Let's Talk 2018

It's Bell Let's Talk Day, a campaign to open up the conversation about mental health in Canada, one close to my heart - now more than ever. I feel this initiative is important in helping to alleviate the stigma that keeps us quiet and judging. Last year was perhaps the first time I allowed myself to admit that I fall into the category of those that struggle with mental illness. I felt an obligation to participate in the social media campaign, but I was in no shape or form to speak up on that platform. I was extremely lost and vulnerable and wasn't ready to put my story out there. I now realize that that was ok, but at the time I didn't feel so, I just felt pressure to share and a lot of shame in not being able to live up to this expectation.

So instead of sharing with the world I found a safe place to start talking, in a trusted friend. Reaching out for the first time and confronting my depression turned out to be a life changing start to self-improvement. I learnt the value in vulnerability and each time I ventured out of my comfort zone to explore my struggles through conversation, I learnt something new about myself and the ways I've been getting in my own way.  Beginning to understand the value in opening up, I started to confide in a few other trusted friends, signed up for therapy, and took to blogging, finding this new freedom in being able to express the things I'd been holding inside for years out of shame and fear of judgement. The more I opened up to others, the more they opened up to me, the deeper these connections grew. I also started reading about others stories and started to realize that my battle was a lot more common (and justifiable) than I ever allowed myself to see it as. Suddenly I wasn't such an anomaly, I wasn't as alone as I made myself out to be. It turns out my problems were real and the stigma I placed on my own mental health began to lift.

Don't be fooled, these conversations were (and still are) difficult, particularly in the beginning. I find myself cautiously contemplating how much I share and to whom I share with. I've learnt there is a delicate balance in how much I can lean on these supports before its weight becomes too much bear for that particular relationship and that you have to learn ways to take on some of it on your own.

It isn't easy making yourself subject to judgement and rejection with your greatest vulnerabilities, but in my experience the gains far outweigh the risks. The more I face these fears the more comfortable I feel talking about my mental health and the more benefits I see coming from it, not just for myself but for others too.  By openly speaking about these things I give others permission to do the same, just as others have done for me in sharing their stories. I no longer feel shame in talking about my depression and anxiety. I can bring it up in conversations and find a purpose in sharing it through my blog, in the hopes that it may help someone else dealing with their own versions of depression and anxiety. I think it's working. Almost exactly a year after I first reached out, I received an email from one of my blog readers. She recognized some of the challenges wrote about in herself and asked if I would meet with her to talk about it. See what's happening here?

So when you hear this campaign encouraging you to talk, and see these brave people speak publicly about their mental health, the thought of taking part can be intimidating. I give those people a lot of credit and agree that it takes a lot of courage to put your face on a public campaign around mental health. But there is another way to be courageous in the face of mental health. And I bet each of those featured in that campaign started here. The courage it takes to face the discomfort of those fears of rejection, judgment, shame of your mental health struggles. The courage it takes to open up for the first time you decide to talk to someone about things you've harboured for years. The courage it takes to show a side of yourself you've never allowed to be seen, even by those who have known you your whole life.

A public campaign is just one way to reduce the stigma attached to mental illness. Yes, conversations will change how we think about mental illness. But you don't have to shout to be heard. It's amazing how far a whisper can be carried. Who knows how a private conversation might change not only how you think and talk about your own mental health, but also how those on the receiving end think and talk about their own or others they know who struggle? Often it is the most intimate encounters that create the biggest ripple effect.

Mental Health is not something you have or you don't, it is something we all have and everyone has their own trial in maintaining a good balance. Mental illness is more common than we allow ourselves to think it is and for those of us who are directly affected, the idea that we are alone in it is what leads to the belief that there is something wrong with us. As long as we keep it from view, we will never counter this attitude, and continue to nurture the very mindset that keep us down.

Let this be permission for you to talk about you own mental health challenges, whether it be a public expression you know or with just one other person, sharing only where you feel safe doing so. You just might find the more you talk, the more you will want to talk and, as I have, discover a new freedom in allowing your truth to be seen, letting go of the shame that keeps us silently disconnected.

Raising Girls

When my first was born I was told I had a girl. I remember that intense feeling of joy that you get when you don't know whether to laugh or cry, its just so big you can't really contain it. They handed me the most miraculous thing I had ever created. A real live tiny baby human girl.

These days it's pretty common to feel a bit scared for our children futures, with all the tourmoil that is happening in the world combined with the seemingly inevitable trends that are detrimental to our children's development. But after watching Oprah's empowerment speech from the Golden Globes, I was reminded of all the ways that our children have an advantage, the movement toward greater gender equality - bringing new hope taking place for girls (and boys) today, counteracting the uncertainty for future generations.

For as long as I remember having any opinion, this has been a passionate subject for me. I revelled in the idea of proving my abilities to debunk others attitudes about the limitations that being a girl might bring. I was raised in a family that nurtured all my ambitions and never once received the message that I couldn't do anything I wanted, especially because I was a girl. Sports became my thing and I was given every opportunity that my brothers had (if not more, in lieu of my growing passion) In fact it was encouraged, at age nine, when my mother, with the help of a five dollar bill, encouraged me to join my brother's hockey team, the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the sport. I grew up playing on the boys teams right through midget. At 5'4" & 125 lbs you can imagine the reservations my parents had watching me face off against guys twice my size and weight in a contact sport, but they let me choose and I chose to persevere. Looking back I admit I was in over my head at times, and am quite lucky I never broke a bone, for the amount I got knocked around. My hometown team as supportive, I was treated no differently than the rest of the team. The attitude from other teams was different, but the backlash I received only drove me to work harder.  To this day I still feel I am capable of doing anything I choose to pursue if I want it bad enough, and I can use my strengths as a woman to my advantage in this pursuit.

This is the attitude I want to instil into my girls (as well as my son), especially in a world that is so often sending messages that are contradictory. I take raising my girls especially seriously and am careful about the messages I relay, especially when it comes to my own insecurities. It's a challenge and sometimes I fail. Last week, in a amped up argument with Lucy about what she was wearing to school, I regretfully said something that contradicted the very message I hope to relay to my children. After unsuccessfully trying three pairs of pants on, I claimed they were probably too tight because she eats too much candy. As I heard the words come out of my mouth I felt like they were coming from someone who was not me and instantly regretted what I just said. As a kindergartener the size of her body isn't largely influential on her sense of self (yet), so I feel that this comment didn't have the impact it potentially could have had if she were older or someone else. But as my girls transition through an age where they are becoming more and more influenced by the external world I have more responsibility to teach them to own their own attitudes about their bodies and sense of selfs, and  messages I send to them must be concentrated in positive affluence to counteract the negative influence of the world around us. After this remark, I feel I have some making up to do, and will do my damndest to model this self-love, self-acceptance, self-compassion that I am working so hard to learn at 35 years old to my girls as they grow. To stress that it takes all shapes and sizes and kinds of people to make the world and that we all matter. To love and celebrate myself and my children for who they are at the core, their authenticity, their individuality and the strength of their will, even on days that this very thing makes my job so much harder.

One way I can do this is through the lens. I love the challenge of capturing the true personalities of my kids on camera. They've become accustomed to just continue with what they are doing when I bring out the camera. I want to portray them as their naturally, just doing what they do, doing what they love. I want to show them the value and beauty in who they are. These types of photos, where their personalities really shine, have become my strongest storytelling images.

Yesterday I received a highly anticipated book called Strong is the New Pretty. If you are familiar with this book you can imagine my excitement. It is a collection of photographs of girls doing their thing, showing strength and authenticuty through their passions, each paired with a quote from the girl in the picture. They are captured by Professional Photographer Kate T Parker, also a mother of two young girls. I admire her work greatly, as well as the way she raises her girls and the message she is portraying through her project. It falls perfectly in line with my values and all I discussed above. I wanted this book not only for inspiration as a mother and photographer, but also as inspiration for the rest of my family. However, I didn't anticipate the potential ability it had to strengthen the bond between my girls and I, through a shared experience of becoming inspired, which was realized the moment I sat down with Scarlett and started reading. I got that similar choked up feeling I had received the day she was born, in realizing the opportunity this book was creating in relaying the very messages to my daughters that I wanted to through these photographs and quotes. Scarlett sat attentively and asked about the words she didn't understand. This has become a tool for opening up this discussion of many life topics, including dreams, resilience, perseverance, individuality etc., something I realized I was previously struggling to make time or find moments to do. We read the first five chapters in one sitting. She continued to navigate her way through the book when I got up to resume my many responsibilities that go with being mom. Seeing this left me very happy.

Side Note: Another lesson came out of this moment for me. I often feel guilty for not spending enough time doing things with my children. I will sometimes resent having to do things I do not enjoy or when it is inconvenient to do so. Then I feel guilty about not wanting to spend more quality time with them. Sitting down with this book and reading it with Scarlett brought me a lot of joy. It occurred to me that I have choices in what activities I do with my kids and if I choose things I want to do or that serve a greater purpose for me, I will enjoy them more and we will all get a greater sense of fulfillment through our time spent together.

Since receiving this book I've been inspired to gather my favourite images that show the strength and true nature of my girls into a collection. Here is just a sample...

Learning to Feel

I feel deeply. This is something that has been said to me a handful of times by different people in the last year. It's not that I didn't know or believe this, but I had a hard time understanding what that meant, relative to other people and how they feel. I can only know the capacity to which I feel and can only speculate the capacity to other's peoples experience based on how much of what they feel they actually express. However, the more I understand my emotional needs, the more I understand what this means for me and the less it becomes relevant to others experiences.

Growing up I cried a lot. It wasn't very favourable for people around me and I was criticized a lot for being a 'big baby.' Life didn't feel fair most of the time. Crying and pouting was the only way I knew how to express that. As I grew older and acutely aware of how this affected how I was perceived, I worked hard to keep my feelings from being seen, as many of us learn to do. In Grade 7, the year I gave into more peer pressure than I did the rest of my teen years, I adhered to a friend's request (or bribe, possibly) to go shove a friend who she was mad at. So I did. I don't know why I did, but I did, and she pushed me back, I hit my head on the desk and cried in front of the Grade 7/8 class. My sister came home that day telling me how humiliating it was to hear her sister balled like a baby at school. I was really embarrassed. I secretly vowed to never cry in front of anyone again. With one or two exceptions, I kept to my word until through the rest of high school. To this day I've mastered the skill of holding myself together when it is required and still have difficulty crying in front of others. That was the first time I consciously started to bury my feelings. Sadness, anxiousness, joy, excitement and all the ones between.

The summer of 2016, approximately six months after I lost my friend Chanda and her family in a tragic car accident I started to notice my emotions surfacing at a new intensity. Feelings that were unfamiliar too. It didn't feel like a choice, but rather something that was happening to me. This brought on a feeling of being out of control and consequently anxiety. I later asked my therapist what can cause this and he gave me three theories:

1) Grief - ✓
2) Repressed feelings - ✓
3) Open to change - ✓

Looking at this list, I really had no chance in keeping my emotions down. I thought this new way of feeling would be a phase, the intensity something that would stave off and I would feel somewhat 'normal' again soon. But this has become my new normal and a year and a half later I am still adjusting to this intensified state of feeling, still struggling daily to figure out how to handle the amplitude of my emotions. I am in constant need of reminding myself that I am uncovering 35 years of repressed feelings and cannot expect to 'fix' it overnight.

After talking to a few people about this, as I suspected, I've realized this is an experience unique to me, to this time in my life. I am sure there are others who have gone through something similar but I've come to the conclusion it is not very common (that or people just don't talk about it). It has taken some work to understand that this doesn't make it wrong or made up, it is just my journey and I have to learn the best way to handle it for myself.

One of the hardest feelings to get a handle on is this anticipatory feeling of joy or excitement. It makes me nervous. For the most part, the low feelings weren't new to me, I've become pretty accustomed to them over the years (yet still aren't easy to deal with) but the highs are new and intense; fleeting, yet euphoric in nature. When I feel really happy I am riding high on my cloud, but I can't help but fear its mortality. I forebode it, anticipating the crash that is bound to follow, as if planning for it will make the landing softer. I almost always fall off my cloud. Fearing it only makes me fall harder. It comes with a sense of failure, frustration & disappointment. However, allowing this fall to be part of the process actually softens the blow. It is constant learning experience. The more I accept the place I am in the less time I spend getting up and dusting myself off.

Most of my therapy appointments are spent talking about how to deal with my emotions; labeling, investigating what they are asking for and trying to provide that for them. To an extent this is a natural process for me and something I started before I started therapy. But now more than ever, I find it a really difficult  process, especially since my sister passed away. Grief has a way of clumping all my emotions into a ball, and untangling the strings can be a frustrating process. Experiencing new emotions at new intensities, can make it difficult to even label them, which is the prerequisite for all the other work required. It takes great concentration and a quiet space to do this. But I've learned it is a necessary part of my well-being. I know this because when I neglect to do this, it shows up through  tension in my body, my body takes on these emotions, building up and becoming congested, often blocking my concentration, affecting my level of functioning. The minute I start to get irritable or critical is the moment I know I need a time-out. This is where I turn the lights out, lay down & do my work. Sometimes it involves asking myself what I am feeling. I start listing feelings that come to mind and the ones that elicit an emotional response within are the ones I dig into. This often starts a chain of insight into the processes that are lurking beneath the surface and more than not results in a cathartic experience, a release. I've never cried so much in my life as I have in the last six months, but I see it as an integral part of improving my mental health. Contradictory to what the world told me most of my life, crying is no longer something to be ashamed of but necessary in well-being, and even, believe it or not, a sign of courage. Sometimes when I don't feel like putting the effort in or don't have the energy to investigate I will listen to music or a meditation. Regardless, I almost always get up feeling a sense of relief, tension lifted. I often feel guilty for spending so much time on myself, but I must remain cognizant of the way this work creates a better balance which helps to improve the quality of my interactions with those around me.

Learning to feel has been one of my main focuses in my inner work. I've gone from a tough love approach to validating my feelings and it has been life changing for me. Don't get me wrong, this way is a hell of a lot more work, more than I ever imagined it would be. But hard work isn't new to me and when I can see it pay off, that is the biggest reward. It is motivated, not only by the desire to improve my quality of life, but also my want to do my best as a parent. In teaching my children these skills as they grow up, hopefully they aren't faced with such a great challenge of learning how to deal with their emotions for (what feels like) the first time as adults too.  Especially my Lucy, sensitive in nature, her emotions are bigger than five year old body and already one of her greatest daily challenges. I need to constantly remind myself to (appropriately) allow my children to see what is going on with me, and model how I deal with it. For most of my life it didn't feel safe to talk about my feelings, to express them the way I needed to. But I've been blessed with a handful of people in my life who have recently held space for me to do so and by talking it out it helps me to better understand my process. As a mother I feel it is my job to provide a safe place for my children to do so, through talking about our feelings together and teaching them that whatever they feel is ok, valid. This is hard to do, when you throw in all the other factors into play, but recently has become a major priority in my daily parenting.

Sometimes I get resentful at the complicated chaotic matter I seem to be made up of, that being a deep feeler currently requires so much work to keep my head above water. Yet, I must not ignore the beauty of my sensitivity either, the depths to my experiences that others may never have the capacity to feel, and the vast potential that this gift has to offer for those in my presence. Living in my truth involves accepting the whole of who I am, deep feelings and all.


Photo courtesy of Jennifer Baker Photographix

People are Kind

Today started out as one of those 'I just want to curl up and stay in bed and not talk to anyone all day' kind of days. But the crumbs of something I had recently read about how it never pays to stay small must have been lingering, so I dragged my hardly-put-together self and the little guy to the grocery store upon my husband's request. On good days I have had some of my favourite encounters with strangers at the grocery store, but today I wasn't into making anyone else's day, I was just getting the job done, dragging my feet in the process. An hour later my cart was full of strategically stacked groceries, carefully in a tower, so I proceeded to the checkout, feeling some relief in the idea of going home.

The woman behind me in line, about my age, had two young kids who were constantly demanding her attention, while Archer sat quietly observing his surroundings. As I packed up I secretly admired her patience in juggling the tasks of unloading her food, keeping her toddler from jumping the cart and responding to the chain of questions and statements that come with having a preschooler. As she started to load up I noticed we were packing our groceries into the same brand of tote and I thought about commenting on her taste, but voted against it as I didn't feel much like making small talk. We kept to ourselves and she finished before I did, loaded her kids and started to go, but then came back. She asked if I wanted any help loading up. I gracefully declined and said something to the extent of "Oh, I'm good. I only have one kid here today, but thank you." This gesture caught me off guard, surprised at the thought that I was the one who needed a hand when she had her hands more full with an extra kid, and got to wondering what it was that inspired this offer. Maybe it was the worn out expression on my face or my withdrawn disposition that she saw and related to days like this? Or the brief moments of eye contact made a couple times in the isles as we passed one another, relaying a sense of understanding for this messy-young-family phase in our lives? Or maybe she caught a change in mood when at the till I was interrupted with a phone call from the Kamloops RCMP with questions regarding the estate of my sister (who passed away 7 months ago). Or maybe it was simply that we were both wearing toques. I can't say for sure. But I'm convinced whatever motivated her to go out of her way to offer help to me, even with her hands full, stemmed from a perfect combination of intuition and empathy. I thought about this gesture all the way home, its simplicity and the impact it had on me, lifting me from the depths of 'Jessland' into this blog post.

It turns out I didn't need the help packing up, but I did need the offer. It was the little boost that I needed to release me from the spiral of self-loathing, so I could get on a little better with my day. It was a renewed reminder of the goodness of people, on a day I when I was swallowed by habits of self-defeat and dwelling on my relationship struggles - a switch in focus. I started to recall other incidents I've had in the store that left me feeling impacted. Like, for example, a couple months ago when a lady I didn't know complimented the way I looked (apparently I was having a more put-together day that time) during a time I was contemplating/doubting my style, and it really boosted my confidence in my wardrobe choices and self-presentation.

These acts make me want to do better. Better for myself and better for others. They remind me to pay attention to that little voice nudging me to connect with that person beside me. You never know what's going on in someone else's world, or how badly they might need a little kindness in their day. A gesture you may feel is ordinary could be the very thing that prevents them from going home and crawling into bed for the rest of the day. It could be the thing that inspires them to do something randomly good for someone else when that person needs it most. Even the smallest of impacts can lead to a ripple of kind-doing, with an incredible potential to create lasting impactful experiences. And then, in the accumulation of all the little moments of goodness, the world becomes a better place for everyone.