Ten Anthems for Comfort, Celebration, Inspiration, and Healing

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.

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1. Lose Yourself

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime

Eminem — Lose Yourself

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2. Hammer and Nail

My life is part of the global life
I’d found myself becoming more immobile
When I’d think a little girl in the world can’t do anything
A distant nation my community
A street person my responsibility
If I have a care in the world I have a gift to bring

Indigo Girls — Hammer and Nail

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3. By Thy Grace

It is by thy grace that I sing

Snatam Kaur — By Thy Grace

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4. Don’t Give Up

Don’t give up now
We’re proud of who you are

Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush — Don’t Give Up

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5. Let It Go

It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all
It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free

Frozen — Let It Go — Official Disney UK

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6. Wherever You Will Go

If I could, then I would
I’ll go wherever you will go
Way up high or down low, I’ll go wherever you will go

The Calling — Wherever You Will Go (Official Video)

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7. How to Save a Life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

The Fray — How to Save a Life

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8. This Is Me

I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me

The Greatest Showman — “This Is Me” with Keala Settle

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9. Take Me Home

Came to you with a broken faith
Gave me more than a hand to hold
Caught before I hit the ground
Tell me I’m safe, you’ve got me now

Jess Glynne — Take Me Home

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10. F**kin’ Perfect

Pretty, pretty please, don’t you ever ever feel
Like you’re less than fuckin’ perfect
Pretty pretty please, if you ever, ever feel like you’re nothing
You’re fuckin’ perfect to me!

P!nk — F**kin’ Perfect (Explicit Version)

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Do you have favourite tracks that you find helpful and inspiring? We’d love to hear from you!

 

A Landscape of Labels: Mapping Illness and Wellness

Imagine looking down on your country or continent from a plane. You are aware of the general terrain: mountains, lowlands, lakes and rivers. Perhaps you recognise some locations – places you have visited or heard about – but there are no lines or labels down there on the ground to distinguish this country or state from the next.

Now take out a map of the same area. The map is not the landscape, it is a model of the landscape, and it is full of labels. This area has a line drawn around it. The area inside is labelled so. If it is a political map, the line might define a country; this line a different country, this line a county, state or principality.

Select a different map of the same region. Maybe this one displays regions in terms of economic affluence, manufacturing output, average rainfall, or languages spoken. The area that was labelled “England” will now carry other labels. The labels applied depend on their definitions, and which maps we choose.

Maps and labels are incredibly useful. Without them we would, literally, not know where we are, individually or in relation to one another. Travel would be a challenge, travel planning even more so. On the political map I live in an area labelled “Newcastle upon Tyne” within the area labelled “England.” Fran lives in an area labelled “Portland” within a rather large area labelled “United States of America.” The map of languages will tell us that our nations each have English as their first language. We learn some interesting and useful things, but the labels do not tell the whole story. They are not who we are.

I find it helpful to think of health and wellness in a similar way. There is an area of the broad landscape of emotional, physical, and mental experience which on the diagnostic map is labelled “bipolar II disorder.” Parts of this area fall within a larger region labelled “depression.” If I choose a different map, some of the labels may be different. The “depression” region is larger, maybe. There is a region labelled “manic depression” which more or less corresponds to “bipolar disorder” but doesn’t match exactly. Another map has only two regions: “health” and “illness.” You get the idea.

Wherever we are on the ground the labels applied to us depend on who is looking at us and which maps they are referring to.

The labels of illness are useful where they help to define where we are on the landscape of wellness, and which treatments and approaches may benefit us. We can think of treatment as helping and encouraging us to move from our “regions of illness” and journey towards regions labelled healthy on the map. Fran might move in and out of areas labelled “mania” or “depression,” for example. If it is not possible to make these journeys for some reason, treatments can help us live more comfortably wherever we find ourselves.

Knowing that Fran is American (was raised and lives within the geographic area labeled “America”) helps me draw useful inferences about her cultural identity, and likely points of similarity and difference between us. Similarly, knowing Fran lives in a region of the wellness landscape labelled “bipolar” helps me to approach her with a degree of understanding and empathy. In both cases of course, it is possible to draw false conclusions, or apply the labels without reconciling them with who she actually is.

It is my responsibility to remember that she is not “an American woman with bipolar,” but an individual with her own unique, personal experiences and story. The same applies to how we think and behave towards ourselves. We can use the labels for what they tell us but take care not to over-identify with them.

Fran, you were saying last night that one of the most important things with us is that I don’t see you as “an ill person.” That I see the person, the whole person that you are. You mentioned that the labels (I think you meant labels like bipolar, cfs, fibro) are useful because they help you focus on why you have certain issues, and also because they qualify you for benefits. But you said it is possible to become too attached to them?

Yes Marty.. The labels help me care for myself.. They help me to understand why I do what I do sometimes.. The problem is if I make that my identity.. the way engineering was an identity for me before I got sick..

Misinterpreting the labels of mental illness is at the root of stigma and prejudice. We don’t have the time or the energy to get to know everyone we meet. Labels act as a shortcut. I suggest it is not possible to completely avoid this kind of thinking; we appear programmed to label the world around us and it is likely we could not function as social beings if we did not. The important thing is to recognise that the labels we apply say as much about us and the maps we are using as they do about the people we are labelling.

 

Old Memories and New: A Stroll down Memory Lane

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.”

― Rumi

I’m on holiday this week at a cottage in the English Lake District I’ve been visiting for decades.

Each evening rain or shine I walk to the village. It’s a mile each way, give or take, but I can be out a couple of hours. I amble. I stop to watch the sheep, rabbits, and birds. And I think.

Over the years I’ve had many folk with me in my thoughts as I’ve walked the single track road to Great Musgrave. So many that long ago I named it Memory Lane. A very few have joined me on phone or video calls. It’s a joy to share special places with those close in heart if not always in miles.

Not all the memories are easy, but they all get to be here. Memory Lane can be a place of healing too. And there’s always room for more. As a friend said to me the other day, it’s good to make new memories. It can help cleanse us, move us forward. Sometimes it’s just nice to layer new memories on old.

So tonight, once again, I will walk the path I know so well. Maybe I’ll meet you there and we’ll make new memories together.