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Because Words Matter

Greetings dear readers. I didn’t write anything for June despite having promised myself I would write once a month. I’ve since discovered once a month comes around rather quickly! But something happened recently that compelled me to come out of my corner and enter the Qorner.…see what I did there?😏

Here in Barbados we’ve been experiencing an increasing trend in suicide especially amongst young adults. As I write this, yet another life was lost just a few days ago. To say this is worrying seems like such a paltry statement. And it’s not that I think any of the other deaths that don’t happen to be young adults are not equally important. It’s just that as a mother of a young adult it is soul destroying beyond belief to think that a life that has barely begun was not able to find a safe place to exist and just be.

Therin lies the problem. I love Barbados. I love being a child of the Caribbean, it is why after living overseas for 15 years I chose to come back. But, and this is a BIG but, our culture is failing these babies. There is a saying that we have a tendency to “ mek sport offa everyting”. If you fall down in a public place we will laugh first and then look to help you. But we do not seem to understand when to draw the line on a quick tongue and tough love.

I am angry….no, that’s not it…. furious….still not good enough….enraged, that another line of ancestry is gone. I am heartbroken and disappointed that in 2023 we are still burying our heads in the sand. How are we STILL here!!!

At some point most of us will experience despair and hopelessness that seems almost impossible to navigate. In most cases the moment is fleeting, it may last hours, days, weeks or even a few months. But what about those times where problems begin to feel insurmountable and the little voice in our head becomes bigger, louder, telling us there’s nothing we can do, we’re not good enough, smart enough, successful enough….we’re just not enough. Those are the times we need a safe space to say how we are feeling.

Listen, words matter. Here are some of the most prevalent responses I have had people tell me they receive in their time of need:

The Dismisser “You young, wuh problems you cud have?”
The Point Scorer “You tink you got problems!”

The Guilt Trip “Tink bout wuh dat wud do to your mother, de kids, ..” Trust me if you’ve already convinced yourself the world will be a better place without you the Guilt Trip will not work!

The Trap “You know you can tell me anything”. Say what’s on your mind and watch judgement show up in the listener’s eyes and body language followed by one of the aforementioned comments or worse find out later on, that your confidence has been betrayed.

The Ignorant “It’s selfish.” I mean really! They already feel like crap and we rub salt in the wound….unbelievable! The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines selfishness as “seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others.” Suicide does not and I repeat DOES NOT in any way imaginable, contribute to the well-being of oneself.

I don’t doubt the intention in these misguided comments are sincere, but they are the absolute worst things you could say to someone who has lost hope. We shut them down and so they silently suffer amongst us and swallow their silent screams.

By far one of the most surprising things I have encountered as a developing therapist is the prevalence of suicidal ideation. People we need to wake up! Not talking about it doesn’t make it magically go away. Some will say “But I don’t want to talk them into it” RUBBISH! If they are determined to do it, they will or they will certainly try. Another excuse I hear is “I don’t want them to feel uncomfortable”. I call BULLSHIT! You don’t want to feel uncomfortable. And no, a spa day, a day out wid de fellas or “Pray on it and you will be good” does not make the dark go away.

I am encouraged however by the outpouring of support and the rallying cry of various groups that are stepping forward to help. It seems people are starting to sit up. Is it too little too late? Sigh. We have to start somewhere. So I am still hopeful. Hopeful that the loss of these lost souls will not have been in vain. Hopeful that finally we will have heard the message loud and clear and that the next time someone is on the edge we …YOU….will listen.

You have 1 mouth and 2 ears, use them in that proportion
Epictetus, Greek Philosopher

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Take a minute!

On at least 3 or 4 separate occasions within the last month, I’ve found myself talking to clients about the importance of mindfulness. Now there’s a lot of information out there about exactly what mindfulness is and its benefits so I won’t bore you here with all that. Needless to say whenever it came up in session it was always in relation to coping with stress or feeling overwhelmed.

A couple clients preempted me with things like “I’ve already tried the mindfulness thing and I can’t empty my mind or just focus on one thing.” “I can’t switch off !!” Guess what? Neither can I! Trying to empty my mind is like my ever present To-Do List. Any sense of achievement I get from crossing something off the list is short-lived because immediately another 2 or 3 To-Dos (thoughts!) are ready to replace it….sigh.

You’re told to sit like this and look at that or close your eyes and think about that. And don’t even get me started on the breathing! When I get instructions about breathing slowly and mindfully it starts to feel so unnatural, I end up switching between feeling like I’m about to hyperventilate to falling asleep, neither of which is the outcome I’m looking for. Sometimes having all these instructions about being still, can in themselves feel overwhelming! I mean how do I even know if I’m doing it right…it’s just too much pressure!

For me mindfulness has literally become about just stopping. I’ve been challenging my clients to take a Mindful Minute…literally. Set the timer for 60 seconds and simply stop…sit still…for a minute. You don’t have to close your eyes or breathe in a particular way…just be still. Try the Mindful Minute and gradually increase it by a minute or more every day, whatever works for you.

I initially happened upon the Mindful Minute because for some reason, a memory, a terrifying one from several years ago when my son was just a toddler, came back to haunt me. We were living in the UK and went to a festival. There were about 6 of us in our party and there was this horrifying moment where a crowd rushed through and my son’s hand and mine were parted.

I can never get my brain to recall what I did yesterday but in that moment I was able to recall every horror story, newspaper headline and documentary I’d ever heard about children going missing and it never ended well. We had completely lost sight of him and we all darted in different directions calling his name. Then I spotted him, he was standing and slowly turning in a circle, looking at the crowd and the chaos of the festival. In that moment of chaos somehow he knew the best thing to do was to simply be still. It is a lesson I will never forget.

Bear in mind all of this took place in less than 2 minutes but it was the longest 2 minutes known to humankind! Interestingly, when you set that timer for 60 seconds it can literally feel like time is standing still. The magic lies in the spaces between the chaos.

So the next time chaos comes calling…take a minute.

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The Magic of Connection

I recently had the good fortune to connect or should I say reconnect with two amazing women from my past lives, one of whom I hadn’t seen for nearly 20 years. That’s not even the amazing bit of this story, she was actually only in my life for 2 years.

We’d worked together when I was living in the UK and after I left we never really kept in touch except through the odd Hello or like on LinkedIn. So earlier this year she messages and says “Hey Monique! You still living in Barbados? Guess what? I’m coming for a week!”

I was thrilled I was going to be seeing this blast from the past. We’d had fun working together and had some of the same ideals but we were very different and were intrigued by our differences.

I figured I’d do the tourist thing. You know, drive her around to a few choice tourist sites so she could see the other side of the island. Most locals will tell you the East Coast is a must! Anyhow the first time we met up we spent 8 hours just talking non-stop! It was like the years had just melted away. But here’s the thing, we were older, less shiny, more real and our conversation was far deeper than any we’d ever had all those years ago.

And we didn’t spend the time reminiscing about old times. Instead, we traded stories of our lives, the beauty of having children, love and loss, heartache, hopes and fears for the future. When it came time to say goodbye we were both unexpectedly quite emotional. In fact I’m getting all worked up again as I write this…where’s the Kleenex! After spending less than 2 days in each other’s company it felt like we’d become lifelong friends.

The total awesomeness of this exchange was that at no point did either of us stop and say “How come you didn’t stay in touch?” “How come you disappeared?” There was no judgement, just the unspoken understanding that life happens and that was all the glue we needed to cement the new form our friendship had taken.

I messaged to wish her safe travels and commented on what a gift it was to be able to just reconnect so easily, how it felt as though we were simply picking up a conversation after not seeing each other over the weekend instead of a whole 20 years! Her response was “Monique I don’t think the significance of quite how easy it was to reconnect has actually hit yet!”

Here’s the thing, even if life happens again, as it has a tendency to do, it will not and cannot take away from that moment. It was simply the magic of human connection in its purest form. Something I think we all secretly desire more of at our very core.

Just imagine how much easier life would be if we simply stayed present, experienced the moment, didn’t judge ourselves or others or even wonder why the moment is happening.

Here’s to those totally random moments in life that can unexpectedly turn into a treasured memory ❤️

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Too Much Thinking Can Mess With Your Goals!

Ever notice how at the end of a year or at the beginning of a new one there’s all this talk of setting goals. It can be very intimidating. There’s all this pressure to achieve stuff and live a purpose-driven life when if you’re like me you’d just be happy to achieve a state of 60 mins uninterrupted blissful zen each day! The goals may center around getting fit and healthy, buying a new car, finally getting that extension for the house, taking your career to the next level, whatever it is, it can be… well…..a lot!

It’s not to say goals are bad, quite the opposite, but how we feel about them and how realistic they are can make a world of difference in terms of how close we actually get to achieving or even getting started on them. When I first started thinking about writing a blog my immediate reaction was to sigh very, very loudly, you know the kind where you immediately go into a slouch and sink into yourself, yeh you know, oh yes and there was lots of eye rolling! Thankfully there was no one around to see this display of amateur dramatics.

But Lady Q you think, surely as a psychologist-in-training you must have lots to say, more importantly lots of really deep profound things to say. That’s a lot of pressure! Truthfully, some days I’m pretty profound but not every day and certainly not for an entire day, that would be far too exhausting, it’s more like every once in a while, I may get a profound moment that I’m profoundly aware of 😏

And what does this have to do with setting goals you ask….everything! The thought that brought on the sigh was “Oh no, I hate writing, it takes forevvvvvver!” That thought was then accompanied by a feeling of exhaustion but the REAL question is what was really behind the thought. It was “I’m not good enough” “Will people like it?” “What if I run out of things to write about?” and on and on it went.

Ask me to talk and I’m your person, in fact you may need to ask me to stop! But the constant editing I do with writing…..aaaaargh! It’s almost as if each backspace and delete represents me second-guessing myself! Even though I know this is part of the process and that virtually no one writes a piece without some level of editing. It doesn’t matter, in my mind it’s this thing I get worked up over and become extremely irritated and frustrated (emotions!) until I can get it done. Such is the power of thoughts!

Have you ever had something you needed or wanted to do but you kept putting it off because it felt so big and scary and exhausting even before you got started? And as if that wasn’t enough did you find yourself already convincing yourself that it wasn’t going to be great anyway? Say helloooo to self-sabotage! Been there! The lesson here dear reader is simple, set the goal and keep it simple or you’re in danger of setting yourself up to fail. Then just start!

As Desmond Tutu once said “There is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time. “In other words, if some random person (work with me) challenged you to eat an elephant you’d probably laugh and say hell no! The elephant is that big scary thing you haven’t gotten to yet. But if you were to break it down into manageable bites it could actually get done. Now it’s important to be realistic. It’s unlikely you’d be able to get through an entire elephant in 1 day (although I’m pretty sure I could reasonably get through an elephant-sized chocolate bar in less than 24 hours!) but you may be able to do so in 1 month.

Take this post I’m writing. I set my timer for 15 minutes. In other words I simply got started by giving myself a very doable smaller goal “Write for 15 minutes” What’s 15 minutes right? OK so I want to have this post done in 3 weeks’ time. That’s pretty doable, 15 minutes a day is not too scary. Guess what? 45 minutes later I’m still writing and I’ve written this in one go! So now when I get up from my laptop I’m going to feel super proud of me. Had I let my emotions get the better of me I may not have even gotten started at all and kept putting it off. And so I find myself at the end of this piece! Hmmm…perhaps I can do this after all 😊

Until next time my request to you dear reader is to simply get started and don’t judge what that looks like. Drop me a line and let me know how you’re getting on, I’d love to hear from you.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with what is one of my favorite reminders of why it’s simply good to just have goals.

” A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at.”
Bruce Lee

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The Love of Self

It is the month of love! I gotta say I am absolutely loving Miley Cyrus’ latest hit, Flowers. Check out the chorus:

I can buy myself flowers

Write my name in the sand

Talk to myself for hours

Say things you don’t understand

I can take myself dancing

And I can hold my own hand

Yeah, I can love me better than you can

What an epic tribute to self-love! It’s only taken me over 50 years to finally really love me! To finally self-love. I’m not talking about the kind where I literally buy myself flowers (do NOT knock it!), I mean the kind where I’m at peace with who I am, who I’ve evolved into over the years. It’s taken years and years of feeling like I somehow don’t measure up or that I may never make my mark, if I could ever get around to figuring out exactly what that was!

I was recently asked to describe myself as a book or movie genre. Without hesitation I responded that I’m comedy with a serious message. Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t take myself too seriously but I get serious about serious things. It took a long time to be OK showing both sides of me with equal measure but what was totally unexpected was finding there were people who actually liked me as I am. I’m already good enough….WAIT WHAT! Moreover I’m OK if I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. So now sharing my insecurities has become a strength, my superpower! I can continue to laugh at myself but be OK with my vulnerabilities…there is strength in vulnerability.

This reminds me of another epic moment in the entertainment world. It’s in 8 Mile, the semi-autobiographical movie starring Eminem. There’s a scene towards the end where he totally annihilates his opponent during an on-stage rap battle by speaking his truth, his ugliest truth. He raps about being white trailer trash living in a trailer with his mum and how his girl just cheated on him. He essentially deprived his opponent of anything with which he could bring him down by sharing his vulnerabilities with the entire audience. And yes he won the battle!

So my advice dear reader to you this month is to consider what you believe to be your biggest, scariest vulnerability. Take power from what it has taught you about yourself and finally love you unconditionally.

Love

Lady Q

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