Gum on My Shoe

This post was inspired by a story I saw on Tumblr. Apparently there was some kind of race scheduled at a local park or something so I’ve been trying to avoid the main trail but a little while ago when I had to cross near it I overheard the following shouted exchange. Higher feminine voice: woo, look at you go! You’re jogging! Keep it up! Lower masculine voice (panting): you know it! Last place is still a place, baby! And god damn if that didn’t rewire my brain a little bit. Last place is still a place, baby. I saved the link, knowing I’d want to explore it further. When I returned I saw it had attracted the following comment . I know of a trail racing company that gives the slowest racer who finishes every race a DFL award: Dead Fucking Last. I was a little taken aback by this until I had it explained to me that those last-place finishers are pretty much uniformly people for whom finishing at all was an accomplishment: people undergoing cancer treatments, absolute beginne...

Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. — Susan Cain A few months ago I shared a post inspired by Fran’s approach to things she’s unsure or anxious about. It wasn’t a theoretical exercise for me. As I mentioned in the article I’d been invited to a wedding in April. “I’m already anxious about it,” I confessed. “But it means a lot that my friends want me there and I’m looking forward to celebrating their day with them.” Social anxiety isn’t fun. And it’s not only weddings. I’ve felt anxious attending funerals, parties, mental health events (I’m aware of the irony), even get togethers with friends. If the plans involve more than two other people it’s a safe bet I’ll be uneasy about it beforehand. I called it social anxiety but I can be more specific. It’s the conversations that are the issue. I’m generally okay talking one-to-one. But as soon as there’s a third perso...

When you go home, do you look around and wonder, “Who are these people, where did I even come from?” I mean, you look at them all, sitting there, you know... they look familiar, but who the hell are they? — Claudia, Home for the Holidays A few weeks ago I mentioned to Fran that I needed to find something to write about. Without hesitation, she suggested I write about what Thanksgiving means to me. I said I couldn’t really do that as I’m not an American, but I could imagine I’d feel somewhat the way I do celebrating Christmas as an atheist. That is, conflicted. Fran paused, smiling. I realised what she’d done. She’d led me into discovering an angle to explore. I reminded her she’d done the same twelve years ago when she suggested I write a book about being friends with someone with mental illness. Both ideas were too good for me to dismiss! Hopefully, I joked, the blog post wouldn’t take as long to write as our book had. Christmas is a religious celebration of Christ’s birth, y...

The theme for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) is kindness. In a recent article I described sixteen ways we can bring more kindness into our lives , including being kind to ourselves. I’d like to share a few ways I’ve been kind to myself in the past week. 1. Boundary Work Kindness isn’t always easy, whether it’s showing kindness to others, accepting it from others, or being kind to yourself. Kindness isn’t fluffy, soppy, or superficial. At its heart, kindness is about honesty, respect, and maintaining healthy boundaries. I’ve done a lot of work this week on my boundaries, to see which are truly important and protect me from harm, and which are walls my ego has erected to defend an inflated sense of self-worth. It’s tough work but I feel I’m making progress, with the help of friends I trust to be honest with me. That’s kindness in action, right there. 2. A Time to Celebrate I’ve written elsewhere how important it is to recognise our successes and achievements . Yo...

A few years ago Fran and I took Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly online workshop. One of the exercises invited us to select one or more arena anthems: songs “that will inspire you to stay brave when the gremlins start getting to you or when you start to doubt your ability to stay vulnerable through the tough parts.” I chose Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” the Indigo Girls’ song “Hammer and Nail,” “By Thy Grace” by Snatam Kaur, and Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush singing “Don’t Give Up.” I was thinking about my anthems the other day and thought it would be interesting to revisit the list. I have added six tracks which in various ways mean a great deal to me. Some of them have personal resonances which will be recognised by certain people in my life. Whether you know me personally or not I hope they move and inspire you too. Links are to my favourite versions of the songs on Youtube. 1. Lose Yourself You better lose yourself in the music, the moment You own it, you better never let it go You...

As I wrote recently one of the things I’ve learned from fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson is to celebrate every achievement and make the most of each moment because you don’t necessarily know what’s coming up next. I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve realised there’s more to celebrating our successes than I’d ever imagined. A Thing Worth Celebrating It might seem obvious that we tend to celebrate good, happy, positive things. We celebrate things that are special, infrequent, or unusual; and we celebrate big things more than we celebrate little things. What’s perhaps less obvious is that there’s an unofficial list of “good, special, big” things which are deemed successes worth celebrating. The list includes: Graduating from school or college Becoming engaged or married Becoming pregnant The birth of a child A new job or promotion Moving into a new home This is fine if it fits with our aspirations, desires, and abilities but what if it doesn’t? If we are n...