Anjella's Hope story
Anjella has been living with long-term pain for a number of years. She was curious about the Hope Programme, having heard about it online.
She found the Hope Programme for Long-term Conditions on the Hope website and felt it looked right for her and had a suitable start date. Anjella felt that the online format would offer the right balance between protecting her privacy and offering the scope “to be me, real, open and honest”. She knew she needed some support and wanted ideas from other people about how they cope with long-term pain.
The interactive online format of the course worked well. “There’s mutual support, responding to each other. The facilitators and other people on the same course commented and shared their progress.” This was particularly true of the goal-setting task, which encourages people to set small, achievable goals each week, with a plan of how they will achieve their goal, and a reward when they complete it. “I had far too many clothes in my wardrobe” Anjella admits. “Across the six weeks of Hope, I emptied it, sorted the clothes out, then gave some to charity and put others on Ebay. My reward was to bake a cake – so I posted a picture of the cake on the Hope community newsfeed.”
As well as achieving this short-term goal, Anjella has made long-term changes to her life as a direct result of doing the Hope Programme.
“The biggest learning for me was that I must take time out for myself”.
“I’ve set boundaries around my working hours and I’m 100% sticking to it. I’m saying ‘no’ or ‘that can wait’, now. I’m not carrying my work phone around all weekend, checking it, anymore. More professionals should learn how to do that.”
And how has making this change helped? Anjella explains: “My life is boundaried now, structured. I have more time for me. I wouldn’t have done that without the Hope Programme!”
Hope Programme courses are delivered part of Live well with Hope project, funded by NHS Charities Together, working in conjunction with University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire Charity.
