Welcome to the world of Normal Magic
A guide to balancing your mood and looking after your mental health..
Normal Magic is designed by bringing evidence from science, research and practice together to form a unique framework that can be used to inspire and guide our individual approaches to mentally healthy living.
In our experience, both clinical and personal, we find Normal Magic easy to use, easy to remember and easily embedded in everyday life.
The aim of Normal Magic’s framework is to anchor us when facing and recovering from challenges that have affected our emotional wellbeing and our mental health. Normal Magic can help build on our resilience to better tackle future challenges. Normal Magic is designed to flex and become a bespoke fit for anyone who connects with it.
This is our recipe that creates Normal Magic.
Ingredients
Normal M.A.G.I.C. is a strength based model designed to support the connecting of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours with our internal and external world. We use an eclectic and complimentary bundle of quality ingredients, all with their own science, evidence base and feedback of effectiveness. These ingredients make up the detail behind Normal and M.A.G.I.C.
Normal: Normal! What does this even mean? When we refer to Normal in Normal Magic we are referring to what Normal might be for us individually, as a family, as a culture, as a neighbourhood. It is not used to measure, compare or benchmark against an imposed Normal. We seek, identify, validate, celebrate and love the diversity and uniqueness of our individual Norms.
M.A.G.I.C. is the mixed bag of evidence, research and individual experiences that contribute to this framework and it’s three aims:
- To encourage our own help and resolution seeking,
- To bring a positive experience to those seeking help and resolution around us.
- To identify and build a plan based on existing strengths.
M: ME!
M Looks at the ME!: this helps us tune in to how we are being when we are help seeking, responding or supporting. We value looking at how we interpret and communicate in the context of our own emotions and that of others.
A: Active Listening
A brings Active listening to the table by exploring different listening styles. We think it is helpful to tune in to what listening style might be needed from you when you are supporting another. We think it is vital to know what listening style you need when you are help seeking. Talking about our mental health can be much easier when you choose the right listener.
G: Generate help and resolution.
G Looks at how to Generate unique next steps to balance emotional wellbeing and protect mental health. We consider how we identify our needs, how we communicate our needs, how we explore ideas and expand our catalogue of strategies.
I: Inspire and be Inspired.
I is here to celebrate how we inspire and are inspired when it comes to balancing our emotional wellbeing and looking after our mental health. Tuning in to the inspiring ways we find our calm or motivate our energy is where our unique MAGIC can happen. We call these details Diamonds and we see the incredible benefits to our mental health when we find them.
C: Compliment:
The more we do something the better we tend to get at it, including looking after ourselves. C brings a reminder that the whole cycle of communicating needs acknowledging, nurturing, celebrating and complimenting, this is where we see M.A.G.I.C. really happen.
Method
We know that you know yourself best. You know what has brought you to us today and what you are concerned about, so our method keeps you and your child or young person at the heart of conversation. Our method is to bring your concern and our clinical information together to find a way forward that you feel motivated and hopeful about. A way forward that we can both realistically commit to with a shared goal that we both consider achievable and measurable.
This method has received positive feedback from families and professionals over the years, as a result, Normal Magic now sits at the centre of our individual plans of mental health care. This method enhances access and compliments our interventions such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT,) Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR,) Parent and Carer Programmes, Family Recovery and Resilience Programmes and Single Session Therapy (SST.)
When we consider our method for delivering workshops and training programmes, we translate the above to keep the aims of the workshop or training clear and achievable. We pledge our delivery style to be one you experience as relaxed, connecting, safe, exploratory and interactive. We ensure outcomes of the programme are met and we very much hope anyone attending a workshop or training, leaves feeling reassured and inspired.
Sometimes the simplest information and the briefest intervention is all we need to find our wellbeing once again. Our role is to help you find what you need to recover, rebalance and build on existing resilience.