As part of an exercise in self-love and self-compassion a couple of months
ago, I wrote a letter to myself. It was a tough thing to write, and even
reading it all this time later I find it hard to accept. Yet I know that this
is, on some level, true, and I should revisit it more. It feels very self-
serving to publish this on my blog, but it's about time I tried putting
something more positive - and less foodie - on it.
Dear Chris,
I love you.
You are a kind, generous, talented individual for whom I have all the time in
the world. Your sense of equality, your ability to listen, your willingness to
help others in their time of need - all of these things prove to me that you
are a good person.
I know you've lived with a lot of darkness over the past couple of years, but
that is behind you - you've committed to learning more about why you feel the
way you do, and to make sure you don't repeat the mistakes of the past. I know
you don't put much stock in yourself when you look in the mirror, but that's
because you can't see what I can see. You can't appreciate how you make me feel
when you focus your attention on me.
You're only just learning how to open up yourself to others, how to show your
vulnerability - I know it's scary, but it's so rewarding when you discover how
it feels to have laid yourself bare like that. It will take a lot of time and
work, but ultimately it will make you a happier person, I promise.
Keep looking for things that make you feel good. Keep looking for things that
help define you as an individual. Keep looking into that hole inside you and
working on finding things to fill it. Answers are out there, but if you stop
looking, you'll never find it.
I know it's tough to accept, but mistakes don't define you. Stop focussing on
them, and see all the rest of you; accept all the rest of you.
Perhaps if you value your positive achievements more, you push yourself more,
lift yourself off that sofa and get those little things done, maybe you'll be
able to achieve what you think you can. Or maybe just give yourself a break -
you get so much done anyway, and regardless of whether you think yourself a
fraud, on the outside you blow everyone away.
Part of my work on self care is to try to cook for myself - from scratch - at
least one evening per week. I'm always really happy to cook for others, but I
find it hard to cook for myself - there's probably something in there about not
considering myself worth cooking for.
I've had this recipe for a while - since university, really, when my housemate
taught me it. I'm sure it came from an Italian cookbook (knowing Neil, Aldo
Zilli's), but here it is filtered through my memory. I have prepared it a few
times - I cooked it for a very good friend and his partner once, and she
labelled it (lovingly, I might add)
"Space Weevil."
It's been years since I cooked it, but a friend was coming over a couple of
weekends ago and I thought of doing it once more. When they eventually got to
me, we figured the effort would be just too much and so ordered food for
delivery. However, the next evening I found myself at a loose end, and with
all of the ingredients, and so treated myself.
Before things went pretty far south for me a couple of years ago (and also
partly causing it) I was marketing manager for a local theatre. I did all sorts
of jobs as part of this - running social media, talking to the press,
organizing programmes, running the website and making sure the printed media
(posters and flyers) were created to a standard. As part of the latter, I also
designed and delivered most of the publicity material over the three years I
was in the job, either just typesetting someone else's art, or creating the
artwork itself.
I was rather proud of my output, and how professional it looked (especially
coming from someone with no real visual art background and an Adobe suite
auto-didact. On top of this, other than the pressure that came with producing
stuff on time, it was actually fun. Separating myself from the theatre meant I
was no longer practicing these skills or creating tangible art.
So when I come to look at my own self-care, and coping with
loneliness, I recognize the need to do something
productive and creative with my time. A few months back I had the idea to work
on a series of poster designs for prominent open-source software that I use
and admire. A couple of ideas immediately sprang to mind and... I just didn't
act on the concept.
It kind of feels redundant to say, but I hate death. It rips me apart. I haven't
experienced the death of a loved one - yet - but having seen the impact of that
loss on others around me, those I love and respect, I definitely do not relish
the day.
Instead, I experience that loss vicariously. I see the emptiness in them, that
sudden void that once was filled with someone important to them opening up and
sucking in their happiness, their hopes, their safety. A black hole, yawning
and destroying them from the inside.
And that breaks me. As a Rescuer
I see their pain and I can't fix it. As an empath, the sudden darkness in
someone's eyes flashes through me and overwhelms me. There is absolutely
nothing I can do about it - no filling in the hole, no telling a joke to cheer
someone up, no promises about the future that don't feel vacuous in the moment.
So that pain transfers to me - and because of my own relationship with sadness
I reject it totally and bottle it up. Tears leak out, but ultimately I swallow
up that sadness and it eats away inside me. It feels like there's a big dam
inside, holding back a flood of sadness, and this just adds to it.
Having struggled at times over the past couple of years with considering my own
mortality, the one thing that kept me going was thinking about the horror of
such a loss being visited upon those who love and care for me - the fact that
there are such people is something I've had to drill into me due to my low self
esteem. And so I carry on.
Part of my work on self care is to try to cook for myself - from scratch - at
least one evening per week. I'm always really happy to cook for others, but I
find it hard to cook for myself - there's probably something in there about not
considering myself worth cooking for. So here is the first in a series of
recipes (I hope) that I use to treat myself.
I've recently been playing with risottos - I've got a couple of friends with
vegan or FODMAP dietary needs who I
like to cook for. Risottos are excellent in that they're really easy to prepare
and make tasty, and the rice provides a great base for all sorts of flavours.
Here's a recent recipe I've been using - like a lot of my cooking, it's formed
from an understanding of how something is prepared, not necessarily from a
formalized recipe from another source. I'm sure I do something wrong, or miss a
trick with it - but this one works for me!
Today marks two years since I wrote to a counsellor and said
"I'm not happy." Since then, I've seen Jo pretty much once a week for fifty
minutes at a time.
I'm not going to lie. It's not been easy. As someone who spent 33 years of his
life not talking about myself - not really anyway - I almost resented it. I
dodged some appointments, dreading it. I was combative with her; closed. I
wanted her to drive the conversation and ask all the questions - I had to plan
what I was going to say on the car drive over, panicking that I had nothing.
But the fact remained that on some level I knew I was hurting, that something
was pretty wrong - that for some unknown or specious reason, I was unhappy, and
had no way of identifying or fixing it on my own. I knew I'd be resistant to
the experience, so I set up an obligation. I'd go and see her, because
otherwise I'd disappoint her.
As time went by, this experience didn't change - I'd be stand-offish, double-
guessing every suggestion of hers, trying to out-silence her. No progress, no
openness, nothing. Sure, I shared some big news pieces with her, frustrations
etc. but it was all just something to get done and get over with.
I started this blog hoping to be a lot more profilic than I actually have
been. I have quite a few topics to cover. But my lack of motivation has
stymied that, although I take some slight comfort in this blog fulfilling
the fate of numerous others. My piece of writing On Hills
has been quite important to me, so here's another very personal piece.
I have had, for me, a rough couple of years. I've been through redundancy,
death, breakup and more. All have taken their toll on me enough that, at the
beginning of last year, I started counselling.
This was not easy for me. I am quite a closed person, emotionally; I rarely
share and I always concentrate on how the listener will receive my words rather
than on the expressing of them. As such, I hold things in. And they eat away at
me.
I've recently been having a bit of a tough time with things in my life in general, and part of my efforts to become happier have led to
talking about it a bit more. I was trying to talk about how I've always coped (poorly) with responsibilities and events in my future, and
I came up with the following analogy.
From the valley, I look up at the hill that rises above me. I've agreed to meet someone - a friend; a colleague; a customer - on the
other side at a set time. I've got my walking boots, my jacket, a tent - all the gear that I know, through experience, I need. From here,
the hill doesn't look very high, and it wouldn't take me too long to climb over the top. I could, of course, just go over the side of it,
but the perfectionist in me only sees the summit.
I walk to the foot of the hill, but take my time about it - it won't take me long to climb, and I've never failed to meet someone before,
so why rush? Just behind it, I can see another hill I need to climb after to meet someone else; no big deal.
I finally get to a time when I could really just start the climb, and I look at the hill and... it's a bit taller than I thought; from
here, at the bottom, it looks like a tougher climb. I've made them before, but something stops me; I've still got time, I'll camp out and
tackle it tomorrow. I'll make the meet, no problem.
Tomorrow comes, and the hill is still there. As are the two hills behind that. All of them need summitting, but I've not even started the
first one. Still time, but I'm conscious of all the time I've wasted so far. I could have climbed all three already and relaxed on the
other side!
Why the hell couldn't I do that? Why didn't I? Now I've got less time to climb than I could have done if I'd started yesterday. I can
envisage me failing to make the climb, and disappointing the person I'm supposed to meet. Yet that fear of failure snowballs, rather than
spurs me on, and I sit in my tent, beating myself up over it. Instead of taking action to get in front, I start playing this horrible
game of brinksmanship with my responsibility. A cycle of angst.
It takes me incredible effort, but with just about enough time to do it, I pack up my tent and start climbing, hating myself on the way
up. And yet suddenly, without breaking a sweat, I'm at the top of the hill, looking down - of course I made it! Of course I could do
this! Why did I ever doubt myself? Why didn't I do this sooner? It was so easy!
I look back behind me and I see all of the hills I've climbed before. Thousands of times before. All of them just like this one; some a
little harder, some a little easier. Why did I beat myself up at the bottom? Why didn't I just take it on?
I look forward and I see all of the hills in front of me, and I know they're all easy too. Lets be more proactive next time, yeah?
I descend the hill, off to make my rendezvous, feeling so much better than I did on the other side, in my tent. Feel this Chris! This
could have been yours, none of that negative stuff - if only you'd done it when you got there!
I get to the bottom, and meet my friend. They have no idea what I've gone through to get there, but they're nice enough. They have no
idea how close I came to disappointing them; to failing them. I've gotten away with it yet again. Lets not do things so close to the
wire next time Chris.
I get a call - "Can you meet me on the other side of a hill in three days' time?" I've just crested a hill, I can do this! "Sure thing!"
I say - and another hill is added to the horizon. But it's alright, I can do it.
Just not now. There's plenty of time left. No need to rush.
One of the other pieces of this analogy makes me sad too - when something great is on the horizon, I know it's there, but all I can
see are the hills in the way, that I need to climb. And so excitement and anticipation are things that I find hard to come by.
