Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 8th December 2024

I’ve been doing quite a lot of work over the last few weeks with different organisations, exploring the implications of Gloriously Ordinary Lives when we are directly supporting people in their own homes. There are two things that are repeatedly coming up, and they’re linked. Firstly, when we feel the need to impose what Gloriously Ordinary looks like to us onto someone else, and secondly when we believe that there are facts about what constitutes Gloriously Ordinary - what life should look like.

One conversation was around a man with learning disabilities who is overweight. The leader of the team who supports him clearly cares deeply about him. She told me how he’s becoming so overweight that she is worried for his health. She has tried to encourage him to eat more healthily, she’s worked with his team to set up a daily exercise programme. He’s stoically avoiding all the good advice, and she wants to work out how to make him see the truth.

It made me dig out the wonderful video of Lynne Seagle on the equally wonderful Open Future Learning site. She tells a fabulous story of a man who really isn’t big into keeping clean and the enormous amount of effort Serviceland put into trying to persuade him to wash. I won’t spoil the story, but please do go and invest 6 minutes into watching it as it exposes what a hiding to nothing working this way is.

I remember vividly during the last year of my Mum‘s life when I had my own fixed ideas of what her Gloriously Ordinary Life might look like. I remember coercing /encouraging (bullying) her into going out for a drive to the garden centre or going to visit friends or family. None of which she really wanted to do as she was very happy with her small pile of familiar books and an increasingly wacky range of daytime television.

My friend Ruth and I talked earlier in the year about her Mum who lives an hour away from her and who has fallen over several times in the last few months. Ruth wanted her mum to accept some paid support, and her mum was adamant that this was not what she wanted. Ruth was trying to work out how to persuade her and we talked about how important it is for us to except people’s right to live their life the way they choose and create their own version of gloriously ordinary even if it feels a bit risky to us.

In the Lynne Seagle video, she has a brilliant line where she talks about how we,

Persuade, control, record

Persuade, control, record

I think that sums it up beautifully.

We tell ourselves we’re doing a great job working out how to make the person lose weight/wash/tidy up/insert your personal preference of what you want the person to do. It ticks the box for us as ‘service providers’ and it reassures us we won’t get into trouble with CQC. We’re ‘doing a good job’, but it’s a million miles away from what works for the person.

Don’t get me wrong there are some fundamentals that we all need as humans – Test Four and Test Five are about connection and purpose and I challenge anyone to ignore these. What we’re often talking about though are what I call the ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ in life.

He really should lose weight.

She ought to get out more.

He really should sort through those boxes that are cluttering up his lounge.

She really ought to eat more healthily.

He really should get more exercise.

We’re back to that hiding to nothing.

I’m not talking about lazy support, about not caring if someone is overweight and doesn’t understand what that means for their health. I’m not talking about avoiding having human and thoughtful conversations with people about the implications of all those things we humans like to do that are a bit self-destructive. What I’m talking about is how we approach supporting, enabling and sometimes even creating Gloriously Ordinary Lives, with and for people …when they DON’T AGREE WITH US!

What Lynne describes so beautifully in her short video is that trying to make someone see our point of view, what we think is good for them, just doesn’t work. The only thing that makes any of us do some of those tough things that we need to do in life is when it makes sense to us.

PS. You really should all get out and swim in that lake.

PPS. Did you see? The Gloriously Ordinary Sundays Podcast episode 9 is here. I chat with Kate Mercer from ⁠Black Belt Advocacy⁠. We reflect on how advocacy is about being alongside somebody, and the role of advocacy in creating Gloriously Ordinary Lives, and introduce our new training programme, ⁠'Advocating with and for Gloriously Ordinary Lives'⁠.

PPS. Have you heard the news?

Tricia Nicoll and Kate Mercer are excited to announce our new programme, Advocating with and for Gloriously Ordinary Lives, starting in January 2025.

A Gloriously Ordinary Lives and Black Belt Advocacy collaboration.

BOOKING IS NOW LIVE! To find out more and book a place, click here.