Helping the Sydney community with relationships, parenting, ageing, disability, pastoral services and mental wellbeing.
Juliette Kirkwood is CatholicCare’s Community Care Worker for All Saints Parish, Liverpool and Our Lady of the Rosary Parish, Fairfield. With qualifications in Body Orientated Psychotherapy, focusing on the mind-body connection and treating trauma, and Food Science, she helps individuals, couples and families to identify their main areas of concern and then connects them with local support services. Juliette would normally meet people face-to-face in the local parish, however, due to current COVID restrictions, she is connecting with people over the phone and online. The Skills for COVID, Skills for Life webinar, was designed for the Liverpool and Fairfield communities to help see them through lockdown, but no matter where you live, you will find some value in her presentation. Juliette shares more…
In times of stress and anxiety, it is our inner storm that needs to be calmed. Regardless of what’s happening in the external world, it is our reactions and responses that shape the quality of our life.
It is crucial to be aware of how we respond to a collective wave of uncertainty and fear, as with this pandemic. For many of us, it is the first time experiencing a pandemic. A global event that has created a sense of ‘there is nowhere that we can go to escape’.
So how do you respond to such a scenario? Do you try to escape, do you freeze with fear, do you become highly anxious, do you look for someone or something to blame?
Skills for COVID, Skills for Life explores how we can use this opportunity to examine our coping mechanisms and face our inner landscape. It is likened to the hero’s journey in the Empire Strikes Back movie where Luke Skywalker is going through his preparation to become a Jedi and must enter the ‘cave of darkness’. Before he goes in, he asks Yoda, “What will I find there?” and Yoda replies, “only that which you take with you”.
This webinar is an exploration into how we can travel this unknown terrain with an empowering mindset.
It is easy to become paralysed with fear and feel powerless around what is unfolding in the world today. Skills for Covid, Skills for Life is here to remind you that you are a child of God and inherently miraculous. We just need a little reminder every now and then that life is a transformative journey where we mature and strive to make the most of the talents we are blessed with as we grow to realise our full potential.
Juliette Kirkwood
Community Care Worker
CatholicCare Sydney