Coping: Joy Lists

Hello my friends,

The sun is shining here and it's a beautiful day. I wanted to share with you something that I find helps me when I'm not as smiley and when things are more difficult. I make lists of all the things that make me happy. Sometimes I write them down, sometimes I don't. What I have learnt through yoga is to think about the mind/body connection - how doing something with your body can have a positive impact on your brain. So now, when I'm down - and if I remember, I am only human - I try and do one of the things from my lists.

Currently, here are some of my joyous things:

• Feeling the sunshine on your back as summer begins 
• Laughing
• Singing to Banarama with my friend as we drive around 
• Drinking Tea 
• Falling out of yoga poses and getting back into them 
• NPR All Songs Considered Podcasts 
• Beer 
• Reading (specifically 'The Bean Trees' by Barbara Kingsolver) 
• Looking at pictures  

Make your own list. Little things help.

Peace, happiness and smiles

Miss D 

Why Yoga is it's Own Little Miracle

A year and a half ago, when I was going through what turned out to be the point in my life where I was finally diagnosed with depression, I started doing bikram yoga. I had tried another type of yoga before but I thought this one, undertaken in a forty degree heat would be more worth my while.
For a long time exercise was my way of coping, and at times became an obsession. I'd gotten tired of the cycle - going for a run, going to the gym, going to a class - it had all begun to bore me. Bikram was different.

Firstly there are mirrors. So you have to look at yourself, for 90 minutes of intense poses, working external and internal organs. You see every slouch of your shoulders, every slump of your thighs. Sounds awful? Probably, but it's not I promise you. You see what you are doing wrong and then you correct it. You go as far as you can then you breath. You don't push into pain. All of that helps. Just think about it - shouldn't we all be doing that with our minds too?

Now I do a lot more yoga at home, although I still do Bikram every week. I sleep better and I always feel better after I have given myself time for yoga. The video below is by awesome Adriene, who does wonderful, supportive sequences.

This is one I found particularly up-lifting. Namaste my friends x

The Best Advice I Can Give You

I was talking to someone a couple of days ago about mental health and anxiety. He was struggling with their current situation, which wasn't at all unhappy. The only thing I could say to him was this:

IT'S OK NOT TO BE OK

More than that, for the majority of the time it's just how we (those millions of people who live with mental health issues) are. The pressure to be happy in the life that you have - when nothing is technically wrong - can be crushing. 

I lived with the question for more than a decade: "Why aren't I just happy?" I'd cry over it frequently, feeling like a failure because everything I had in live wasn't enough for me; feeling ungrateful because I had so much; feeling horribly confused because at times I could be so very happy, then the emptiness would come. As much as I wish I known my diagnosis and understood my symptoms sooner I suppose it's a part of me that made me stronger. I did fight through it. I still got up every day. I had an incredible job and incredible friends. In a way that almost made things harder: my symptoms weren't severe enough to really be noticed. 

I suppose it might possible to fight your own way through depression alone, without acknowledgement or support, but it's a hell of a lot better not to. 

It's ok to not be ok. Most of us aren't. 

Hailstones

Today I drove home in a hailstorm. Thousands of tiny frozen particles ricocheted madly off my windscreen, like they were attacking me, attacking the ground, attacking people with a glacial force. Three hours later it's a gorgeous day again, you'd never know it happened. When I started thinking I wanted to write something here it came into my mind and I started to think about how my brain can act just like the weather, and kind of attack me when I least expect it. Now I suppose I'm more able to know when it's happening, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hit me with some force. When it used to happen I supposed it was just being a fucking horrible person. It manifested itself like that, a fault of my own, and that feeling didn't leave me for years and years.

Blaming yourself for the weather? That's just crazy.

What I'm Listening to Today: Damien Jurado, Reel to Reel Demos (Where Shall You Take Me) on vinyl, a really beautiful record by a genius who shows all of us struggle.

The Lives of Others

Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.

The truth is a powerful thing.

The thing I have found most startling since I started actually talking about my own mental health is how it almost always leads to somebody telling me something similar, or something worse, about a relative or a friend or themselves. Again and again we all keep it quiet, don't mention it until we are pushed.

And it's not in the way that you might if you were talking about a more physical illness - like cancer. I mean sure you might wait until your comfortable to tell someone about that kind of a struggle. But there is a precedent for it - books, films, TV shows and by enlarge you would only expect a swelling of (perhaps hard to deal with in itself) sympathy.

There is still a huge disparity when it comes to mental health issues. Instead of waiting for something positive or empathetic you wait to be judged. You wait for people to look at you differently, or try and skirt over it politely. I'm lucky in that very often this hasn't been the case for me - it's happened only a few times. Instead I've found people sharing their own stories. I remember telling one of my oldest friends about it after she had been through an episode of her own and she was stunned. 'Everybody hides stuff' was what she said eventually. Of course we do. Why? Because your brain, after all feels, like your responsibility. Perhaps the only responsibility that will make a difference is the ability to tell the truth about it.

Entitlement

I was walking down the street with my friend today and she mentioned that she liked my blog. I instantly thought she meant my music blog - the one I've been writing for over four years. She starting talking about a post I had written and I realised she meant dullshine. Of course that prompted me to think about it - I was so passionate when I started out so why am I not writing here anymore? I answer is pretty simple: the past few months have been some of the happiest I have ever had. My job was made permanent, my living situation is awesome, I've been doing lots of yoga and letting go of the judgements I make one my body. I've also fallen in love for probably the first time ever. You see? I haven't felt entitled to write about depression, because I'm not in a depression.

Still, I couldn't stop thinking about my friend who said the post she read was interesting. And then I thought if you have never felt that way, how important it is for you to understand it. Essentially entitlement is bullshit. It's a disease so often swept away and because of that there can never be enough people writing about it. As for me, it lingered in me for at least two decades and I know, with a change of the wind, it could come back. I'll keep writing. For me and for you and anyone who wants to read it.

I wish you peace and compassion.

Little Miss Dullshine xxx

Rain or Shine?

Hello there

I feel like I haven't written here in a long time, longer than it actually is. Perception is puzzling. That's what we deal with I suppose, working out if what we think is an actual truth. And if not then why do we think it. Or at least that's how it is for me. It's like this bunch of daffodils.

This is how they actually look; a sunny yellow burst of happiness.

Play around with them on a photo app and this is how you can make them look:

Rainy, troubled and withering. 

I think it's the same with my brain. Things happen and I change them. It feels unconscious but I have to question myself, or at least that's what I hope I have started to do. 

Right now I am going through a time in my life where I am trying to change bad habits. I know what they are, why I do them and why they are bad for me. The problem it's learnt behaviour - imbedded deep down in me as a false way to cope. So that makes it hard to change. My perception is that I do these things, that they are part of me. I don't know how to be without them - and I'm worried that a storm will come. Just writing that makes me think about it more. It's the truth, they are like my crutch, my solid support even though they also hurt me. Weird huh? 

I think you have to accept that there is no magic wand. What I try to do now it take a step back from myself - recognise how I am feeling and ask myself if it's really true. Question your brain and why you are seeing rain. Maybe, just acknowledging that you create it internally is some kind of help.