of London, the next Skipton Station, gateway to the uber-beautiful Yorkshire Moors. The last time my husband Richard and I were here, we had been hiking around nearby Malham Tarn and its lakes and waterfalls. But this time we were entering a different world. Think Downton Abbey, but with a contemporary twist: grandeur meets groundedness.

Broughton Hall, built in the 16th Century, is at the heart of a 3,000-acre estate which has been owned by the Tempest family for an incredible 32 generations, stretching back nearly 1,000 years to the days of William the Conqueror. Today, it is owned by Roger Tempest and his wife, Paris Ackrill, who have transformed an aristocratic seat into a modern day temple of transformation. Over the next four days, we were to experience the full range of Broughton Sanctuary’s revolutionary offerings and discover why it was named as one of the 30 most exciting destinations in the world to visit in National Geographic’s Cool List 2024.

We were welcomed by our very own ‘Carlson’, Martin the butler, who already had a fire blazing in our private sitting room in a wing of this magnificent stately home. After settling in, we were whisked away to Avalon, Broughton’s state-of-the-art Wellbeing Centre, its ultra-modern design inspired by the mathematical Fibonacci sequence. Here we enjoyed a restorative Yin Yoga session with Paris, the perfect grounding start to the retreat. 

Broughton’s design embraces nature at every turn. Avalon’s swimming pool deserves a special mention, its floor-to-ceiling windows adjacent to a giant sculpture of a reclining woman cloaked in autumn foliage in the garden outside. As I swam back and forth watching her, I felt like I was paying homage to Mother Nature herself. This natural symmetry is woven into the architecture of Broughton with even the steam rooms having a womb-like feel.

All the yoga and Pilates classes take place in The Nest, one of my favourite spaces. Perched high among the treetops, its glass walls blur the line between the inner and the outer, like a physical manifestation of the whole Broughton experience. It was here that we joined a Pilates session with Natalie early the following morning, the views amplifying the sense of tranquillity.  

The wellness offerings at Broughton go far beyond yoga and massage. There are also the more unexpected offerings. The crystal light bed was a revelation: lying under a cascade of coloured lights, I could feel my different chakra points becoming gently activated, creating a sense of peace and balance. This was followed by my first-ever flotation tank experience when I was amazed how easy it was to overcome my fear of confined spaces. Floating in complete darkness and silence, the silky water – a highly concentrated solution of Epsom Salts – seemed to cradle me, dissolving time and stress alike. 

Emerging from this womb-like experience I felt a profound sense of being reborn. I was especially thrilled to discover a locked sacroiliac (SI) joint, which had caused me countless restless nights, was suddenly free of pain. As a body therapist myself, I can only assume that it must have been able to fully relax and then release when I was floating. Rosie, Avalon’s manager, told me that scientific studies have shown how flotation tanks help to reset the body’s nervous system and can even heal conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

The land itself is a central narrative in Broughton’s story. More than 350,000 trees have been planted here, making it one of the UK’s leading rewilding initiatives, a sanctuary not just for humans, but also Iron Age pigs, Riggit Galloway cattle and, in the near future, beavers. The Iron Age pigs are a ‘keystone species’ – which have a disproportionately beneficial impact on their environment relative to their numbers – while the Galloways are an ancient breed of highland cattle with a distinctive white stripe running down their back. 

As well as Rewilding the Land, Broughton’s mission is also to Rewild the Spirit. Roger Tempest and his team recognise that to obtain peace within our ‘outer nature’ we must also obtain peace within our ‘inner nature’. So perhaps it is no coincidence that one of the highlights of our stay was Broughton’s Wild Wellbeing experience. 

On a rainy Sunday afternoon high on a hillside overlooking the estate and surrounded by breathtaking moorland, our group slipped into the welcoming embrace of a wood-fired hot tub. It was only then that we discovered what it meant to Rewild the Spirit. Wim Hof-style ice baths were followed by a screaming bacchanalia of wild swimming in a nearby lake before we finally took refuge in a woodland sauna. Even the rain seemed to amplify the sense of connection with nature, transforming our initial discomfort into raucous delight. 

There are many footpaths around the Broughton estate. One of these, the Odyssey Trail, meandered around what looked like an old-fashioned treasure map and one afternoon we set off on our path of discovery, allowing our bodies to guide us rather than our minds. The trail was punctuated by stone sculptures as well as memorable encounters with both the Riggit Galloways and the Stone Age pigs. The latter perform a vital role in the rewilding project by churning up soil to allow trees to grow. On the highest part of the moor, we came across the famous Broughton Moonbaths, strategically placed for meditation under the night sky. 

Even mealtimes felt like an extension of Broughton’s ethos of holistic wellbeing. We ate delicious meals – winter soups and hot lion’s mane tea were my favourites – in the dining hub, Utopia, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins and overlooking the walled gardens. As in other spaces around the estate, words of inspiration are etched on the menu board: “Heal” “Learn” “Thrive”.

The range of transformative retreats are hosted by luminaries including Ruby Wax, Lynn McTaggart and Rupert Sheldrake. What struck me most during our four days at Broughton was the profound sense of connection—to nature, to the people around me, and to myself. The team here feel less like staff and more like a family, each of them bringing their unique talents to create this haven of healing.

On a farewell walk on our last morning, we discovered a labyrinth made with rocks in the ground which we hadn’t seen before. It was next to a ‘fire temple’, a sheltered wooden structure with stools placed in a circle around the fire-pit at its centre. This was a place of ritual and ceremony, perfect for drumming, singing, sharing and story-telling. 

I decided to walk the labyrinth to see if it would spontaneously offer me something as a final gift. What I realised was that Broughton isn’t just a retreat: it’s a philosophy; a way to embrace life’s cycles and find strength in rest and reflection. This ethos permeates every space. Each of my unique experiences here, from chanting Kirtan to meditating in a Somadome, felt like an invitation to let go of expectation and simply be. This is not a place of rules or rigid itineraries. It’s a playground for the soul, where the only guidance is your intuition.

When we first arrived, I was expecting to experience something special: a wellness retreat in the grounds of an historic country house in one of the most beautiful parts of Britain. And I was not disappointed. But as we bid Broughton a fond farewell, I realised I had experienced something much deeper. Broughton Sanctuary is not just a place to heal; it’s a call to return to your essential self, a playground for the senses, a place to dream, grow, and reconnect with what truly matters. 

In truth, it is the perfect example of what the transformation guru and best-selling author, Dr. Joe Dispenza, describes as the true purpose of a retreat. “It means making the time to overcome your old personality and personal reality,” he writes. “To deepen your understanding of what it means to be a creator in your own life.” I left with a profound sense of possibility. If you’re seeking a transformative retreat then Broughton is calling. The question is, are you ready to answer?

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