Choice

Me and Bella last summer

I’ve just spent a week working on my own choices. How? Well, as I said it took a week, so I can’t really explain it all here in a short blog post.  But the nub of it is about choosing how we feel – because all the feelings in the world that we want (and don’t want) are accessible to us – we already have them all inside*

It sounds a bit simple, doesn’t it, that you can just choose how you feel? But when it comes down to it, choice is an important opportunity that many of us do not take advantage of.

For example, if you had the choice between feeling confident and feeling nervous, you’d choose confident.  Now this may seem glib and even insulting but once you are taken through the thought process and set some hard challenges (about self), it’s actually really powerful.

There’s a ‘voice in my head’ that says I’m not good enough, unloveable, ugly, fat, old, stupid, that the future I want is impossible… the list of my own failings to me is quite a long one. But that’s not how others see me. That’s not how I want to see me, but I have been choosing to believe the negative voice and ignoring the opinion of everyone else.

In other words, I’d rather believe a lie because it makes me feel bad, than the truth, which is about who I really am.  So after this week, I’ve chosen to believe the truth about who I am and be happy with that – warts and all – and tell that voice in my head to ‘shut the f*ck up’ (or at least turn it down a bit).

I spent a lot of money on this course, money I could have spent on a holiday, or the home, but I’m glad I spent it on me; there’s only one of me in the whole world, just like there’s only one of you. Our uniqueness is something to be treasured and celebrated. Is this an explosion of ego? No – it’s a great step forward in finding and being my authentic self. 

If you want to know more about this course, or the people who run it, check them out on Facebook.  You may find it a bit whacky, out of your comfort zone, but it took three years to get me to even think about attending this course, and it is likely to be the most important decision I have ever taken. Cool, huh?!

* You may wish to point out that there are people who do not have every feeling available to them, but let’s face it, a true lack of feeling (even hate) would be pretty hard to find in any conscious human.  Oh, and any sentence you start (in your head or in voice) with ‘Yeah, but…’ is usually working hard on behalf of that negative voice, so beware!

PS - I did not have to build bridges, climb trees, wade through rivers, walk over coals, live in the wild or even eat raw insects  - but I did make new, amazing friends.

Photo of me by Anna Langley

Hey Phil, I get it.

In a helicopter. 

I found you on Facebook as you accepted Nick’s friend request. I did a bit of stalking.  I’d looked before, but you were so totally under the radar on social media and online that I didn’t think to look again.

I’m pleased to see you are doing something interesting at the radio station – and still using that moniker (I looked under Bilko too, of course).  Good to see you are alive (I didn’t know) and sad to see that you have health issues. 

You have reinvented yourself as a person from where you are now. You’ve put your past well and truly behind you and moved on.  You have always been able to contact me if you wanted. You don’t want to and, finally, I get it. I’m going to move on too. A bit later than you, perhaps! But when asked by others why I don’t try and find you – I try to explain that I am respecting your wishes.  I can’t think of anything worse than some ‘blast from the past’ turning up and causing lots of awkward questions, or nosiness from people you don’t want to talk to about that stuff.

I’ll let you know when mum eventually passes on – she’s 85 now.  Interestingly she looks back on the past and has regrets when it comes to it. She’s said some very self-aware things about our childhood that, although way too late, is amazing that she has recognised, and cares about.   

I will make this my last letter to you – though I guess I know you haven’t read any of these any way. So goodbye Phil, but I’m always here if you do ever want to make contact. 

Get well soon

Earlier in September I heard David Beeney talk about mental health at work, and he used an interesting example:  The staff member who has a broken leg gets get well soon cards and contact from colleagues to see how they are doing.  The staff member who is off with stress is usually ‘left alone’ and there’s little or no contact, and no get well soon card. Yet which of these is most likely to need the contact, support and to know that others are thinking about them? (NB - make sure you read the comments below that followed on from this post)

One point that David wanted to make is that it is OK to share – to tell others if you are having issues around mental health, just as we would if we had – say – a bad back, diabetes or a headache.  But that involves a huge culture change; since Victorian times the British (I can only speak from what I have heard, read or experienced here) have been very good at the ‘stiff upper lip’.  Prior to then, the British were known for being rather emotional – perhaps better at sharing how they were both physically and mentally – than we are now.

As someone who has depression (sometimes quite a big black dog, sometimes a puppy, sometimes it’s away in the kennel) I find it hard to share what is going on in my head, because – as an example – depression makes you lose perspective. You won’t share, because no one will care anyway.  You won’t share because they might ‘find out’ you are not as amazing and indestructible as you want everyone – including yourself – to believe. Sometimes the logic of the dog is not logical at all.

The purpose of this post is the same as David’s talk – to get the conversation out in the open, to be prepared to talk about an issue which, as a nation, we seem to try and keep hidden.

There are many statistics around mental health, such as one in three adults, and more recently 25% of teenage girls. In other words, there's a lot of people who are contending with mental health issues.  Sometimes individuals might have an ‘episodic’  issue, but, if you think about mental health as a spectrum (as we do with autistic or other developmental states), then we have probably all had an issue at some time or another. The question (or perhaps diagnosis context) for me is how much it affects everyday life.

Help and references

• www.mentalhealth-uk.org/

• Mind  

• Sane 

Teenage mental health resources

• www.stem4.org.uk

• www.respectyourself.org.uk/

• Youngminds - reports on mental health for younger people and charity

Resources

• Historical context of Victorian attitudes – V&A Museum

• A beautiful mind - history of the treatment of mental illnesses

• The age of emotion (Radio 4)

Photo: from Pinterest (no credit identified)

Footnote: since first publishing this, a comment came in that it isn't always appropriate to contact someone who is off work for mental health reasons.  Yes, that's true, and contact may in fact increase problems rather than offer comfort, but the very principle that people off sick because of a mental health issue is 'taboo' is what is challenged here.  If you have a colleague off sick for any kind of mental health reason, check before contacting them with your HR department or boss.  Maybe a get well soon card could be the best thing they ever got.