Established in 2022, The Karmic Collective CIC took part in our first Proper Good Bolton mentoring programme. Wellbeing is never from the news these days, especially when so many people are finding life tough. We spoke to Lisa Murray to find out how the social enterprise is helping people in Bolton with its programme of holistic wellness.
“Working alongside green spaces and social prescribing services, we believe that true wellness is not just about the absence of illness and good physical health but it is about nurturing and balancing all aspects of ourselves to enable us to lead fulfilling lives to better ourselves, our relationships with others and the community as a whole.
“Fundamentally, we live off the reiki principles and those principles we incorporate into The Karmic Collective as well: So just for today, I will not anger just for today. I will not worry. Just for today I will be grateful. Just for today. I will do my work honestly, just for today. I will be kind to every living being.”
What do we do
“We support the overall well-being for individuals, children and adults in school or care settings, care charities and heart-centred social enterprises. We have worked with Smithills Woodland Trust doing sessions out of the forest school.
“When we put our workshops together, we work with the philosophy of Carl Jung. He talked about healing people’s shadow selves, the things that trigger them. A lot of people can be triggered but they don’t know why so we help them through talking therapies.
“Between myself and our other director, Claire Scott, who runs sessions over in Stockport, we’ve got a few different modalities. We are both reiki trained, I do sound bowls and reiki drumming. Claire is an aromatherapist and complementary therapist and we are both trained in mental health first aid.
“As a collective, we do bring in facilitators that are trained in areas we aren’t. We’ve got three different yogis, covering older people, men’s groups and children’s yoga.
“People come to us for healing, so we are very careful who we work. Everyone’s qualified and accredited. A naturopathic doctor, who has been a physician for more than 30 years, approves the sessions we put together.
“Everything is carefully curated: setting the mood with music, aromatherapy and lights. We work with sound healing frequencies. The music is always put together to balance with the class in the same way that meditation matches in with the story of what we’re doing. It is always a lovely compliment when people come to a session and as soon as they walk in and say: ‘Oh, wow, I already feel at peace’.
“Even just two or three weeks later, when people come back, you can see a change in them. We want to help people find healing within themselves. We want to be an alternative provision that eases the pressures that are on the NHS and CAMHS.
“I work with a group of women that homeschool their children. There is always a lesson to be learned but we get the children to explore that for themselves with story time, meditative dance, sound bowls, creating mandalas and guided meditations. We give the children the tools they can use at home.”
How did Proper Good Bolton help
“We are very thankful to Proper Good Bolton and Bolton CVS for the opportunities that they’ve afforded us. Between them, they to do lots of different training – safeguarding training, social impact accounting etc – either via Zoom or face to face and meeting and collaborating with other CICS at quarterly meetups.
“Myself and four other CICs were the first to be invited on Proper Good pioneering mentoring program We were paired with Jenny Matthews, from The Bridge Enterprise CIC, a prolific woman in the Bolton business community.
It completely changed the way that we operate. Before it was a very heart-centred social enterprise, but I was burning out doing everything myself and using my own finances.
“Jenny taught us how to see don’t see it as just a CIC: you need to run it as a business. We had monthly meetings where she would set me tasks such as start your website, establish income streams. Now the money that we make from paid sessions then pays to offer sessions for free in other areas and pay for room hire.
We did get a £1,000 grant from Proper Good after we finished the mentoring which has helped massively with marketing, buying stock, putting sessions on and getting qualified in mental health first aid. But we also realise we can’t rely on funding. It is about creating other income streams – for example I am becoming a wedding and funeral celebrant too and we are launching an online shop where we are working with our naturopath doctor.
“I’ve got a five-year vision for where we want to be. We hope that Karmic grows so that we get everyone we work with qualified in reiki. We are aiming for a bank of staff that are going into schools. I want to help SEN adults get into the workplace, there are so many who have got potential, but there’s no support and businesses won’t give them a second look.
Find out more information the Proper Good’s mentoring programme: www.boltoncvs.org.uk/proper-good-social-business-support-programme/
