Accessibility

 Have you even thought about it?

A crowd of people cheering and reaching up with their hands

Maybe you think about it all the time, because your life calls for it.  

Accessibility may not seem like a particularly important word on its own. We could think of accessibility as of no interest to us. We are accustomed to instant access to everything. A delay might mean waiting 3 seconds for a page to load or needing Wi-Fi to download a photo. 

But it means a lot more when you think about it.  

It can seem like an unsurmountable brick wall to many. 

The dictionary describes it as something reachable, used by and/or understood by everyone, and the ability to enter a place. If you search the internet for the word on its own, you have to scroll past a lot of the services and charities provided to people who have accessibility issues to enable them to live better and more easily. The lack of accessibility makes us think of people in wheelchairs, or anyone with a physical or mental disability.  

Less so about ourselves if none of the above describes us. 

Is everything attainable and reachable in your life? Can you have what you want as much as the next person? 

Accessibility is vast and very mixed, frustratingly so. Currently I am enraged at the digitalisation of everything and watching my parents in their 80’s struggle to navigate the human-less world of robot checkouts and chat bots. 

Accessibility is opportunity for all. If we can access the same books, learning opportunities, relationships (because it often is, who you know, not what you know) then we have more chance of realising our potential.  

I am not going to start writing here about colour and creed, but I am acknowledging it. Some might say I am already in a hugely privileged position, white and born in the UK. I know we are not all afforded the same chances because of how we look, where we are born and all the million other intricate reasons that make a difference. 

An attractive old woman with many wrinkles of life on her face.

I am not fighting for my rights daily to be seen as a worthy human because I was born female. 

Although, it happens elsewhere and happened here not so long ago. I am not kidding myself, or you, I know there is a long way to go even in the UK for women to have the same opportunities as men, particularly around health care.  But we are a long way from where my grandmother was, and she was a feisty fucker.  

I always loved a story she told from her youth, I say youth, but she was aged about 25 at the time. She wanted a job but was not allowed by her mother. She was still not married, and this was considered unusual at the time. But it happened that the village pub landlord needed some help, so she offered to pull pints, behind the bar, and she loved it. Sadly, it didn't last long because the gossips worked like wildfire, and I think she may have lasted about an hour when my great grandmother stormed the pub and dragged her out shouting that “no daughter of hers was going to be seen working in a pub”. 

It sounds a bit funny, and I am not trivialising the situation, it is incidents like that in life that keep us down and stop us reaching our true potential.  

Our upbringing and the messages from family, school, and society shape us and influence how achievable we see our goals.  

We might believe we can’t, it is not for people like me, it’s a silly idea and we fear doing something different; what if I fail, or it is too expensive to make that first step. 

I have thought and felt all these things. Particularly the thought that it is not for me, like, who do I think I am to think I can coach anyone and help them live the life they really want to.  

After all, I am just Jayne from up north. 

Woman in a yoga pose on top of a cliff

But here I am. 

I worked out, with the help of mentors and self learning, that I can.  

And so can you.  

I heard a fabulous quote recently and I will probably quote it wrong, but it goes something like, “Why are we living our lives by the rules of dead people”? 

It hit me because it made me think about where do all the rules we impose on ourselves come from? They come from people who are mostly not even here anymore. Either they are dead and buried or they are dead from our lives, no longer living in our spectrum and therefore should have no influence over us. 

So, this is why I want my coaching to be accessible. Being coached can seem like something you can never financially afford, it's a luxury, don't have the time to give to it (you mean, give to yourself), or it’s for other people, not you. You don't have anything to work on, honestly.   

Who wants to listen to you anyway? 

I do.  

Which is why, how I coach is accessible to more of you.  

I am affordable but no less qualified and dedicated to you. 

You don’t need to drive to me; I come to you via the internet. 

I will listen and I will enable change in you. 

How often do you feel heard, how often is someone truly listening to you.  

It's only a small step and it involves emailing me and we can start a chat from there. 

Jayne@serenexus.co.uk