#ItCouldBeMe

It was November 2014; the ice wind was whirling around. Despite wearing layers of clothes, a thick winter coat, boots, furry hat and gloves, I could feel the wind creeping into any tiny gaps and finding my skin to crawl over. I shivered. The wind scorched my face. I pulled my hat further down and my scarf tighter….

I thought about my friends who were over 300 miles south, I imagined them also wearing layers of clothes as they were preparing for a long night sleep out in the bitter cold.

My thoughts shifted to the thousands of people in our country who, for whatever reason, find themselves sleeping on the streets. Not just for 1 night – for many nights…sometimes years! How on earth do they cope? Exist? Survive?

I thought to myself “Imagine going to sleep tonight, not in your nice warm bed – but on a freezing hard concrete floor. Imagine that each intake of breath, it feels caustic; stinging the back of your throat. Your body aches with the cold that penetrates deep within your bones…and the gnawing churn of hunger persists – you haven’t eaten a proper meal in days. Imagine you have spent the day aimlessly roaming around so you feel exhausted. Your mind is tormented with the fear of being abused at any minute. You know that you want to sleep but every noise disrupts any possible slumber….you want to shrink….you curl up wishing that the universe will engulf you –an entrenched hold onto life prevents this from happening….”

So there I was, sitting on the train at Durham thinking about my friends and the homeless and I made a decision …to join them in the The Big SleepOut in 2015.

The Big SleepOut is this Friday 5^th December. I will be bedding down for the night with nothing but a cardboard box for shelter….with many others. It will be cold – hopefully not too cold or wet. (I hate being cold!!)

This is already life changing for me … and more importantly, I hope for many, many others. Through finding out more about homelessness and meeting people who have been/ are homeless, I realise that could have been me – and it could have been you…let’s hope we are never in that situation.

Let’s help the homeless to practically and emotionally support them….and aim to eradicate homelessness. Please kindly donate: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/LindseyReed

Each donation helps…however small or big it is…Thank you

Lindsey Reed is an experienced NLP coach, trainer and pattern spotter! She enables her clients to be their best selves. If you would like to work with Lindsey, contact her either by email lindsey@glows-coaching.co.uk or call 01832 280168 for a chat to see if she is the right coach for you. And for those interested in NLP, Lindsey highly recommends www.sueknight.com where she runs programmes around the world.