listen – Write Up My Street

No, not that kind of breakdown, I mean the sort where we look at our emotions, take them as categories, if you will, of feelings and our response to life situations. Examine them like an emotional science project. What causes us to feel like this, and we’re talking the good, the bad and the ugly here.

Zero apologies for using this image

Can we square up to them and see what’s contributing to our emotions and how when we need to cope better or even just a little, how do we do that. Well, this is my take on all of this, so if any of this helps spin that wheel of emotions, read on as I’m going to take a little dive into some of the following.

What’s contributing to this
How does loss grief impact us
Are emotions whatever they look like, okay?
What has helped
Why do we push through
Coping strategies

I finished my last blog with how music and also notably bad dancing lifts me up and how in addition, I guess, writing and art are important to me. Not just as coping strategies but also just as part of who I am. They are a core that runs through personality, I try and see life around me as art, whether that be my shoes, a plate of food, a painting, an advert, the way someone moves, life is all about art, and without it we become lesser beings. In my view anyway. Paul Cézanne the French Impressionist painter when he wasn’t swigging Absinthe with Vincent Van Gogh, summed this up, perfectly.

“Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it”. Cézanne

I curated an art exhibition once, it was one of those times in my life I will never forget, I got to organise and buy art for an incredible gallery in London. It was my kid in a toy shop moment. Making it all work, look right, sell right I just had the best time those weeks of planning and proofreading, learning how to hang not to mention carry a life size lion up The Mall. So, ask me again what helps me push through, what’s one of my coping strategies, it’s invariably a painting so beautiful it makes my eyes leak. Whether you like a painting or not, it should conjure some emotion, even if it’s just a snigger, and you see that’s that flipping emotional wheel exactly to a tee. If something helps you, you use it, if it doesn’t find your thing and hold it close for when you need it.

I was watching an Italian series on Netflix the other day, it’s called Storia della Mia Famiglia, (The Story of My Family) and I highly recommend it, even if you need subtitles. I’m not going to go all waxing lyrical about my own family, but the series is a masterpiece in what life is like, the shit end and the bloody funny end. It tracks across a vast array of human emotions, taking in grandma to the children, it somehow (spoiler alert), meshes in drug use, mental health, cancer, death, fear, self-forgiveness and the importance of dancing or at least finding your equivalent thing; remembering what gives you joy or calm, peace or a smile etc, That it is okay to grieve, to worry to be angry and to also (as this was Italian)… throw plates. Italians do emotions out loud and, in the film, each character encapsulates all the sentiments we can think of on that pinging back and forth emotional wheel.

They lie to each other, they are angry, exasperated, happy, hopeful, impatient (of course), they show contempt and are judgemental, even the nuns upstairs are included with their gratitude, sense of humour and belief. But this shows us with every moment, that they are all real emotions, and they are all part of life.

Then the main character dies (more spoiler alerts), with the story moving between before and after his death and how he knows each of his family will suffer, but also how he knows them and what might be their way of coping, not forgetting him, or not feeling sad but of a way to see the light. What emotions he aligns with each of them and how he can get them to see, after his death that they can be happy again. He gives them each the gift of a personalised coping strategy, in asking them to tell him what they love about him, it’s his way of opening their eyes to help them when he is gone.

He says this so perfectly with the words.

‘Ragazzi quando sembrate tristi semplicemente ballate,

ballate perché quando ballate la tristezza si disintegra’

(Kids, when you seem sad just dance, dance because when you dance the sadness disintegrates)

So how would you describe yourself, be honest? People tell me I am funny, confident and smart – that I have great style. (I spend a literal fortune on shoes, I’ll have you know). But I don’t see myself that way, well not always. Been times when I have felt like I am sitting on the outside of everyone around me. They’re in the middle having fun, chatting, getting on, I’m looking for a quiet corner alone. I thought this was because I thought no one liked me or wanted to speak to me, or that I didn’t know how to articulate my feelings, my brain didn’t know how to even begin to express all of this.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I think I’ve realised that I did as a child, on occasions, feel stupid, plain, less well behaved, less valued. So, I backed myself away into that quiet corner, over and over again hoping no one would see me or notice. Then I could disappear and not have to face someone telling me again I was less than them. Eventually, I didn’t know how to get out of that corner, so for so long I stayed there, thinking that it was my safe space, but the truth is, that all that corner did was solidify those feeling of being ‘less than’. That it was in fact contributing to how I was feeling. It didn’t matter if they wanted to sit with me or not, it was about how and why I was feeling. It was about allowing myself to accept the bare minimum. What has helped, apart from Fausto getting us all to dance (and he was right by the way). Recognising those emotions and then unlearning those behaviours is vital, knowing that they were never too much.

You know what else; everyone is scared sometimes and that’s okay. At least I’m not always alone in my corner. The film uses all the emotions and gives them all free range to be what they are, and it also teaches us that happiness and joy and all the other thoughts and feelings, however big or small things have a place. That mental health, fear, sickness, love, openness, humour, etc are all normal they are all 100% bloody okay.

This is all about finding a way to turn around and look at life’s emotions in a different way, which has at times been very hard and I’ll be honest at times I didn’t even know it was possible or a thing. I just thought that corner was where I belonged. But now I have to trust myself to turn up the music; to find my tune and to trust that not everyone wants to see me alone and that indeed if they do, they are not worth my time or my joy. My joy is all mine, better still, it is actually there in front of me, not behind, or in that sodding corner.

A real lesson in that Italian series was that sadness can be a good thing, like any emotion, and I mean any of them. Do not shy away, you just need to look hard at it, without fear and discover what is causing those tears or a downturn in your smile, is it grief? And that is totally okay to feel loss and sadness, to be bereft of someone you loved. We need that to understand how to feel happy again. To find a way out but without being scared of going back. Sorrow, sadness or even fear are all emotions that we should respect and sit with them while we can see why and where and how. Then we can find the love again, but knowing that sadness and all the other emotions will pop their heads in from time to time. When we are really happy, and calm and at peace, what and why are we feeling that, can we pop that down in a notebook, can we take a photo to capture it? So then we know when another day or week is causing us to feel the flipside, we can use that time of happiness to cope.

I’ll give you one of mine, (back to music again, by the way). A few years ago, I went to a Peter Gabriel concert, anyone who knows me will tell you he’s my all-time favourite. I’ve not missed a tour since I was 16. I’d been given VIP seats; 4^th row from the front and to see the soundcheck and meet Peter. I was beside myself, but then it got way better, I got an email asking me to be on camera for a film they were making about the tour. Not only was the whole evening amazing but just look at my face. I’ve popped that whole evening in the coping bucket, it’s there when I need it and it’s there when I don’t just to make me love that whole concert all over again.

‘This is the new stuff (This is the new stuff)
I go dancing in, (We could go dancing in)‘

From Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel

But back to emotional stuff, I wonder sometimes if grief is so hard because we have to eventually find a way to even let go of that sense of loss even a little, in order to have a better life ourselves. But that very letting go, can maybe seem like you have forsaken that memory, but the truth is maybe a little different; what if that letting go was just allowing our pain to ease but that we never forgot the good times and that we take inspiration from those moments.

When we experience a traumatic event, we can sometimes pre-empt any kind of joy, by a sense that it won’t last, or that it might be too good to be true. It’s our way of self-preservation. On the days when our hearts feel full, and to others we seem really happy, we have that sense in the back of our minds that it will be stripped away from us. The thought of this happening can be so detrimental, adding to that cycle – and we can be especially vulnerable to this if you’ve had your happiness crushed by someone, or lifechanging trauma. It becomes like a constant state of preparedness, the bad news, the let-down, for something to go wrong. It makes that corner a safe space, in both our hearts and minds.

Working towards hoping for the best and allowing it to happen if it does is a step forwards. But also understanding that a bad day, doesn’t mean a bad day, every day. But this hoping for and that state of preparedness can trap you in a constant ‘pause’, from life, from, well… from being entirely there in that moment. Think back to me in my corner, what might be your equivalent.

Not wanting to go all psychoanalyst here, but you know what I mean, if you have one foot on the brake, you can never actually drive down the road into the proverbial sunrise. And as Fausto rightly said, when you dance the sadness disintegrates. Its understanding that balance, that need to let go, to remember what it feels like to ‘dance’ or whatever your release is, and to know that it is perfectly okay to feel crap, to process that and to understand what that crap feels like, but also allow yourself to have that dance, it’s your life after all.

And so that’s the point of this one, is that no matter how back to front we feel (Peter Gabriel fans will get the pun), or right way around, or inside out, its actually the right way, for right then. Whatever brought us to that space in time, is right where we are meant to be. And trying to do what I usually do, and block any fearful feelings is not what the universe has in mind, we’re supposed to sit there and experience all the fun, the crap and the in between stuff. Its life.

If you don’t learn how to embrace your emotions when they happen when you feel them, then to protect yourself you go and sit in that corner, and stay there until you find your song, your light switch, your poetic confidence, your favourite shoes, the beauty or energy to see it and not hide from it. Because that hiding keeps it there, trapped, and each time you don’t look at that moment of less than perfection, square in the face, no matter how hard it is… well guess what, it just grows each time you add another piece of sadness, anger, worry… grief. The bucket gets deeper.

If you were lucky enough to grow up with someone who showed you that it was okay to be sad that if you felt sick that was okay too, you had support, someone to explain and sit with you, rather than maybe gaslight or even punish. Not everyone keeps their dream job or has a parent who tells them how amazing they are, passes all their exams and doesn’t miss their train on a cold dark night. Although it may seem like one more thing, or a why me moment… it is absolutely okay if you feel like crying, hiding or even running away. If you hold all that inside you, all those things you hid from in your corner, that pain let me tell you is a sneaky joy sump right there. But you can come back. You can always come back, that’s okay too. It’s life isn’t it. The ups and the mother fucking downs. If you need help or just a hand to hold. Ask for it and keep asking until you find the right support. We don’t always meet the right person first time you look for love. Same goes for support, sometimes the strangest opportunities and people fill that space for you, when you’ve felt others have let you down. I’m telling you, don’t give up.

To finish up with some emotional cheese. How can you help deal with foreboding joy?

Practice gratitude: Try writing down what you’re grateful for and why you’re grateful for it
Practice mindfulness: Pay attention to the present moment
Thank your worries: Acknowledge your worries and dread, and tell yourself that they’re no longer needed

Stay until your love is, alive and kicking

Stay until your love is, until your love is, alive

By: Jim Kerr

Last week I was heading into London to get my hair cut, I parked my car at the station and headed over the footbridge, there is a lovely view for miles down the straight track, with the South Downs in one direction and the castle in the distance in the other. But last week, there was young man standing crying, and I mean really crying. His face was red, and his eyes were that blotchy swollenness, that told me he’d been sobbing for ages.

I stopped and asked him if he was okay, and the flood gates opened as he cried even harder while he told me his father had died and he just couldn’t stop the tide of grief, it was constant, and he was broken with abject sadness.

I noticed someone from the station staff edging closer, and I realised the potential seriousness of the situation. But I kept talking to him, and I gave him a hug and said how sorry I was, and said he was obviously really close to his dad, and how special he must have been to him. He then told me, that his father had passed two years ago, and he just was not getting beyond his overwhelming sadness. I could see the panic in his face, as he felt literally trapped and had no way of knowing which way to go with his pain.

I shared with him my own sorrow, that my father had died some years ago and that grief has no timeline and it’s always okay to cry and to miss someone so much your heart feels like it’s cracking open. How the smallest things will set you off at random, for me it could be at a supermarket and seeing a massive bar of Cadburys wholenut, my father’s favourite, or just simply out of the blue for no reason other than my eyes just decided to leak like their life depended on it. The times I have stood and turned my face away from others, as the loss of my father was overwhelming, not wanting to share my hearbreak. But it’s okay, to miss someone you loved that much.

I offered him my Mars bar as by this point, I was trying to keep him talking and distract him; he had a dairy allergy. From my other pocket I produced an apple… he laughed a little through his tears. I said I always have a small buffet on me for emergencies, you never know when you need a snack.

I asked him which train he was getting, and it was the same as me, so I asked if he’d walk with me (sneaky distraction technique) as I had bad knees after my surgery. As we walked, he told me how he used to work with his father, and they lived together and bit by bit the love he had for him just spilled out of his every word. He was absolutely broken with grief. A few more words and tears, and he told me he was going into London for a medical appointment as he’d injured his neck in a bike accident years ago, his dad would have gone with him, they’d have had a day out. Now he was on his own. If you could ever tangibly feel sorrow, it was in that moment.

The train came and we got on, I could see he wanted to sit alone so I just sat a few rows along and let him know if he wanted to come and sit with me if he just wanted the company that was okay. He showed me a photo of him and his father, must have been a family wedding, peas in a pod and both so happy. I showed him one of my papa and me, and it all of a sudden reminded me that this month was the anniversary of his death. In that second, I realised that I hadn’t just helped him, he’d helped me as well. By sharing my experience of grief, I’d put into words how I feel and also how I try and manage those raw emotions when they do hit me. And they still do. Often.

He wanted to know if it gets easier, not really, I replied, but somehow you learn to cope with it, most of the time. But there are also days when it just is okay to cry and feel that your heart won’t be the same ever again. I like to think it won’t, in a way I think that’s how it should be, when someone you loved that much passes.

One of my favourite films has a quote at the end, which puts this into far better words than I can … and I’ll paraphrase, as it’s in Italian;

The secret of memories, is that everyone leaves a trace of themselves with you.

That way you are never alone.

(from La Finestra di Fronte)

They say that the most important light is the one that you cannot see. That there is so much to life that goes unnoticed, and while it’s unbelievably hard some days to recognise positivity, it’s there. There will be days when that light helps you go forwards, like some sneaky torch just leading you on a little bit nearer to the hope that life can wrap sunshine all around you. But also, that loving someone and missing them is entirely okay, just know that there will be days when you can feel life is good.