Raising Healthy Minds with Kim Barthel and Theo Fleury

Former NHL star Theoren Fleury at Raising Healthy Minds seminar
Kim Jorgenson photos

Chris Davis, Pincher Creek Voice

Local mom Kim Jorgenson attended a "Raising Healthy Minds" seminar at the Trinity Church Hall in Fort Macleod on June 10, hosted by Parent Link.  Featured speaker Kim Barthel was joined by a surprise guest, Theoren Fleury.


Barthel is an occupational therapist who is well known in her field for her Sensory Processing Intervention therapies, as a public speaker, and as an educator of other therapists.  Theoren Fleury is a former NHL star who battled alcohol and drug addictions and who took the brave step of outing his former coach and sexual abuser Graham James.  Fleury is now an advocate for sexual abuse victims and a 'healing motivator'.


"The course was amazing," said Jorgenson.  "The magic about it was the two of them together, though I could learn from either one of them apart, and could listen to them forever."

Theo Fleury and Kim Barthel

"It was very personal.  It was like all of us got invited into a therapy session with the two of them.  It was very intimate.  You could tell that they had cues from each other as to when things needed to change, or one would finish a sentence.  I went as a mom, and secondary for foster care. Because it was about attachment and a lot of the kids that I get have obviously come from troubled homes."  In addition to her own children Jorgenson also volunteers as a foster mom for kids in difficult situations.

"What I got out of it was way more than that.  They tell you not to personalize it, but right away you're thinking of your own life, and where it fits into what you do."

"I could have listened to the two of them talk non-stop for 24 hours, and not have enough.  They were great.  It was amazing.  The information they had starting from when you are pregnant... They went from right in the womb to what we now know about what crosses the placenta, chemical imbalances in the mom...It starts there."

"One mom asked 'When is there a window of opportunity to work on this, to fix this?' He said 'I'm 46. I didn't start until 10 years ago, and I'm good.  I'll  be in therapy for the rest of my life, but I'm okay with that.' So it isn't about we have to catch it at zero to three, there's always time for that person."

"The other thing that I got from Kim (Barthel) was that it is not necessarily about what you are doing, as how you do it," Jorgenson said, adding that one example given was how the tone of voice used by a caregiver could create a zone of comfort, security, and love, even if the words used don't match the tone.

"Both of them gave examples.  When you hear a story about another child, I can relate to that.  They both gave amazing stories about things that have happened."

"One that stuck out for me was when she (Kim B.) was in Nunavut and she had a boy that was 17 that was a young offender, and a menace to the community. Every day for 2 years from 8:45 to 3:30 he came into her office and sat there.  The rest of the community was just happy that he was in her office" (and not out in public).  He never said anything.  She remembered going home to her husband and saying 'This is going to be my failure, I'm going to lose him, nothing's happening'." Barthel's husband advised 'Don't open your mouth.  As soon as you open your mouth, you'll lose him.'  Barthel took that advice, for 2 years.  "She said that she ran into him a few years back at a opening. She said 'hey', and he said 'Hey Blondie.  I need to thank you.  Because you saved me'.  That was so amazing to her, because she had thought she'd failed."

"There isn't one way for anything."

"She was the one scheduled to speak...  For us to get 8 hours of Theoren was amazing."  Jorgenson said she wasn't a huge fan of Fleury going in, because she follows the Oilers and Fleury played for the Calgary Flames from 1988 to 1999.  The Raising Healthy Minds seminar changed her perspective on the man.  "I have such respect for him, after listening to him speak," she said.  "For him, the biggest thing for him is people coming up and saying thank you, because he gave them a voice."

"He said that he believes that everyone is put on this earth to help someone.  You may not know who you have helped, but everyone is here to help someone.  He said 'I know that by being here, there is a reason that I had to be here, and I know that there are people that I have helped in this room'."

"He said that whatever reason you're here learning, you are going to take it somewhere else that you were meant to take it."

"It was really inspiring.  They held my attention all day.  It was a really good, positive experience."

"He said that 'For you to be able to do anything without it being an effort, you have to put 10,000 hours in.'  That's why skating for him was an outlet.  Because when he got on the ice he didn't have to think.  He spent so many hours as a kid shooting and skating that that by the time he got on the ice that was his release, because his mind was blank.  His enemy was off the ice.  So what he said was 'for anything to change, or anything to be different for you, you have to put the time and effort of making a change'."

Related links:
http://kimbarthel.ca
http://theofleury14.com