They should sell my feelings to an anaesthetist, because I can feel numb for days. Nevertheless I continue to drive round in circles on ring roads. Some days I run into people who so wild they cannot be tamed. Their emotions tear out of them so hard that they have to drop the mask other people hold up. These people keep me, themselves and others around them alive.

My parents told me I should be ready for greatness, and I was ready to go toe to toe with anyone to take that away from me. I would scream and lash out like a baby whose had candy taken from it. Slowly I realised this rat race of the job, the marriage the house isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. People walk around in this numb facade asking what car you have, where you live. Soon enough I realised I wanted out of this coma.

Now whenever I’m upset about losing something materialistic (a job/an item) I think about these questions (A New Earth)

• “Do you realise you will have to let go of x at some point?
• How much more time do you need before you can let go of it?
• Will you become less when you let go of it?
• Has you who are become demonised by the loss?”

More often than not, if whatever it is doesn’t matter in 5 years, then it doesn’t matter at all. We cling onto old birthday cards, valentines cards, awful memories and make room for them in our minds. Note they are there before you do a spring cleaning of your mind.

Literally: “what was I thinking”?

Perfection is something that I have battled with for a long time. Whether that’s people pleasing, or finding the absolute perfect life solution to some life road block. This always leads to listening to that static in my head. The noise is incessant and never ending, it follows me like my shadow through meetings, and into my bed at night. I tuck myself in and hear the whispers of: “well you should have done it this way…you could be missing out on this”. The static after a while becomes deafening.

I’ve taken an extract from ‘The Wisdom of Sunday’s’ to illustrate the mind:

“The mind is like an ocean. (Sometimes it’s calm, and sometimes it’s like a tsunami.) To try and befriend it at the top of its waves is like trying to put a plate on water. Instead you must drop down underneath your anxiety/anger. You will then find awareness that understands this anxiety. Compassion arises out of this that will understand the interconnectedness. After all we aren’t out of our minds, we are out of our awareness.”

Our static is the top of the waves, and we all converse with them every day. In the end a gentle awareness and understanding of the static can help lessen it. For example, my static would say “this guy left you because you’re too boring”. However, if I drop down underneath I can see that this is just anxiety trying to draw me in. Like a bubble to be popped I acknowledge it stops (after a lot of practice).

One great way to check that you aren’t in the static is to check:

“The next time you are in the shower… Are you really in the shower?” (A Wisdom of Sundays).

When you are showering, are you thinking about a great punchline of an argument you had last week? Or how your workday will go that day? If you are in the shower, learn to be there… Feel the water on you, watch the water flow around the plug hole, wrap yourself up in a nice fluffy towel afterwards. Learn to just be.

The one big realisation I have had is that no one is making me feel a certain way. I choose to let that be a part of my static. So the only person standing in my way of getting away from these thoughts… is me.

This quote always sits with me as it:

• Drives me to question my pain
• Drives me to question people’s intentions
• Drives me to question my intentions
• Drives me to question what is true here
• Takes away my fortune teller mindset

I don’t believe in a man that sits above in the clouds and watches over me. But I do believe in fate. As I was writing this blog, and struggling for a good week of what to say (I was also at a low for a while). I stumbled across this passage from Michael A Singer and it put it all in perspective for me.

“Imagine if you have a thorn that directly touches a nerve. So much so, that anything that comes near it causes a disturbance. You have two choices:

1. Avoid anything that touches that thorn
2. Take it out”

Michael A Singer

We all try to build our lives around our thorns. Whether that’s relationships, social lives, working lives. If anyone goes near our sore spot, we do what we normally do in pain. We lash out, or we run away. Fight or flight. Our thorns then become someone else’s thorns. Our lashings out then become someone else’s bad memory (or their thorn). It’s like the least fun game of Chinese whispers.

If you feel that someone has touched a thorn, relax and lean away from it. Give your body space to push it out itself. Try not to get involved with your brains “you aren’t good enough” chatter. That isn’t you talking. That is your fear. Soon your brain will have a moment of clarity around that thorn. That moment in peace… It’s so hard to describe… It’s like I finally feel connected even though I’m the only one there to experience it.

If I could go back and tell myself something then I would definitely retell this from Sarah Blondin:

• Put down the fashion blogs, and hours wondering about your physical flaws. Look inward. True value is not from someone else thinking you’re fit, it’s from you, and you alone.
• Sit down and breath.
• True riches are not from, cars and houses. It’s from patience, grace, kindness, and wisdom.
• Take a moment to stop and appreciate your health, your quiet time, your bed, it’s not being so bloody hot all the time!
• I found that when I was younger I had no direction or support. I was actually longing to meet my true self. All I ever want and need, is within me. There in the quiet of myself is where I would find my answers.
• Sometimes my mind creates noise, like a wasps nest. I point fingers, I choose everything over my true self. I didn’t believe in my own ability to give myself what I needed. All I need to get there is to have patience and to remember to breathe. I would then meet the only person who could carry me through the darkest nights, and the only person who could truly love me.

• Phrases such as “other half”, make us feel that we aren’t complete unless we meet someone else. We are somehow inadequate unless we are married off, or have a bf/gf. At the end of the day the best relationship you will have is the one with yourself.
• Bad Times come with the good. Do not despair. Breathe. Ground yourself. You are strong enough to make this life so beautiful.

Context over Content

Every day we follow near enough the same routine. Get up, go to work, go the gym, eat dinner etc. That’s our content.

Our context is how we view that situation, maybe we are in love. Or you are viewing the situation differently due to gratitude (thankful for your health, a good nights sleep, flowers in your garden). This switch in the context of a situation can instantly take away stress and improve your mood.

Changing content is always hard, you can’t just magic up a new house or new job. However, you can learn to appreciate what you have, or reframe it in a new way.  I can say that I went through a cancer scare a few years ago, and I am thankful for my health every day. Yes work sucks, and relationships end but we are so lucky to be alive.

We got taught when we were younger that there are two spectrums of emotions. Happiness and sadness, or if you like…

As aptly as Donnie Darko put it. I quickly realised that the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. Other social aspects that seemed alien to me at one point soon became more part of life.

For instance, how can a person hurt themselves on purpose? It feels like a taboo subject still. Yet, it happens all the time. Trust me…

People think that you take the pain out on your body so that they can see that it’s killing you, bit by bit. For me, and for a lot of people that couldn’t be further from the truth. The pure emotion that circles round, and round in my brain makes me forget the time. Forget who I am. Forget my purpose of living. I just want something else to focus on so badly. I want to see that pain in front of me. I want to watch it heal in front of my eyes. Sometimes it’s a tattoo that bookmarks a story of my past, or a piercing that I can focus on for a few weeks.

What I have learnt (am still learning) is to accept my own flaws, and that I’m good enough. I don’t have to be perfect, and I don’t have to punish myself when I’m not. I live with the ambivalence of myself. In the words of Esther Perel: it has grown/will grow on me slowly, physically, emotionally through the years.

I’m here to talk about what people don’t talk about.

Suicide Ideation. 

Firstly the “trigger”, it happens. Something crashes down on your life so hard you don’t even have a chance to look round before your sent into a pit of depression. All those “What if” scenarios, well they have happened. For me, people aren’t a logic that I can follow. They aren’t an x + y statement that should always go together. It leads my brain to chew on it for months, and the only part of the equation that I have power over is me. I pick at myself until there was nothing left. Without an answer I felt alone, I felt no meaning.

Without any answers I felt there was no “purpose”. I felt like I was going through the motion of the 9-5 days. Working, going to the gym, making small talk and going home. I still am “withdrawn” from the “real world”. The small talk, the socialising. For that I feel bad.

Back then I didn’t feel bad. I felt numb. When someone said “See you Monday”. Part of me thought, “You probably won’t”. In a way it was liberating. It allowed me to not care about the petty arguments of work, as I had bigger things to worry about at home.

Feeling numb was my brains final security blanket. These days don’t feel like mine, they are owned by this fog in my head. I would sit on the bathroom floor for hours with my mind going round and round in circles. I just wanted to feel something again, something real. “To reset” I told the woman from the Samaritans. I thought taking a lot of pills would ironically make me feel more alive again.

I had reasoned myself into “reckless” thought but I couldn’t see it right away.

Thankfully, with an amazing GP and therapist I made it through. As there are days I sit staring lost in my own thought and someone asks (as they always do), “Are you ok?” and I actually mean my answer of: “I’m fine, I’m just fine”.

I am grateful that I am here, and I can feel my cat crawl on my back in the morning. I can sit in my garden at the end of a day and feel the grass between my fingers. It’s the little things that make me feel alive.

If you are worried about someone watch out for the signs below, and check out your life counts

“IS PATH WARM”

I  – Ideation (suicidal thoughts)

S – Substance Abuse

P – Purposelessness

A – Anxiety

T – Trapped

H – Hopelessness/Helplessness

W – Withdrawal

A – Anger

R – Recklessness

M – Mood changes

Also give this great blog about the Signs of Suicide a read by The Bipolar Writer

As I come back from my holiday I got thinking about baggage. We all carry it around with us, some in neatly packed cases, and some dragging behind waiting to be measured out for our social norm limit. We argue with the airline, “you don’t understand what I need to get through these next couple weeks”. They respond: “Sorry, it’s just standard”. I’m sorry but, standard or “normal” is just fucking boring in my book. Tell me something true, something that makes your cases bust open with experience.

We watch these people desperately scramble trying to throw out their baggage that they don’t need. (Knowing it’s just going to mount up again.) I can see the 3 brothers of stigma in their cases:

1. “Shame
2. Guilt
3. Embarrassment”

“We are ashamed of our naked bodies and naked emotions. We spend all of our time thinking about this shame. However, we don’t spend proportionally the same amount of time being ashamed of environmental or social impacts we have on each other.”

Stephen Fry – Happy Place Podcast

I don’t know much about the new people I meet, but I like people who show their emotion. Who are “true blue”. People that are fearless to break social norms, and carry around their baggage like its a badge of honor.

At the end of the day we all have crap to deal with, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we shared each others baggage once in a while? I’m not exactly a light packer, but I’d like to think I can lighten someones load once in a while.

“We need to become aware of how many messages we internalise” – Krista Tippett

How many times do we think to ourselves:

• Play it cool
• It’s just a play for control
• Don’t let him know that you like him
• Don’t text back straight away

It’s exhausting to internalise this monologue, and appear totally perfect on the outside. It feels like some sort of magic trick. I’m astonished at those that manage to make it through unscathed. Some fail to pull a rabbit out of a hat, with everyone watching. Pity and self deprecation looks on. “If only I ….” follows.

After all, it’s easy to get those first few kisses. The pinnacle moment is reaching those tooth paste kisses. Knowing something real, something true. Those interactions with people are what I live for. I’d unwittingly follow someone into the dark for.

Until someone loves you to the point that you deserve. Then you should love yourself even more to make up for it. Go be that fucking awesome girl boss, go be that artist, blogger, runner, coach because that will fill you more than anyone who doesn’t treat you the way they should.

I used to think I should be this person that is smiley and happy 24/7 because; ‘I have overcome depression and anxiety”. The truth is every birthday, and every time it’s sunny it triggers my depression. Everyone else is wanting to be outside with other people, and I feel ashamed that I just want to be home alone.

I watch people live out their happy relationships through a window. I’ve been so alone for such a long period of time, I feel hollow, and void of connection. I sometimes feel stuck there, people watching, and thinking of all the parts inside of me that other people wouldn’t want to love. They steal my hope, my belief of true happiness.

I know I’m meant to live outside the window with the happy people. Sometimes I’m there, I’m home. But then something triggers it, and then I trip and stumble and darkness drags me down. Then comes fear and doubt that I will never get back up. However, I have touched heaven. I have been in hell.

I am now in darkness for only a few days here and there. I find a way to bring light into my life where I can:

• The flowers I look at when I wake up remind me of the beauty in the world.
• The circle of people I surround myself with remind me that I am loved.
• I write in my journal to understand the facts of my emotions.
• I ask myself cognitive questions e.g. “What is true now?”

The most important thing I’ve learnt is to not beat myself up when I’m feeling down. The quote below puts it across perfectly:

“When you do feel the dark coming, spend time to restore yourself. With love and not with frustration. Through time, the dark will come to us less often. Even when it does come, it shouldn’t be seen as a failure, but as a challenge to overcome and make us stronger. ” Sarah Blondin

Some days don’t feel like mine at all. They are owned by the company that I work for. Days were stretched out doing the “impossible for the ungrateful” (Roman J Israel). I’m not the only one who knows the feeling to be constantly switched on. It makes you resent a job you once loved, and lets your mind wander at 3am.

I wanted to share this story about super chickens from Margret Heffernan:

1. One set of chickens were left to breed without scientific interruption.
2. The second set were hand picked as being the “most productive” (produced the most eggs).

The 2nd set ended up pecking each other to death. This isn’t only true for chickens but it is true in real life. We learn that only the top 10% earn the university place, or earn the bonus, or earn a promotion. So we fight against each other for this goal. Instead of working together.

People who work at organisations aren’t just at fault for this, but organisations are too. They create an environment in which people are forced to react in a “dog eat dog” manner. Financial target goals bring out the worst in people. Rather than goals that:

• “Talk to something much deeper inside them”
• “They feel they have been given the opportunity to give the best work they have done.” (Whether that’s provide them with the right resources, length of time, or your feedback etc)

Next time you feel yourself about to peck someone else at work to death, because lets face it, your mind set at that point in time is “they deserve it”. Maybe have a bash at the following:

• Breathe
• Go for a walk outside (free break!)
• Write the email (but don’t send), come back to it and re-write
• thought process: it’s just work, and this is a process I need to get through.

Times are changing, and we should start thinking about what we can get out of work (in terms of experience and motivation), rather than what can work get out of us.