Freedom Works UK 

Transforming Lives Developing Leaders

Freedom Works is a UK based support group (a Social Enterprise) set up to enable people who suffer from Anxiety (anything that prevent people from being fully confident in public situations, selling themselves, making public presentations or succeed at interviews, work, interpersonal relationships etc), low self esteem or depression to attend workshops and transform their lives so that they are not stopped by their issues.

These workshops are aimed at people at work or students who's had enough of their anxiety, low self esteem or depression holding you back in life and career and want to do something about it NOW!

The workshops are run by people who have used the methods of the workshop to regain control over their lives.

Freedom Works is not a counselling service or a therapy service. It is also not a cure for anxiety, low self esteem or depression. Our work is based on coaching people to look at and identify the mechanisms that drive social anxiety or generalised anxiety or low self esteem or depression in us and enabling you to create alternative ways of being and acting in life that are more productive and successful.

Workshop leaders who lead our workshops have delivered these workshops for more than a year and a half and have created a successful track record in helping individuals from many professions and backgrounds leave behind anxiety, depression or low self esteem and succeed in life and work.

Your future is only low or depressing or anxious if you let it be, with our support it needn’t be like that, it could be anyway you wish it to be in spite of the self imposed restrictions.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe said; “What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

Please join our secure, closed, confidentiality protected community. To join our community or the meetup group there is a £10 annual membership (£5 students or current members Ken's or Chris's previous workshops), this is to pay for the costs of meetup.com and our website administration.

If you have any queries, please email:

chris.hayes@freedomworks.org.uk or call Chris at 07736 042753

ken@freedomworks.org.uk or call Ken at 07961 167221

We just want to remind people why we are doing this, and why we are personally investing time and effort in this to make it work.

KEN:

In 1984 I arrived in UK as a student from Sri Lanka, fresh faced and shy with a high burden of expectation by my parents, I was called an alien and it was very alienating and I duly obliged my parents by failing all my exams because I was dyslexic which I didn’t know at the time, failure after failure followed with some sucesses and I became more and more withdrawn, shy and alone. Then, in 1995, I did a course which changed my life, instead of being a victim of my circumstances I decided to take on my problems head on and over time became a qualified Shiatsu practitioner and a life coach. In April 2010 I was offered an opportunity to create some workshops for a local voluntary organisation supporting people with anxiety, low self esteem and depression and in 20 months it has grown to this.

I can still see people coming to their 1st workshop session frightened, shy and anxious of life and people just like I was but in a few short months there they are standing in front of others like them, leading workshops. That is really awesome to see, now I have created Freedom Works because it really works to be free

CHRIS:

I suffered in silence for a long time in the workplace because of anxiety and depression. I had a breakdown two years ago and took time off work due to depression and stress. Now I'm running my own business, leading workshops, and standing as a local politician. None of that would have been possible without the Freedom Workshops.

I am passionate about supporting other people to do the same to “get what I got”, and I have two objectives with Freedom Works.

1. To provide the same quality of service and support that I was fortunate to receive in all areas of London and the UK, starting with creating a regional Freedom Works in each quadrant of London, either directly myself or training others to do this.

2. Personally, I want to be able to do this work full time and earn a living, pay a mortgage and travel, while doing a job I am passionate about.

Our workshops:

Freedom Works Coffee meet:

This is a free weekly meeting for members of Freedom works where we will meet at a central location as a group and informally talk about each others experience and we will also do some exercises that can help you to deal with your anxiety, low self esteem or depression in public situations.

Freedom Works Saturday Intensives:

This a series of 3 - 4 hour Saturday Intensive workshops done in groups of 10 – 20. The intension of the series is to enable participants to regain control over their lives at workplace and outside and be productive and exceed expectations.

 The workshop includes one to one and group coaching, role play, interactive games, homework between sessions and very powerful, useful tools which can help you to deal with issues arising from your anxiety, low self esteem or depressions in your daily life so that you are able to be powerful in the face of those issues.

The workshop is a challenging but safe environment to play and train and get coaching and peer support so that you are left with a sense of understanding and acceptance of how it feels but also liberated and not stopped by anxiety, low self esteem or depression anymore.

Each workshop is designed so that new people can join up at each session as well as regularly attended members. We recommend you to do at least 2 sessions or more and the final A Special Event About Freedom to get the best value out of these workshop.

“There is no such thing as security, it does not exist in nature and nor for the most part do the children of men experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than confronting it outright. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller

A Special Event About Freedom:

This is a 10 hour workshop which culminate the work we did in Freedom Works Saturday Intensives and enable participants to transform their view of themselves and be able to function fully in spite of their issues.

Only the participants who has complete at least 2 of the 3 Freedom Works Saturday Intensives can participate in A Special Event About Freedom.

Intention of this special session: Transformation - to transform your issues with Anxiety, low self esteem, depression in a way that you will experience freedom and able to act and do things you want to do in spite of it in your daily life.

This workshop is full of activities such as new ways of thinking, coaching, group work, role play, public speaking, reading and practical exercises.

“Freedom is just chaos with better lighting” Alan Dean Foster 

Your anxiety, shyness or depression stops you because you can’t see your way clear when you are faced with its’ effects in your daily life. As you all have experienced, these workshops have been opening up your view of anxiety/stops with brief spotlights so you can see the mechanisms at work that causes your anxiety, low self esteem or depression to be locked in.

In this special workshop we will be putting the complete jigsaw together working further more intensively so that you will actually see it fully and experience a real transformation and freedom to be yourself and act in spite of your issue/s.

Leader Training Programme:

Leader training programme is why people come to the previous 2 workshops. This is where we train people to become leaders of their lives, others, workplaces, community and eventually the world. They will learn how to be themselves and natural while creating extraordinary possibilities for themselves and others and create outcomes that are specific, profound and currently well beyond their horizons.

Again and again they come. They bring strange customs with themselves. They seem to operate in another dimension. They stand out from the crowd and people say “how did they do that?  The future of humanity rests on their shoulders. Rainer Maria Rilke

Ken, Chris and others  who present these programmes have suffered from anxiety, depression or low self esteem but have found ways of dealing with their issues so that it doesn’t stop them fully engaging and participating in helping others to do the same.

Actually they find it quite inspiring and exhilarating and think anyone can do it with training. It’s the training they have undergone that makes the difference. All you need is big a commitment (to yourself and others) and willingness to be supported/ trained/ coached, we will take care of the rest.

Our aim is to use this programme to train workshop leaders from the community of Anxiety/Low Self Esteem/Depression sufferers but you don’t need to want to do this to be in this programme. You can do this just for the valuable training it provides people with mastering being with groups by just being yourself.

Qualifying criteria:

1. You must have completed Special Event About Freedom.

Programme information: 

• The LT programme consists of 4 Saturday Workdays 8/10 hours each 5/6 weeks apart. 
• Between each Workday assisting or participating at least 2 Freedom Works Intensives (this is for your training). 
• You will also be asked to formulate and complete a personal project of your choice involving a community you are involved in. 
• Weekly telephone conference calls in between each workday to provide coaching and guide you through any issues (costs about 10p for a half an hour call). 
• Before the 1st workday and in-between each workdays you will be given personal development assignments to help you to train yourself and expand your experience of the distinctions of Freedom Works. 
• You do not need to want to lead workshops to be in the programme, you can participate for your own reasons

What you can expect:

1. You will be able to be free and be yourself fully in front of a group of 2 - 200 (any number of people)
2. You will transform your view of yourself as a person and as a leader 
3. You will be able to break free of your ego and be a possibility and a stand for people
4. After the 4th workday you will be given an opportunity only if you choose to; of embarking as a workshop leader for Freedom Works and license these workshops in your locality, workplace or country - you will be given an opportunity to embark on an 6 months apprenticeship where we will train you to create a successful licensee until you are ready to take on transforming your locality, workplace or country with minimal supervision.
5. You will get to complete a free mental health first aid course offered by Islington Rethink.

Intrepid Explorer Forwards:

Have you ever wanted to travel the world and see it for yourself? Well we will take you on 2 to 3 international tours exploring cultures, landscapes, wild and sea life and countries and do some cleansing developmental work such as meditation, shiatsu, yoga and leave the accumulated mental guff and garbage behind looking forward with a new perspective and a new attitude.

Freedom Works Regional programmes: South West London

Freedom Works South West London is our 1st satellite centre, this is set up by Chris Hayes who is one of the workshop leaders in Surbiton.

South West Coffee meets:

This is a free weekly meeting for members of Freedom works South West where we will meet at a central location as a group and informally talk about each others experience and we will also do some exercises that can help you to deal with your anxiety, low self esteem or depression in public situations.

Freedom from Anxiety sessions 1 - 10:

Freedom Workshops are a resource provided by Freedom Works for people with Anxiety/Low self esteem/depression

It is a self-help group with coaching provided by committed people who experienced anxiety/low self esteem or depressions but are conquering the symptoms of it successfully in their daily lives.

The workshop is a continuing hourly program of 10 sessions every Thursday evening which includes one to one and group coaching, role play, interactive games, homework between sessions and very powerful, useful tools which can help you to deal with issues arising from social anxiety in your daily life so that you are able to be powerful in the face of those issues.

The workshop is a challenging but safe environment to play and train and get coaching and peer support so that you are left with a sense of understanding and acceptance of how it feels but also liberated and not stopped by anxiety/low self esteem or depression anymore.

There are 10 hourly workshops each Thursday from 7pm culminating in a 7/8 hour final workshop named Special Evening About Freedom from Social Anxiety on a Saturday.

Each workshop is designed so that new people can join up at each session as well as regularly attended members. We recommend you to do at least 5 sessions or more and the final Special Event to get the best value out of these workshop. 

Our Workshop Leaders:

One of our jobs as workshop leaders of Freedom Works is to replace ourselves as soon as possible, if you took all the training avenues available to you and took our coaching you would be an effective, life changing workshop leader for Freedom Works within 1 year of starting to attend your 1st workshop.

Ken Hettiarachi:

Ken has been leading and perfecting these workshop for over 18 months and has a long history of coaching and training, he is also a qualified Shiatsu practitioner (Yo-Shiatsu) and a network marketing professional. 

Chris Hayes

Chris is an experienced, accredited project manager with unique experience of the public sector especially in Local Government. He has been leading workshops and coaching people who suffer from shyness, anxiety and low-self esteem for almost a year now, and he has set up his own support group and workshops in South West London which is growing in strength.

Chris is standing as a candidate in the forthcoming UK local and general elections in Kingston and Surbiton. He is passionate about growing people, businesses and communities.

Confidentiality:

Freedom Works Confidentiality Statement

Freedom Works is a support organisation set up specifically for people suffering from Anxiety, Low – Self Esteem or Depression to attend workshops and transform their issues so that people can move beyond those issues.

Freedom Works or leaders of our workshops are not counsellors or psychotherapists and the issues are not dealt with by any counselling or therapeutic methodology.

Freedom works use tools called distinctions to look at life which illuminates unseen parts of the mystery surrounding our issues thus enabling us to see what is at play and that it is possible to free ourselves. This involves authentic and open sharing of participants experiences and confidence and trust in the group to be able to do that.

As a result of the sharing and discussions you will get to see things from the past which has to be resolved if you are to move on in your life and sometimes these may be upsetting. Workshop leaders are there to support and coach you both during and after the session/s if you need further help resolving any of these issues.

To achieve our aims we need to create a condition of confidentiality in the group and in each and every one of our workshops in the following way: 

• That everything said in the workshop is for the people in the room and not for outside to be gossiped or spoken about.
• You are free to share your own experience of the workshops with others but please don’t include names of the people in the group or workshop room so they could be identified.
• That people are not judged or made to feel like they are judged for sharing openly.
• That peoples’ comments are not recorded in any way so that they could be taken outside the workshop.

To make the space safe for people we ask everyone who becomes a member to abide by this policy and keep things confidential and help us create a space of safety and security.

• Please also note if you haven't included your photo when join as a member (which you don't have to), you will be asked to bring a from of Photo ID to your 1st session so that we can identify you as who you say you are on this site when you actually attend any actual workshop session with us to make sure we protect yours and every one elses confidentiality.