Former Estevan resident Gail Barrett will do readings from her book Anxiety: Calming the Chaos Within at the beginning of May.
Barrett, née Marcotte, grew up in Torquay, and since being a child she wanted to help other people. Through her life path, she found different ways of pursuing her dream.
At different stages she was the director of the first women’s centre in Regina and worked at the Children’s Receiving Home; she had a career as an independent insurance adjuster and later in life earned her master’s degree in psychology and counselling to become a counsellor. She worked with healers in Prince Albert and the Edmonton area, finally returning full circle to Estevan, where she began her own private counselling practice. She later moved to Saskatoon where she tried on the role of a writer and published the book called Anxiety: Calming the Chaos Within.
In an interview with the Southeast Lifestyles Barrett explained why she felt a need to write this book.
“I’m a counsellor… And when I would counsel my clients, I would always be looking for the resources to recommend to them, so when the session is over they would have something to turn to that will inspire them or will remind them of strategies and so on. And the books that I was finding were very complex. They were complicated; strategies were hard to understand, a lot of medical jargon. Even I had troubles figuring it out,” said Barrett.
She thought to herself that she’s learned a lot about anxiety from her friends, family and clients, she also personally experienced it, and did a lot of research on the topic and had enough knowledge to help people in one other way.
“So I decided … to write a book that is easy to read, that explains what anxiety is and definitely explains why you are not stuck with it, and some very simple, easy to understand strategies that, I know, work, because they’ve worked on me and they’ve worked for my clients,” said Barrett.
The book is meant to help people of different ages and backgrounds.
“What I have done is targeted my strategies so that they are definitely for adults, they would be easy to use for teenagers, and definitely I’ve tried to incorporate as much as possible strategies that can be used with children.”
Since anxiety has a lot of elements, which are common and recognizable for different people, in her book Barrett used the power of storytelling.
“I have incorporated my own stories, stories of family and friends, and then clients’ stories although I have sometimes amalgamated one, or two, or three clients into a fictitious person because of confidentiality,” said Barrett.
The book is written in the first person, and even when the author is trying to explain something medical she uses conversational language.
The childhood in Torquay and further experience in southeast Saskatchewan have also found a reflection in the book.
“My whole life in southeast Saskatchewan has impacted my book to a great degree because I tell a lot of stories about myself. And my roots are extremely important to me. My parents, my extended relatives, growing up in a small community, my grandmother. All of those things have shaped who I am and how I see the world,” said Barrett.
Now, when the book is published Barrett hopes to take her work further and connect with people, who get anxiety due to their jobs.
“I’m really interested in connecting with people doing presentations, workshops and speaking engagements. I think that it’s so important that we all learn about anxiety, and I think it’s important that we deal with it in schools because there are so many kids with anxiety,” said Barrett.
Barrett believes that anxiety is rather a learned behaviour, which we adopt from other people around us.
“I have a theory: yes, anxiety comes from trauma and traumatic experiences, but I believe that a greater number of us have had anxiety because it’s a learned experience.”
And while some people may be predisposed to anxiety, in most cases it directly correlates with the way of thinking. According to this theory, how people think is going to impact how anxious they feel, which means that nobody is stuck with anxiety.
“We have a beautiful brain, it’s plastic, and it will change… And our experience can override (genetic disposition). It will decide which genes are turned on and which ones are not.”
Explaining what anxiety is, Barrett writes in her book, “I am not anxiety. Anxiety is not me. Anxiety is a thing. It comes. It goes.”
She will be bringing copies of her book to Estevan at the beginning of May. They will be available for purchase during the Estevan Natural Health & Healing Expo (May 3 and 4), where Barrett will be one of the keynote speakers. She also will do some readings from the book at the Trinity Lutheran Church on May 2 at 7:30 p.m. and at the Estevan Public Library on May 8 at 6 p.m.
A copy of the book will later become available through the library as well. Besides, it can be purchased online and in several bookstores in Regina and Saskatoon.
