On Saturday St Stephen’s in Norwich hosted Bouncing Forwards as part of a national tour by the mental health charity Kintsugi Hope.
Patrick Regan led a strong team from Kintsugi Hope which used warm colours and music to create the atmosphere through which he could transmit his message of encouragement.
After a series of painful operations on his legs, Patrick had decided that the world would be better place without him. In Norwich on Saturday October 22, he explained why he is now a man of hope.
He had been awarded his OBE for founding and growing the charity XLP, which supports young people at risk from knife crime. However, after an avalanche of health problems for himself and his family, he fell into depression and anxiety, and recorded the experiences in his first book ‘Honesty over silence’. The message was that ‘It’s OK not to be OK’.
“But I didn’t want people to be stuck in not being OK,” he told his audience at Stephen’s. “So I decided to write Bouncing Forwards, a book about resilience.
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Most people think of resilience as bouncing back. But why would I want to go back to my pre-trauma self? I want to bounce forwards.”
St Stephen’s is among many churches across the UK currently running a 12-week Kintsugi Hope course, which explores themes such as honesty, shame, perfectionism, anxiety and anger. About two-thirds of those who join the courses are people of faith, but the courses are open to everyone regardless of world view.
Using humorous dialogues with his team, Patrick toured through many of the themes of his latest book: mental wellbeing, silencing the inner critic, having compassion on yourself, and thriving through life’s challenges. Jess Cooper, the charity’s communications officer, created a chat-show style to draw out his ideas.
“I think it’s really important to stop using platitudes,” he said. “Like ‘God will never give you more than you can handle.’ Or ‘She died because God wanted 
her.’ People could well reply: ‘We wanted her too.’ “
He shared that after stepping down from the leadership of XLP he told God that he was willing to do anything except lead another charity: he never wanted to do fundraising again. He felt he heard God saying: “Don’t think charity, think movement.”
Kintsugi Hope is a movement which aims to create safe spaces where people can talk, be honest and process things. It derives its name from the Japanese art form Kintsugi which uses golden lacquer to mend broken pottery. The strapline of the charity is ‘discovering treasure in life’s scars.’
Between the spoken sections of the event on Saturday Natasha Petrovic, a graduate of the Yehudi Menuhin School, provided high-quality singing and music on the violin, supported by Mike Coates on the guitar. Joel Harris, who leads the charity’s youth wing, shared statistics about the alarming increase 
in mental health problems among teenagers.
“Success,” said Patrick, “is looking in the mirror and not wanting to change what you see.” He shared a series of stories about he and others had fund courage to face life’s challenges.
He recounted how his former PA Ludivine Kadimba had come up with a word for him: ‘flawsome’, meaning ‘someone who embraces their flaws and is awesome regardless’. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said to him: “Patrick, you make God smile.”
“In his resurrected body, Jesus had scars,” said Patrick, “so there are going to scars in heaven. I can’t rescue people. But I can see the grass growing in the cracks between the flagstones.”
Patrick finished the evening by praying for the audience: “I thank you, God, for every person here. I pray that people will walk away from here with a bit more of a sense of hope, and knowing that they are loved and cared for, in Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Pictured top is Patrick Regan at St Stephen’s. Right (top to bottom) are Natasha Petrovic, Mike Coates, Jess Cooper interviewing Patrick, and Joel Harris. Below is the Kintsugi Hope resources stall at St Stephen’s.
Eldred Willey, 24/10/2022
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