This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on acceptance tools. One of the things that I found over the many years that I've worked with clients is they get stuck holding onto things, wishing it would be different, should be different, could be different. And they get stuck in that struggle with something that is somewhat unchangeable. So what we're going to talk about today is different ways, are different ways to help clients approach the concept of acceptance. And we'll also look at some of the reasons why clients may resist acceptance. And I'll give you a hint, it's kind of the reason they resist the word forgiveness too. I'm going to go over after a brief introduction, accepting failure, isolation and rejection, loss of control and death. Why did I pick these? Well, these are our basic fears. So if we don't accept them, then we're going to have that fight or flight reaction going on. And even if we do accept them, we may briefly have that fight or flight reaction going on. But then we can take that energy and harness it and figure out how to improve the next moment. So one of the things that I like to do for clients when I'm doing a group or even an individual is just to start with a warm up and start with something easy. The weather, the news or you wake up sick, you know, you wake up and it's a rainy, nasty day outside and you've got to wait for the bus or walk half a mile to work.   They can control their access to them, but they can't control, you know, what's going on in Russia or North Korea or whether it's going to rain today or not. So I encourage them to pick one of these, you know, each person will have their pet thing that irritates them on a regular basis and ask themselves when you wake up and encounter this and it causes you to stress. Look at the situation. What are the positives in this situation and we'll stick with the weather for this one. It's gloomy. It's rainy. It's just mucky outside and you are even having a good hair day. So I'll interject that there so you know your hair is going to go flat the minute you walk out the door. So you can get this little attitude of, oh my gosh, I am so frustrated. It's, you know, raining all the time. But I encourage people to take a breath and look at what are the positives in this situation. You know, it's replenishing the water supply. It's watering the plants. It's allowing the grass to grow. That could be a negative if you mow your own grass and try to find some of the things. Another good thing when I lived in Florida, we used to look forward to those afternoon showers because it would cool things off a little bit. So trying to find some positives in it. If you think to dialectics, encouraging patients to balance the positives and negatives. Yeah, there are some negatives to it. You know, another thing I like when it rains is I don't have to wash my car. It washes all the pollen right off of it for me. I have to buff it a little bit. But, you know, I try to find the positives even in something that I'm not thrilled about. I'm accepting the fact that it's raining. I can't do anything about it. So I might as well look at what I can get out of it. You can also look at the situations. What is within your control? You know, in the case of the weather, that's not in your control. If you can't do anything about that. But I can either get grumpy about it and irritable and slosh around, slosh into the office and just be a grumpy guss all day long. Or I can choose to just accept that that's the way it's going to be and hopefully tomorrow it'll be sunny. If you wake up sick, the same kind of thing goes. What are the positives to waking up sick?  That was a good thing. It could hopefully be worse. You woke up and you've got a runny nose. Maybe you can catch it early. You know, maybe you can look at it as bonus. I get to take a day off from work if you're able to do that.  You've just got to accept the fact that that's the way it is. So we do this warm up practice and sometimes it can get kind of funny. Sometimes, you know, it just goes and it's not as amusing, but it gives people the perspective or the beginning of the perspective of what acceptance is. It's just saying it is what it is. What can I do now to improve the next moment? Acceptance can feel like surrender to a lot of our clients. It can feel like giving someone else or something else power and a lot of our clients have control issues. They've been victimized in the past. They've been heard in the past. Maybe they feel out of control of whatever their mental health condition is that's going on and they don't want to give up any more power. I encourage them to kind of turn it around and think of acceptance as choosing to use their energy and power to get closer to the people and things that make their life meaningful. So going back to the news or the weather, you know, those things you could choose to let upset you and you could go off on a tangent. I know my husband does every once in a while. He'll start reading the news and oh my gosh, you know, it's just probably a two hour tirade.  Got to slow down. But looking at how you're choosing to use your energy is actually very empowering to a lot of people, letting them know that, you know, some of these things are out of your control and you don't have to get upset over them. After all, how much is getting upset really going to help? Acceptance doesn't mean that they like or agree with what's going on. And, you know, we talk about this some with forgive when we talk about forgiveness too. Acceptance of something doesn't mean you have to like it. You don't have to like what's going on in the world today. You don't have to like the fact that it's raining or that you're sick. You're just acknowledging that it is what it is in the present moment. And then stepping back and going, all right, what now? What's the next step? Many of us, you know, our clients included, have been taught to control all of our feelings. Unfortunately, feelings are natural or fortunately, I don't know how you want to look at that. But we are going to have an automatic, you know, anger or fear or sadness, happiness reaction. It's whether we hold on to that and tell ourselves whether it should or shouldn't be happening that leads to this distress. So we've talked about this concept a lot of not fighting with our emotions, just accepting that, okay, I feel angry right now. What can I do to address the situation or how I'm reacting? I found this quote or passage when I was doing the research for this presentation that I'm going to read to you and I usually just read to you from slides. But Tara Brock has written a bunch of books on radical acceptance, and I can't say that I've owned any of her books, but I came across her stuff doing this presentation and what I have read so far has been very engaging. Anyway, she says, I became increasingly aware of how creating an enemy, which was kind of anger in her and hate in her mind, in my mind was yet another form of violence. So I decided to start a newspaper meditation based on radical acceptance. I'd look at the headlines, read a bit and then stop. In that pause, I would witness my thoughts and allow myself to acknowledge my growing outrage. Then I'd investigate, letting the feelings express themselves fully, almost every day as I'd open to anger and feel its full force, it would unfold into fear for our world. As I stayed in direct contact with the fear, it would unfold into grief for all the suffering and loss, and the grief would unfold into caring about those beings who were bound to suffer. And the pain of that was heartbreaking. Sitting with the feelings that arose in my newspaper meditation left me raw and tender. It reminded me that under my anger and fear was caring about life, and it motivated me to act not from an anger focused on my enemy, but from a caring. So, you know, you might want to think about that. And this is what we're talking about with acceptance acceptance takes us from being anger driven and rage driven to being compassionate caring about ourselves caring about what we need, and caring about other people which tends to motivate in a slightly different way doesn't use energy certainly. But it can be a more productive use of energy sometimes. So radical acceptance means recognizing and accepting reality for what it is right now your reality is in you're in the ceu presentation. And it is what it is. What can you do to improve the next moment. I don't know about you. I really don't like lectures. I'm not an auditory learner. So sitting through an hour lecture I'd probably like be twiddling my thumbs or, you know, I usually find something to do like crochet while I'm listening to something if I have to participate in the lecture. But anyway, that goes past recognizing your recognizing it is what it is right now and you have to do it or you have to be present in the moment. The other thing which gets a little tricky is that everything has a cause. They say that should not is the opposite of should. So everything that happens, sometimes we'll say well this shouldn't be. Well when we look at it in reality, if you take all of the facts in not just the cherry picked facts that you may have, you take all of the facts and you can see how this situation came to be. You've got a project you worked on at work and you know, you turned it in or, you know, it went to your boss and it didn't go well and you said well, we should have done better on that project. Well when you look back at the reality of what happened how much time people devoted to it and how much energy was put into it and the skill set that was devoted to that project maybe you didn't even have the right people on the team. You can see that you know in reality, given all the facts or how much effort we put into it, this is what should have happened when your kid comes home and they failed a test. You know you're thinking to yourself well you shouldn't have done you shouldn't have failed that test, but when you look at the totality of how much he or she studied. Maybe that's not true. Now maybe the test was just unreasonably hard. There are always other things to look at. If the test was unreasonably hard. That again is reality.  So in reality. Yeah, it makes sense that your child failed the test. So, accepting that things are as they are without trying to argue what should have happened or shouldn't have happened. Sometimes the causes are hidden because of lack of awareness or knowledge so just understanding that it is what it is and it's not usually oftentimes necessary to go into what were all the facts that created this reality right now. What you want to accept is the fact that this is the reality right now what can I do to improve the next moment we can't go back and change the past. That's what it is. We want to recognize and embrace the reasons that life is worth living. Okay this thing didn't go as planned. This area right over here right now may suck. Totally. You know if you're working with a client who's got severe generalized anxiety disorder or major depression. You know that part of their life. It is what it is right now and if they tell themselves they shouldn't be depressed. They shouldn't give them feeling powerless and guilty and angry and resentful and hopeless often because that those conditions don't just turn on a dime. So we want to work with them and say okay this part over here is really unpleasant right now. Let's look at all of the reasons that you want to get better and embrace the reasons that life is worth living so let's keep hope because that'll help keep the person motivated to keep improving the next moment. Whatever this depression or anxiety the causes for that what's going on right now that's in this situation in this context what is causing your depression and what can you do to improve the next moment. So if you're sitting with a client right now and your client is, you know, really depressed and sitting in your office, you know, asking them. What is your reality right now. You know where is your depression on a scale of one to five and you know anchor the scale for them. And then say okay what can we do or what can you do right now to move half a step up, not even from a two to a three from a two to a two and a half.   It may not have lasted long, but there was that brief moment in there where you got a reprieve. So we want to encourage people to recognize and embrace the reasons that life is worth living. Turn their mind towards acceptance. We have been taught again to control our feelings. So our natural reaction is to fight it to tell ourselves what should be happening or what how we should or should not feel. That's not acceptance that's arguing that's wrestling. Turn it towards acceptance ago. Okay, I'm depressed. What am I going to do about it and become willing to participate in the world as it is. And that's challenging because we all want you know, I could be happy if all of these things were different. Well, all of these things aren't different right now. So how can you be happy in the moment right now. And again, it may not be enduring happiness for years on end. It may be happiness for five minutes, but that's five more minutes than you had. One metaphor example they give is finding ways to address the cause or your reaction to what's going on.  Now you've got two options, well, several options, but the two options we're going to talk about is the one person who gets upset and irritable and just freaking out and calls the cops and they're going to get even. And they spend the next three, four, five, eight hours just all in a tizzy trying to get justice. And then you have the other person who looks at it and says, Well, that's really unpleasant. And yes, they're going to call the cops and file a police report. But then they make the call, cops come out, they file the report, they go down to the hardware store, and they find some paint to cover it up. Before the end of the day, that person's house doesn't have graffiti on it. They took that upset, they took that anger and they said, I'm really angry right now. Probably not that calmly. And they said, What can I do with that energy that helps me get towards what's meaningful to me? How can I, I need to accept the fact that my house is graffiti. There's no ifs ands or buts about that. So what do I do next? So I said we were going to move on to applying these concepts and talking about some of our basic fears, how we help people accept some of their basic fears. And failure is one of them. You know, a lot of us really don't like to fail. And because we've taught that success is so important, what we haven't been taught, again, is how important failure is. Failure is one of those things that kind of shapes our learning. We step out of our comfort zone. We're likely going to fail a little bit. Think about trying a new recipe. You know, this is another one of those that you can start off with. It's not really super personally charged for anybody. You try a new recipe and you don't succeed.  I'm a pinch and a dash type of person. So my recipes don't always succeed right away, but I learn every time I do one. I'm like, Okay, yeah, not going to put so much basil in next time. Is it the most efficient way? Not necessarily. But when you fail, instead of looking at it as a failure, encourage people to figure out what can I learn from this. Identify what caused the failure. You know, if you're trying a new recipe, you know, there might not have been realistic planning ahead of time. Maybe it was something that called for simmering a sauce for eight hours. And you start this 45 minutes before your company gets there and oops, you forgot some of the things at the grocery store. So you're trying to find substitutions in the refrigerator. I think most of us have done that one time or another. So lack of realistic planning could have caused the failure. Even if you would have, you know, done your best given the situation, given the reality of the situation to follow the recipe is not going to turn out exactly as it was supposed to. Lack of knowledge. You know, sometimes you may not know the difference between dicing and grading or something. You may not have the knowledge of how to carry out the task, even if you have the knowledge. And this is really important for a lot of our clients. Knowledge versus skills. You can know a bunch of stuff. You can read psychology books, for example, until doomsday.  Those are skills. So do you have the knowledge? Okay, if you do, do you have the skills?  You may know what it means to saute, but can you do it in the way that needs to be done in order to adequately brown the onions until they're, you know, candied. A lack of focus can also cause failure if you're trying to do too many different things at once and actions of someone or something else. It's not always your fault. Sometimes you're working in a group or, you know, sometimes whoever wrote the recipe made a mistake. There's a lot of different things that could come into it. But we want to look at what are the facts when a failure happens so we can learn from it. We can learn that, okay, next time I need to allow, you know, eight hours so I can let the sauce simmer or this is the knowledge I need. So the next time this happens, I can not fall into the same trap. The same is true when we fail to meet a goal. You know, you may try to, I'll give you an example when I was, from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper. I always thought I was going to go to medical school. Always did. And, you know, I got to college and lo and behold calculus and I just aren't friends. Once they started putting a bunch of letters in there. It didn't and the Greek letters especially, you know, my brain just kind of turned to jelly. So, you know, what caused the failure. Well, you know, calculus for one and organic chemistry for two, but lack of knowledge.  I had my course plan out, but I did not have the knowledge or the ability to gain that knowledge at that point in time with the resources I had now had I had a different tutor that might have been different. I didn't. So looking at what caused the failure. And there were a lot of other factors that went into it, but I didn't meet that goal. So, do I continue to feel guilty about that and beat myself up and be regretful over it? Well, I could, but is that going to do any good? I'm almost 50 years old. It's too late for me to go back to medical school in any meaningful sort of way, even if I wanted to. So that's one of those things I've got to choose to decide in the big picture. This isn't worth my time and identifying what went well. You know, I went to college. I got a good education. I'm doing something similar and in reality, I think I'm doing something I like a whole lot more than I would have being a family physician. But that's, you know, my perspective now I found something that I was good at. What can you learn from the mistakes? You know, part of what I learned from that failure to meet that goal was that there are other options and other opportunities that are out there. So encourage people when they don't meet a goal, say, okay, what can you learn from it? If you want to achieve a goal in the future, what things do you need to do differently? So try to get as much out of it, whatever the failure is as you can, instead of looking at it as, you know, burnt toast. And I say burnt toast because when you burn toast, there's not much you can get out of it. You just have to start over again. But, well, you learn not to set the toaster quite so high the next time. But burnt toast is pretty much useless once it comes out. You can't even use it as croutons. It's just nasty. You don't want to have your life be like that. You want to look at every failure as a learning opportunity. And or encourage people to walk the middle path, acknowledging the fact that you know what, I failed. I didn't succeed. However, I am going to be okay. And looking at it in terms of remembering embracing those reasons that life is worth living. Encouraging people to acknowledge the fact that you can fail at something. You can fail at a lot of things. But you can also, there are also a lot of good things in your life and encourage that attitude of gratitude. Failure to be happy is an interesting one. A lot of our clients, this is their main goal. They came to treatment because they want to be happy. They don't want to be anxious. They don't want to be depressed anymore. And they may try. They may try to go on antidepressants. And the first type of antidepressant doesn't work. They may try cognitive behavioral and that doesn't work for them. They may try EMDR and that doesn't work for them. And they fail each time they try to go to treatment or maybe they're trying different counselors. And they start to get frustrated. So the key here when I have clients who come to me and they failed at recovery, if you will, is I try to turn it around and I say this is a learning opportunity. And the same thing for my clients who've gone through residential treatment and come back through because they relapsed. And I'm like, all right, instead of looking at this as a failure, let's look at what did you learn about yourself from trying these things? Well, you learned what doesn't work. So we don't have to do that again. What else did you learn? And generally every interaction people do learn things about themselves and about whatever this issue is that they can build upon and encouraging people when they're, you know, failing to be happy, if you will. To identify things that they can be happy about that they used to be happy about that they hope to be happy about again and ways they can infuse contentment. Sometimes happiness is too much to ask for contentment into their lives. So failure acceptance of failure is accepting that I'm not perfect. And that's hard for a lot of people, especially if they've got low self esteem, especially if they're already feeling disempowered, hopeless and helpless. Encouraging them to look at acceptance of the failure as a learning opportunity and the ability to use that energy instead of beating themselves up, use that energy to gain the knowledge, skills, planning, whatever that they need in order to not fail the next time. Ask clients what failure means to them. For some clients, it's a huge deal from the way they were raised.  It's very global, internal, stable and negative in terms of attributions. Encourage them to separate what they do from who they are.  Remind them though, you know, on the last page we talked about accepting it and finding the good in it. But some clients have to go through the loss process because failure is a loss. In what ways does failure cause you to feel angry? You know, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They move through denial, they get to anger. Who are you angry at? Are you angry at the world? Are you angry at the injustice?  Let's get all this out there because then you can figure out when you ask the what next, you can figure out what you want to address or what you need to address. Does it make you feel hopeless and helpless if you fail at something? You know, like I said, a lot of our clients come in and they want to feel happy. And all we're telling them is, well, we'll try something else because these other three things didn't work. They may feel like they're failing in treatment. When in reality, they're not failing at all. They're just going through a process that's not as cut and dried as we would hope. And how can you integrate this loss or failure into your life narrative? You know, this is one of those game changers, if you will. You're closing this particular storyline. It may not even be closing a chapter yet. It may just be part of a storyline that you're closing off. All right, so what does that mean for your character for the rest of your life book, if you will? Isolation and rejection. Well, we know we all need to feel loved. If you look at Maslow's hierarchy, you know, you have the basic biological needs. And then right up there after safety, you have love and belonging. We need to feel loved. We're not meant to be hermits, but we need to love ourselves as well as other people. So encouraging people when they feel rejected to look at who is rejecting you. A lot of times, you know, you may get a little bit of rejection of something you did from someone else. You know, my old boss wasn't always happy with every single thing I did. And so he would counsel me on it and, you know, that's fine. It's all a learning process when you're, especially when you work for someone for many, many years, there are going to be things that you don't always agree on and they don't like. So I could look at it as a rejection of me or I could look at it as a rejection of a behavior I did or didn't do. So who is rejecting you?   Sometimes people interpret nonverbals or constructive criticism as rejection because they're rejecting themselves inside their own head. They're telling themselves, I'm so worthless.   And the third voice some people hear is someone from their past. If they had a critical parent, if they had a critical teacher or coach that was got kind of stuck in their head, if you will, they may still be trying to live up to that person's expectations and feeling like they're failing. Every time they fail, they're replaying failures from their past. So I want to know who's rejecting you so we can accept what's going on in the present based on the present. This isn't when you failed to make the cheerleading squad or the football team. This isn't when you failed to come home for curfew or whatever it was. This isn't anything in the past. We're dealing with what's going on in the present. So we need people to get focused and accept what's going on in the present. Are they being rejected or is it a behavior? And where's that rejection coming from? Are other people really rejecting them or their behavior? Or is it something that they're telling themselves or someone from their past, those internal critics that need to be silenced? To combat isolation and rejection, I want people to, you know, the whole what next step, I want people to define what it looks like to not feel isolated and rejected and make a plan. A lot of our clients, if you look at it or, you know, back over some of your clients who have issues with rejection and low self-esteem.  And we want to take a look at that and go, okay, who have you let in and what does that look like? Find common ground with people. A lot of times I've found that clients, if they don't agree on everything and their friend or significant other or their boss has different opinions on certain things, then they feel isolated. And I encourage them to walk the middle path and look at the things that they do agree on. What common ground do they have? Yeah, you're probably not going to agree on every single thing. But that doesn't mean that you're isolated. That doesn't mean you're the only one. If there's something that's important to you, maybe you have a particular philosophy or something that is really important to you that your significant other doesn't necessarily agree with you on. And you can go out and find people who share similar interests. We encourage people in who have addictions, you know, this is the most obvious example to go out into recovery communities and find people who are going through a similar thing. We encourage people who are survivors of suicide to go out and go to support groups to combat this isolation because there aren't a ton of people. I mean, there's a lot more people than you would think, but there's not a ton of people that you're going to walk up to at the water cooler at work and be like, hey, I'm a survivor of suicide and start finding common ground. So sometimes there are issues that our clients are dealing with that they're going to have to develop a plan to find common ground. They're accepting that right now they feel isolated. But the what next is, how can I change that? How can I address this situation? And synergize. Recognizing that you may have certain skills and your friend may have certain skills. And, you know, they may be very, very different skills, but together you can do some really awesome things. So instead of looking at differences as divided dividers, look at differences as opportunities to synergize. So instead of pushing people away who are different, bring them in, see what you can learn and what you can build from that. You can combat rejection by encouraging clients to build their self-esteem and know their worth and separate the rejection of ideas or behaviors from rejection of themselves as a person. So, you know, somebody may not like what you did, but it doesn't necessarily mean they don't like you. And if you do something they don't like and they hate you as a person for whatever that was, is that person crucial to your support system? Because it sounds like there's more stuff going on with them. And a lot of times in isolation and rejection, when people perceive or feel like they're being rejected or isolated, the negativity or animosity that they're perceiving from the other person often has a lot more to do with the other person's stuff.  You feel like she's always criticizing you and rejecting you. What else may be going on with her that may be causing this? Is it a rejection of you? Maybe she can't handle anybody else right now. What else is going on? And get, again, a bigger picture of the reality of the situation. When people feel rejected or isolated, encourage them to accept the feeling. Once you accept it, you can deal with it. Once, you know, when you wake up in the morning and you're sick, the first thing you do is go, okay, well, what are my symptoms? Well, when you have an unpleasant feeling, the first thing you do is go, okay, what am I feeling? Now, what can I do about it? Observe the facts in the reality of the present situation. You know, we're not acting out something from our past. What's going on in the present with this particular person? Appreciate differences as much as you can. And remember that many times, if there's an issue between you and someone else, it may have to do with the other person's stuff. So you can't necessarily own every perception of rejection. You know, they may just be having a really bad day and be kind of cranky. So encouraging people to be more realistic. Loss of control. You can't control everything, nor would you want to. And we'll spend some time talking about this when I do groups on it. I'm like, imagine you were in total control of everything. What would you could control the weather? You could, you were in control of everything. And we break it down to if you're in control of everything, then in a sense, you may also be responsible for everything. And imagine what it must be like to try to control everything. For most of us, trying to control everything in our little microcosm of the world is overwhelming. So accepting the fact that there's just some things that we can't control. Again, it doesn't mean you like it. You just recognize that, you know what, this one's, I'm powerless over this. When you have a problem, you have four options. You can change the situation. So if you're in a really bad relationship, you can change the situation, get out of the relationship, go to counseling. You can change your response to the situation. You can accept that this person has different ideas and preferences than you do. And the two of you aren't on the same page, but for whatever reason, you're just not going to get upset about it anymore. And I'm not necessarily recommending that. I'm just giving you a hypothetical here. You can accept and tolerate the problem. You're in a bad situation and you're going to keep fighting and you're going to keep going at each other's throats, but you're not going to change the situation. You're just, that's the way it's going to be, but you're going to tolerate it instead of feeling like you want to run all the time.  You can feel like you're trapped and argue and fight all the time. None of those sound really appealing except for maybe changing the situation. When you think about it, when somebody's depressed, we want to say, what's making you depressed right now? What is contributing to this depression? We want to look at vulnerabilities. We want to look at cognitions. We want to, you know, all the stuff that we're trained to assess for. And we can help people figure out what parts of the situation are within their control. And then they can decide how to change things. And there may be some situations that they need to change their response to in order to save enough energy to start feeling happy and not run down and exhausted. Make a list of all the things that aggravate you because you can't control them.  And then I have them bring it back the next day because people can spend a long time writing down the things that aggravate them. But this is also a good activity for individual counseling. How people make this list. Circle each thing that results because of someone else's thoughts or actions. And this can get, this is where sometimes we process in group or in session because a lot of times people don't know where to assign control to. I don't want to say blame. I want to say control traffic. How is traffic due to somebody else's thoughts or actions? Well, traffic is due to the fact that everybody gets up and thinks they need to be out the door by 815. And whoever set the traffic lights didn't time them well enough. So you have to stop at every traffic light. So bad traffic, heavy traffic often results from a lot of people sort of thinking the same thing at the same time. Now, can you change that situation? No, you know, you're not going to get people to start staggering when they leave, but you can change what you do in that situation. That is take back roads or leave 15 minutes earlier. Poor group performance. You know, obviously that one's easier to say, well, other people had a part in this.   Now, the cashier could let that get to them and really just wear them down over time or they could recognize that that person was probably lashing out for some other reason. Was it fair? No. But acceptance is not about saying what's fair. It's saying what is this person was rude. Now what am I going to do about it? Am I going to let it ruin my day? So we circle those things to show how many things that irritate people are the result of somebody else's thoughts or actions.  Time passing and that's kind of a weird one, but getting older is an act of God. We can't control that. I can't control that and go back and be 18 again. I can't control the fact that my son is getting ready to start college next year. Oh my gosh. Those are things that just are going to happen whether we want them to or not. Holidays are kind of in there.  And for some people, these are unpleasant situations that they don't want to have to deal with. Well, the holiday is going to come. Thanksgiving is going to come whether you want it or not. It's how you decide to deal with it. So encouraging them to focus on what part of this can you deal, can you address. And have them identify how they can radically accept or mitigate these things. We can't necessarily make them go away, but we can mitigate their impact or encourage clients to mitigate their impact on the client. It doesn't have to devastate you how can you either change the situation or change your reaction to the situation. Because loss comes some element of denial, anger, depression and acceptance. And yes, I left out bargaining, because people generally jump right through that one. So it's important for people to understand that when they lose something, whether it's loss of control or loss of self-esteem loss of faith face, because they failed at something. It's really going to be some element of grief that they need to deal with. All of these emotions are normal to feel, acknowledge and let go. You know, hanging on to that anger isn't going to do any good. Harness that energy and use it for something that helps you achieve your goals. Losses come in all forms. You can have a loss of childhood. A lot of our clients report that they had an unhappy childhood and they are really angry that they didn't have warden Jim Cleaver for their parents. Well, we can't change that. What can we do about it now? Staying angry about it in the present is an option, certainly. Is that helping you achieve your goals and empowering you? Loss of optimism or hope. Now, there's one of those really vague ones, but encouraging people to look at when something happens. You know, if it kind of bursts their bubble and they lose optimism. Alright, so let's grieve this loss. You know, you had hope that something was going to change and get better, but it didn't. What are you going to do about it?  You're going to be grievable. A loss of or change in friendships.  Even with the internet, when you move and change jobs, I had a friend of mine who was in our our homeschool co-op. And she moved 40 miles away. We're still Facebook friends, but we don't get together twice a week like we used to. That was a loss. That was a change. And, you know, I miss seeing her. So there's, there are certain things that I need to do in order to deal with that and, you know, accept and and make the best out of it. And obviously deaths are losses that we grieve. Some losses are voluntary, like moving or changing jobs, but it doesn't mean that they're not going to cause an element of grief. You know, it may even be a positive thing. You're moving for promotion or you're moving to retire. That's awesome. But it's also meaning leaving some things behind that you loved. Some losses are involuntary like death, graduation, divorce or layoffs. You know, sometimes, like in the case of divorce, you'll get served papers and you don't have a choice. It's, you know, whether or not to sign them or whether or not the marriage is going to end. So figuring out how to deal with those. I encourage clients to think of losses as end of season cliffhangers when an actor leaves. For any of you who've watched NCIS, we've gone through several iterations of the female lead. You know, I got really attached to Kate when she was there. She was the first female. And then, you know, they took her out and replaced her with Ziva. And, you know, I got, eventually I warmed up to Ziva. It took me a while. I wasn't ready to let go of that and accept that there was a new Kate. And then they added the new girl. I can't remember what her name is. Obviously I haven't attached to her as much. But my point being, sometimes things are going to happen like in your favorite show and actor leaves. And you may not like how the next season starts with this new person. It's an adjustment period. However, you have to accept that it is or quit watching the show. So think to yourself, how is the next season going to play out? You know, the loss has happened. You've replaced it with the new actor. So how are you going to integrate this new actor into your next season? Addressing loss, deal with anger. Anger is a response to a perceived threat. It makes sense when you lose something you care about, you want to fight to keep it or protect it. Identify what parts of the loss you're threatened by. And instead of going into something that's really, you know, obtuse, I just encourage them to write down the sentence kind of like Bart Simpson does on the chalkboard. On a piece of paper as many times as they need to. I am angry because blah. I am angry because and just get it all out. And not to stop before they complete the sentence, I am terrified that. So sometimes things are going to happen. A lot of times things happen that involve both anger and fear and encouraging people to identify what those things are so they can figure out what to do about them. What parts they can change and how they can change their reaction for the things they can't change, how they can change their reaction in a meaningful way to help them let go of the anger or fear or use that energy to fuel positive change in their life. And I've worked with crime victims before, and we used to have a quilt for survivors of crime that everybody would get together once a year, and each person would add a patch to the quilt. And it was really meaningful for people to be able to kind of tell their story in that little patch. And then it would be displayed at the, at the courthouse during victim awareness week, but it was important for them to be able to make a statement be able to own that and not feel like they had to hide from it anymore. So I encourage people to figure out what can you do to use this energy that was stirred up by the anger or fear in order to help you feel empowered and move towards your goal of happiness. To address depression. Most losses involve some aspect which people are helpless to change, you know, and you can nitpick and try to think of some time this wouldn't be true which is why I said most losses. But most of the time there's something that some part of it that can't be changed.  Most of the time it's gone. So what do you do about that. Well how did it benefit your life before you lost it. My grandmother recently passed.  My daughter never got to know her so helping my kids know who their grandma was through pictures through stories about my grandmother could help me enhance and maintain the benefits and I remember the things that she taught me. So she is ever present so looking at how I can kind of keep her alive in my memories. And what is meaningful to keep working toward despite the loss. So I'm yeah she's gone now, but what is what is important for me to keep working toward what would she want me to keep working toward despite the loss. So taking the loss and going okay I can't get it back but what can I glean from it how did improve my life or enhance it. If it's something you wanted but never had or did. What do you have so cultivating that attitude of gratitude. Maybe you didn't have the ideal childhood. All right, I'm, you know that is unfair, but unfortunately we can't go in a time machine and put us back there. What do you have now that you can hold on to you know how is your life awesome now and maybe even compare yourself to other people who didn't who did have an ideal childhood as it seems who aren't having the best life now. So I try to stay away from making negative comparisons but sometimes it helps people to really realize what they have. Maybe they wanted to achieve a career goal and they never did. Well, all right, they didn't but what did they achieve instead. We've got clients and friends who want to have that quote perfect marriage, which I'm not exactly sure how you define that. But if they don't have it, then let's look at that marriage that they've got and say what's good about that, you know maybe they're in a marriage that's the decent, but it's not perfect it's not, you know, television worthy. Well, but what is good about it and how many people really actually have a quote perfect marriage and what in your life now brings you pride and joy. So encouraging people to look around and it's not going to make the depression go away, but encouraging people to look at the loss as an aspect of their life, instead of their whole life being gone, can help them kind of put things in perspective. Anti acceptance, have clients keep a log for a week of everything that makes them anxious or angry. And review the log and cross off the things that they accepted and or took meaningful action with. So if something happened and they're like, you know what, I just let it go. Cool, cross that off. For the things that they held on to and argued the shoulds in their own mind. Identify what kept them from accepting the situation and what the benefit to the struggle was. And acceptance remember we said earlier that turning your mind is like the fourth step, because we're taught to struggle with things were taught that things should be a certain way and when they're not we get angry and we fight with it. So we want to encourage clients to look at what is the benefit of the struggle in not accepting this, what would happen if you accepted it. And what could you do with that energy what could you do to move towards what's meaningful to you. Often people struggle with unpleasant feelings which causes unnecessary stress and drains precious energy acceptance skills help people identify the feeling. Explore what's causing it, you know, in in the current moment, and decide what the best course course of action is to improve the next moment. At its most basic acceptance means saying, it is what it is. All right, what next, not struggling with the things that they cannot or choose not to change. And that's critical. Sometimes there are things that we cannot control. And sometimes there are things that we choose not to control and that is a very valid choice, but encouraging people if you choose not to change it. And stop struggling with it, and either change how you react to it, or, you know, well, that's your only other option or stay miserable. So acceptance is one of those tools that we can help people when they're going through their story, when they're identifying all the things for us. And I use this a lot at the beginning of counseling when they're identifying all the things for us that are wrong in their lives. And I'm not going to take that away and say, well, let's look at the bright side. But I am going to encourage them to look at it and accept it is what it is. It's kind of like when you go in to buy a new house or, well, a new house for you, somebody else has lived in it. You're going to walk around and you're going to notice the dings and the nicks and the leak in the roof and whatever else.  So you'll have this whole list. If you've ever bought a house, you know, there's always a list of stuff that needs to be taken care of when you buy a new house, things that need to be fixed or things that you want to change. Acceptance is just looking at that house and going by its very bones in reality in this moment. This is the best house for me, despite its little, you know, bumps and bruises. Okay, are there any questions? If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. We're going to tend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at AllCEUs.com slash Counselor Toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by AllCEUs.com providing 24-7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors, therapists, and nurses since 2006.


Welcome to my playstation. Very nice to meet you. Oh, look at that. That's cute. Oh, that's the old thing. That box.


Hirei, how are you going? Welcome to Bootlossophy. My name is Tech. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that I live and work on, the Wajik people of the Nungan Nation. Now today I'm going to do an update on three pairs of boots that I bought from Bordeaux, Colombia. The Tucano and two pairs of the Isidro. Okay, so I'm doing an update review of these three pairs of Bordeaux, Colombia boots that I bought in the last year or so. The first one is the Bordeaux Tucano which I bought on the second release of their boots way back in November 2021. So that's some time ago. You can see my review of them and how I've used them in various places out hiking, as you can see, reasonably well used. And then these two pairs of the same boot, which is the Bordeaux Isidro Chelsea boot, but with different outsoles. One is obviously the Christie Wedge sole from Vibram and this one is a Vibram Commander sole as well. Now these Chelsea boots were bought in the release in 2022. So they're not that long released but I have used them reasonably extensively around the house and in the summer heat that we've been having when I bought them, I didn't go out much into the bush but I did wear these on occasion in the Northwest when I went up there for work. So I've used them both reasonably extensively. Now Bordeaux released their boots through a group MTO type model, I think three or four times a year and they probably have got one coming up soon in May if they announced already. And the way they do it is they announce a batch that they're going to make, you make the order, then they start to produce the boots and send them out. Now first, who are Bordeaux? I'll put a link to their website down below. But Bordeaux on Colombia was started in 2019 between the co-founders Andres Silva and Natalia Herrera who are Colombian. They started with a history of making black stitched dressy kind of shoes made in Europe and then importing them into Colombia. But then in late 2021 they decided to move their production into Colombia because of COVID chain supply chain issues and so on. And they started their manufacturing using local artisans who handmade their boots. And in fact, in that 2021 period when they moved back into Colombia, they found their artisans who could support them, make these handmade boots and started producing internationally through a group MTO model, the range of lace up boots, primarily the first one being this jumper style boot, the Tocano. And then balanced with a plain toe boot called the Juanez in later releases. Bordeaux are actually an extremely eco-conscious company using every scrap in their boots or using the scraps in the mid-soles and so on so that nothing goes to waste or as very little goes to waste as possible. They also make sure that they support local artisans and training them as well as ensuring that the handmade nature of these boots gradually progresses with learning. I like the way that the names of their boots, the Tocano, the Juanez, the Isidro, relies on indigenous names of various tribes in South America. You know what? I love supporting new boot brands, particularly young boot brands that have a passion and a vision and really want to try something different in terms of the handmade nature of boots, the design of the boots and the eco-conscious social responsibility type of models and values that they hold. So I hope you join with me to support these kinds of new small bootmakers. So in this update review, let's start by looking at the Bordeaux Tocano. As I said, it's a jumper style boot by that I mean looks kind of like Doc Martin paratrooper ish but built much better. I ordered these in November 2021 and I received them in February 2022, which included four-week shipment at time because that was bang in the middle of COVID and shipment to Australia from Bordeaux involved going almost twice around the world. I have already reviewed this so you can go check that review when I used them out when I was hiking down in the southwest of Australia and you can see these sort of dirt on these boots. But let's go through these boots very quickly. They're made from Italian wax suede, very similar to Charles F. Stead's waxy commander suede in that it is a suede that's waxed over with these wax to provide a fairly stiff upper leather but supportive and natural on your foot. The stitching quality control is reasonably good. There are some loose stitches and to some extent I think being the second batch that they ever made that is of a stitch down construction, the first batch they made was was Blake stitched. I think it's pretty good for being a handmade boot being the second batch that you've ever made. They used a Montaigne Vibram sole, Vibram Montaigne sole where the commando lugs go right to the edge. And in terms of QC, this is one of the things I pointed out to Andres was that the stitching along there is possibly not as good as it could be because they're learning their craft because what happens is as the stitches go up and down each lug they kind of bridge the gap rather than go up and down the gap, very different from Nick's boots for example. But other than that I think the quality control is really good. The materials are good, it's all leather construction. There is a steel shank so you get that arch support from steel and the internals of the sole construction are cork and leather. You know, can't blame that. The fit is really good, this is a size 41 and it broke in really quite quickly for me despite it being quite a firm upper's leather and quite a firm veg 10 midsole and rubber outsole construction. I wore these on long hikes when I was on holiday a year ago and they were extremely comfortable, extremely supportive, and they stood up well. I wear them infrequently but regularly these days. I do find them one of my most comfortable boots. I think that that last is really perfect for my foot. If you look at that the heel is actually quite a narrow heel and then it broadens out to the ball of the foot with a rounded toe. Reminds me very much of Parkhurst 602 last. Now these two are actually the same boots but with different outsole so let me deal with the commando one first. This is the Isidro boot. Again I chose a wax suede from Italian tannery. You can also get these in full grain wicket and craig, particularly if they're offered in the next batch. They have provided them in a green wicket and craig, olive green but I do like the rough out feel of boots like these. Now chelsea's, many people would think that they're a lot dressier but I think you can make a chelsea that's quite a work boot style. This is really well designed to fit the vamp, fit the instep and then grip you around the ankle so that you're not flipping around because you can't tighten them up without laces. It uses a different vibram commando, I think this is its height yes I beg your pardon, it uses a different its height commando sole. You'll notice that learning from experience, they've got the one the design where the commando lugs are in board so that when they sew the stitch down construction onto this sole they're not having to meet that problem of going up and down lugs. Now that's clever. It's made of leather material so there's a leather heel stack leather midsole and the inside is again cork and leather. Now I've worn these for mainly casual occasions, I haven't had much chance to go out hiking in them even though they fit well enough and snug enough that I don't think I'll be slipping around in them if I go on uneven ground but I've worn these mainly on casual occasions around going around town. These ones on the vibram Christy sole I have worn doing work around the house. I did some intense gardening doing clearing a lot of the backyard which was really overgrown so there were roots to be dug out I put in some some gravel pathways so there was gravel to be shoveled onto crawled around and it's it's got a few scuffs much more than the other one and I did find that these were incredibly comfortable walking around because of that wedge sole but not fantastic for crawling around because it has this double thickness leather midsole as well as this super thick Christy sole so that actually bending the boot even after several months it's not that easy. When I was on my knees instead of bending my toes on my knees I found that I was actually scrabbling around right on the toes not ideal as work boots but super super comfortable. The quality control in these was a little bit amiss on this boot that gap between the two midsole split a little bit and I they hadn't come apart but they were definitely splitting so I took them to the cobbler who re-glued them back on and pressed them in. Now I want to touch on the customer service for Bordon so I contacted Andrews and I said look I'm getting this done I just want to let you know he asks for feedback so that they can improve so that's a tick mark. When I contacted him he was very apologetic immediately offered me payment for my cobbler which I didn't bother about 20 Australian dollars you know but immediately he started strategizing about how he would make that better in next batches about the formulation of glues the clamps and so on and he shared those with me. Now I think that is really good customer service in the sense that he takes on he apologizes and he helps it gets your help to strategize about what he might do next that continuous improvement I think is something that they should be proud of. So in summary what do I think of Bordon Colombia? The pros are quite unique designs and you know a jumper boots a jumper boot a service boot is a service boot but I think there's enough character in this to make this quite different. The design of a work booty Chelsea boot I think is also something that's very hard to find in this particular sort of charismatic kind of last and shape and so on so definitely in the pro side is the uniqueness of the design. I think they're very sturdy boots in all three I've clambered around well maybe in two of them anyway I've clambered around tough terrain on gravel on sand and mud they've really kept my foot in really well kept it really snug and made me feel very comfortable walking around in them they're also very comfortable in the sense that the leather cork leather combination in the sole helps the mold to your own feet so that after no more than four weeks breaking two weeks constant wear two weeks of on and off wear your feet really feel molded inside and I would easily slip in these into these every time I walked out the door in fact these are kept in my back door so that if I'm on stocking feet as I go out for something I'll put these on so comfortable they're not as comfortable as bedroom slippers which some people might say they're not as comfortable as sneakers these are boots but as boots they're very comfortable as for the con side yeah there was that problem with that with the the midsole sort of slipping away from each other yeah there's was a problem with a little loose stitching which I just burned off you know that's that's nothing much really I think you have to remember that these are handmade boots and in Bordeaux they're actually literally handmade they're hand lasted there's no machine that sort of sucks it into a mold a person guides a sewing machine through this so yeah it's not that even but you know I like that I can see that it's handmade that a person has made these so unless they fall apart which they don't I really like that quirky not quite perfect look customer service is definitely on the plus side easy to contact easy to talk to they engage with you and they'll fix things very quickly no problems there at all so it's my personal preference but one of the things I really like to do is look for these small batch bootmakers and I like to try and support them now they're small batch and they're small batch and Thursday love them as much as I love Thursday boots for an entry-level boot they make them in small batches but they're getting pretty big right whereas people like Bordeaux and Columbia people like Parkhurst still make boots in really small batches as and when they buy in the skins and the hides and I think we really need to try and use their skills help them grow and support that industry in the sort of boot world that we all love so I hope you like that little update on the Bordeaux and Columbia keep an eye on the website now put a link below so you can have a look they are going to bring out a batch pretty soon I think if not already but when I record this but check it out and give them a go look until then guys you take care and don't forget to click on like and subscribe and I'll see you soon


We now have topical questions. To ask the Scottish Government what action it has taken to ensure the concerns of 56 doctors at the Beatson Cancer Centre regarding patient safety are fully addressed. Let me first be absolutely clear that patient safety is of paramount concern, whilst it is a very complex issue about a very highly specialised unit and its support services, there is no question that the views of clinicians, including those at the Beatson, are extremely important and need to be fully addressed. I have spoken to the chair of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and have been assured that this will happen. The chief medical officer has had constructive discussions with the chair of the local consultants committee and the health board's medical director about the need for all parties to commit to resolving these concerns. It is vital that the health board addresses the issues raised so that the move can go ahead with the support of clinicians, and a meeting is planned for tomorrow to continue to take this forward. In the meantime, I have been assured by the health board that key support services such as 24-7 and aesthetic cover will be maintained until an agreed, sustainable solution is in place. I thank the minister for that reply and I particularly welcome the emphasis on patient safety. The fact that these 56 consultants warned that services for seriously ill patients requiring a high dependency unit were not going to be safe is surely worrying, and that they felt the need to go public to fulfil their obligations based on the general medical council guidance after mid-staffature is surely an indictment of the board's approach. Why did we reach this point where doctors who do not go public likely and the board, having had four years to consult on the effect on services at hospital, like the Beechden, of opening of the southern general hospital, did not appear to have occurred? Why were they not properly consulted beforehand? I say to Richard Simpson that there have, of course, been a number of discussions over a long period of time. The issue, of course, is that there was a failure to agree on some of the detailed changes. Richard Simpson is right. I absolutely would have preferred all of these issues to have been resolved in a different manner, but what is important is that they are now resolved going forward. Of course, the general medical council's role is in the regulation of doctors. It is healthcare improvement Scotland that is the organisation tasked to look into issues of patient safety. As I understand, they are now going to look into the issues of concerns raised and make an assessment. However, what is critical—firstly at tomorrow's meeting—is that there is an interim set of arrangements agreed beyond the moves that have already been made around anaesthetic cover. Those are to the satisfaction of the clinicians and the board moving forward in order to create the space to agree on some of the more difficult issues to make sure that there is a sustainable service going forward. However, I am in exactly the same place as Richard Simpson. Those issues have to be resolved. The clinicians have to be assured that patient safety is paramount above all else in this matter. In the response that we have seen in the public domain, and the cabinet secretary has referred to it, the Greater Glasgow board has said that it will provide residents, and therefore presumably junior anaesthetics, on-site overnight, and a consultant on call during the 24-hour period. I have personal reservations about that, but my views are irrelevant. Obviously, it is a matter for the consultants to agree on that and assure themselves that the service will be adequate and safe. Speaking of adequacy, is the minister comfortable with the reports in the press today of Mayhem at the Southern General Hospital accident and emergency unit, with eight-hour waits, trolleys lining corridors, sick patients having to sit on the floor, diversion to the Glasgow royal infirmary, ambulances waiting two hours to discharge into A&E? I wonder just where the modelling was for the transition, because even if those are teasing problems, they affect real individuals. I just wonder what modelling was done and whether the cabinet secretary will agree to have a very close look at this in case we actually have other hospitals opening in future where there is a transfer of services. Finally, the closure of western general accident and emergency is going to occur at the end of the month. If we have already got chaos with the current transfer, then can I suggest to her that the officials need to look very closely at postponing that transfer in order not to create more chaos? Richard Simpson is in danger of conflating two very serious issues, but none the less two different issues. Let's finish on the issue of the Beats. First of all, it is absolutely critical, as I said earlier, that clinicians are satisfied with matters going forward. That is why the proposal to continue 24-7 anaesthetic cover has been agreed with clinicians going forward, but there are other remaining issues that need to be resolved. The meeting tomorrow night is very important as part of that. Where I expect everyone to get to is to an agreeable set of arrangements that will provide an interim solution while some of the further discussions take place about the on-going permanent sustainable solution for the Beats. Richard Simpson then went on to talk about the new South Glasgow University hospital. Last week, of course, there were a major transfer from Victoria to the new hospital. That involved a transfer of patients, a transfer of staff and that is a very complicated, difficult transfer to me. Yes, there were issues emerging that made it very challenging around the availability of beds and staff and there were some pressure points at the end of last week. I can tell him, as of yesterday, that the hospital was performing very well and A&E was performing very well. I think that it was around a 91 per cent achievement of the four-hour target and patients flowing through the system. He mentioned the western. The western begins to move across this weekend and they are absolutely looking at the lessons learned from the Victoria and making sure that issues of pressure that emerged are addressed in the way that they move the western. I do not think that there would be anything to be gained from not sticking to the timetable of transfer so that we can get all of those services transferred across, the staff can get working in their new environment and that patients can be settled into their new environment as well. I would hope that Richard Simpson, despite some of the challenges that have come with the transfer, would recognise that what we have is a first-class world-class hospital that I hope he will take the opportunity to visit at some point and will hopefully be as impressed as I was. Of course, I am on a daily basis being kept in touch with the detail of what is happening at the front door of the hospital and to make sure that any issues that are emerging that we are alerted to, but more importantly they are addressed. A big move like this does bring with it some challenges but I hope that we will have Richard Simpson's support as we work through those challenges over the next few days and weeks. Clearly, the concerns of the Beats and Clinicians have to be taken very seriously and, as Richard Simpson said, it takes a lot for clinicians to go public as they have done. Were any of their concerns raised via the national confidential NHS alert line? Given that that line has now been in place for two years, what assessment has been made of its effectiveness? I understand the review of it taking place. I will get back to her about whether or not any issues have been raised. Of course, it would not be as specific as it is to say that a particular clinician from a particular location raised that particular issue. It is not quite as specific as that but I will get back to her on the general point around the alert line. In that issue, what has been definitely the case is that there has been an on-going dialogue with clinicians and the board. It is not that the board were not speaking to clinicians, it is just that there was a failure to agree on certain aspects of what the way forward was and the clinicians have a strongly held view around certain aspects of the arrangements going forward that they did not agree with the board on. Those issues must be resolved. They have to be resolved not just to the satisfaction of the clinicians but to the satisfaction of us all that patient safety is paramount and we will absolutely take no risk. I am confident that through those on-going negotiations the meeting tomorrow is an important part, the involvement of the chief medical officer, that we will get to a place where the clinicians are satisfied and that the board have a sustainable model to take forward, the very excellent world-class service that they have at the Beats and the one that we should all be proud of. Question 2, Mike McKenzie. To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions have taken place between the Scottish Government and the UK Government on the subject of HS2. Cabinet Secretary, Keith Brown. I discussed the weekend newspaper reports about the HS2-limited study with Sir David Higgins, the chair of HS2-limited, this morning. I have written to the Secretary of State for Transport, Patrick McLaughlin on several occasions including three times subsequent to his statement to the Conservative Party conference in favour of three-hour journey times between Scotland and London. I have made clear to Mr McLaughlin that the Scottish Government's position, indeed the position of all the parties in this chamber is at high speed rail must come to Scotland. Despite those challenges at a ministerial level, my officers are in contact with their UK Government counterparts and the need with HS2-limited. Transport Scotland officials sat on the Serian Group for HS2-limited study to broad options for extending HS2 to Scotland. The series advice has been with the UK and Scottish ministers since December, but despite, as I say, several requests for a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport, I have had no positive response. Indeed, he has not managed to meet me since he was appointed in September 2012. Mike McKenzie. I thank the minister for that answer. I wonder if he agrees with me that including Scotland in HS2 would deliver significant economic benefits by improving connectivity and removing barriers. For everybody in Scotland, but particularly for businesses in the more remote parts of the country. Yes, I agree with that. As does Civic Scotland, in particular the business community that Mike McKenzie refers to, but also our councils, trade unions and many others, those significant economic benefits would accrue at both ends of high speed rail and at all points in between. There would also be far greater environmental benefits from modal shift if we can achieve the two and a half to three-hour journey times between Scotland and London that HSR can bring. That is in addition to the already required additional freight capacity which will help in terms of the environment and productivity. Mr McKenzie. Minister, again in view of his answer to my initial question does he agree that the UK Government has shown a lack of ambition and insufficient consideration for Scotland throughout the development of the plans for HS2? Cabinet Secretary? I do agree. I think that the UK Government has been unambitious and has been disrespectful in terms of a complete lack of dialogue and the leaking of its reports, reports which they asked us to respect the confidentiality of and in relation to high speed rail coming to Scotland. I would, from my part, encourage all parties and interest groups to join with me in demanding that the Secretary of State for Transport starts to discuss how we can bring HSR to Scotland as quickly as possible. It's also worth saying, of course, that if it was to be the case that a high speed rail went to the north of England but not to Scotland that is the worst of all worlds for Scotland. That would put us at a substantial disadvantage. I think that there is substantial unity on this issue across Scotland in terms of the political parties and civic Scotland and I think that the UK Government would be ill-advised to ignore that unity. Alex Johnson. The minister will be aware that one of the dimensions of the development of high speed rail in recent months has been the discussion taking place between cities in the north of England to see how they can steer that development. Can the minister tell me if the Scottish Government has had any contact with the organisation formed by these north of England cities or has he facilitated any contact between Scotland's major cities and these north of England cities? Cabinet Secretary. Yes, there has been such contact between the cities in the north of England. I have spoken at conferences, I think that the last one was in Manchester where the leaders of various cities of the north of England gathered together to talk about high speed rail and its implications. Also, I think that my predecessor, Alex Neil, also had particular discussions with some of the cities affected. Of course, some of the proposals for high speed rail are not actually high speed rail. The ones that are talking about traversing the north of England are a higher speed rail but not a high speed rail. We think, for the reasons that I have outlined already, that if we can get high speed rail to Scotland, to Edinburgh and Glasgow, then the points in between Manchester Leeds and Scotland could all benefit from high speed rail. That is what we urge everybody in the chamber, including those Conservative members, who may have some sway with the Conservative Government to get behind that and get the transport secretary to come and speak to people in Scotland so that we can progress this issue. Question 3. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that Police Scotland has been using facial recognition technology on images stored on the police national database. Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson. Police Scotland retains images to prevent and detect crime. Police Scotland has provided assurance that photographs are only taken when a suspect is detained, arrested and or charged. The service does not retain images indefinitely of people who were not subsequently charged or convicted of an offence.  The facial recognition technology has been available to Police Scotland on the police national database since 2014 and has been used on 440 occasions. The police national database is an extremely valuable resource that helps to prevent and detect crime to make communities safer across Scotland. I thank the cabinet secretary for his answer. Of course, this technology has the potential to help to detect crime, but, like other biometric technologies, its use must be properly regulated, yet this has been put into operation without any public or parliamentary scrutiny. The biometrics commissioner has warned about the dangers involved in creating this database as it is subject to none of the controls and protections that currently apply as regards to DNA or fingerprint databases. Does the cabinet secretary share the concerns of the expert independent biometrics commissioner? It is also important that we take into account any concerns that are raised on these matters, but the member will also be aware that within Scotland we have the Criminal Justice Licensing Scotland Act, which provides provision around the retention of information on the criminal history system that Police Scotland operates and which subsequently feeds into the police national database. We are wrong to suggest that there is no provision around how records are held on individuals who are charged or convicted of offences. We are always prepared to look at areas where improvements can be made, but I am not aware of any particular concerns that have been identified in the way that Scotland is operating the system that is presently administered by the Home Office. It is important not to be complacent about that. We do not have a clear regulatory framework and proper safeguards. What is in place at the moment to prevent the police from using the technology to go on fishing trips to stop them embarking on mass surveillance? Could they identify individuals, for example, at football games from that? Secondly, the technology has not yet been rigorously tested. What safeguards, if any, are in place to prevent wrongful mistaken identification? As I outlined in my earlier response, the way in which Police Scotland operates the photographic recognition system is that photographs are only taken of an individual if they are detained, arrested and or charged. They do not retain images of people who have not been subsequently charged or convicted of a crime. If the person is not charged, if they are dealt with by a disposal that is not a prosecution or they are found not guilty, the criminal history system that Police Scotland operates is updated to recognise that, which then has the weeding out of those files, and that subsequently updates the police national database, which means that any information that is put on to that is removed from the system as it stands. There is a weeding mechanism in the system in order to remove those individuals who have not been subsequently charged or convicted of an offence. That ensures that those images are not then retained on the police national database. Elaine Murray. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Cabinet Secretary, do you know whether or not the Scottish Police Authority agreed to Police Scotland uploading custody photographs to the police national database? Were they aware, were their agreements sought, or were they not? Is it just like deployment of armed police, stop search, are the SPA doing their job here and if they are not, can you have a word with them and try to get them to take some control over what Police Scotland is getting up to? Cabinet Secretary. It is important that we keep a level of perspective around these matters and trying to wrap this up into armed police officers and stop and search.  I believe that there are areas where the Scottish Police Authority can improve the way in which it is operating. The chief inspector of Constabulary has already looked at that. There is an action plan in place in order to improve those areas as well. It is important that we recognise that, although there will be issues that have to be addressed at various times and how policing is taken forward and how the Scottish Police Authority is operating, I think that to try and just roll this all in too. Everything is just bad. It doesn't help anyone and doesn't take any of these issues forward in a reasonable and considered way. That ends Topical Questions. The next item of business is a debate on motion number 13246.