Therapy on the run got me through my worst year ever

As fAr as bad years go, 2019 was down there with the worst of them.

I lost my beloved dad at the end of April, suffered a bit of a financial meltdown when someone swindled £15,000 out of my bank account and, like the sour cherry on top, got unexpectedly made redundant from my career- defining job as beauty director of Cosmopolitan a month before Christmas.

Yet one part of my life has remained as stable as ever and, in fact, has helped me get through the bad bits. Throughout the year, I relied on a run in the fresh air or a good yoga class for its power to ease, if not eradicate, my pain.

so when someone told me about Dynamic running Therapy (DrT), I was intrigued.

Devised by London- based psychotherapist William Pullen, it starts with an outdoor mindfulness exercise that teaches you to focus on your senses and not your racing brain, followed by what’s essentially a counselling session while jogging. Could William help me see a way through my own upheaval?

We meet on a drizzly morning in London’s Hyde Park. William — a friendly fiftysomething in running shorts and not, thankfully, a Lycra- clad He-Man — puts me at ease.

‘I hit upon the idea of taking therapy outside when I went through a depression myself, and a friend started taking me out for slow jogs, just to chat,’ he says.

‘At first, it felt like baby steps. It’s important to go slowly when you’re trying to work your way out of a depression. Over time, I built it into a regular routine.

‘I realised that moving forward side-by- side makes people less self-conscious and happier to open up. It also gets you out of the house. Depressed people tend to stay inside and make their world small and dark, which leads to a vicious cycle of shame and hiding. But the way to get perspective on things is to be outside. This therapy is a great way of doing that.’

I nod furiously. I made a point of running in the forest in my hometown every morning when I was there to see my dad — when he was ailing, when he was dying, when he was dead.

I ran on the morning after the night he passed away, and the trees were stoically going through their seasonal changes as always, showing me that dad and I were just a tiny part of a natural cycle. I can’t tell you how much peace and consolation that gave me.

Add to that the fact that running lowers anxiety and helps your body release happy hormones, and I found I could manage and feel my grief without drowning in it.

Now, facing joblessness at almost 50, running with a therapist, who offers learned insights, feels like a great way to deal with my worries.

Talking through my journey, William points out that despite my assertion that I’m terrible at change, I seem to have a decent handle on it. To my puzzlement, I was told the same thing recently by a former boss I greatly admire. It’s true that, after leaving Cosmopolitan, I’ve let go of the anger and grief of needing to leave my ‘work home’ and friends there without having put a foot wrong, and embraced the new work that seems to have come my way.

As for my dad, I’ve found a way to think of him as a constant loving companion in my heart, and not as the father who has gone.

William asks what kind of man he was, and I tell him how much I admired him for his ability to not dwell on pain and disappointment, and move forward in a positive way. It made him a content man. William says I seem a lot like him.

I told Dad before he died that he left me well-equipped for life. I’ve just learned that a professional therapist agrees with me.

COST: £150 per session ( william pullenpsychotherapist.com).