Communication encourages community

Growing up in rural areas I was never exposed to the vast number of people who pray that there will be a shelter with space for them so that they don’t have to spend a cold winters night outside or who spend their days staring at the ground because they don’t want to see the expression of disgust on the faces of the people who glance awkwardly at them on the street. I never understood the vast and complex ways in which people could lose all that they held dear to them.

How engaging in conversation made me more socially conscious

*note: names have been changed for confidentiality.

It all began six years ago when I moved to London; I was fairly well travelled as a child and so it’s not as if I hadn’t seen the people who sit on pavements but the emotional response was never as profound as when I was forced to encounter several people every day as I commuted, shopped, or skipped (†) merrily with my friends to museums and bars. On these daily journeys I began to notice that I was encountering the same people each day and I started to make an effort to stop, say hello and, since I rarely carried money in London, buying hot drinks and food for them.

The following year I started working in Brighton a few days a week and it was here that I met Sam. Embarrassingly, we met after I tripped over his dog but I quickly grew accepting of that embarrassing event as I talked to Sam; I had the shattering revelation that my preconceptions were all wrong. He told me his story – one of fear and bereavement – and as he spoke I could feel the compassion welling up in me, it felt like a psychical force pushing up from the depths of my emotional well and smacked me powerfully in the heart on its way.

Sam introduced me to his friends – who gave themselves the affectionate name of Homies without a home – and I made a conscious effort in London to not just say hello but to ask questions, to sit and have conversations. I got in the habit of writing down the names of people I met, a little of the story they shared and ways in which I could pray with them. I now have notebooks crammed with names and tales of woe and hardship, but despite all this these people were some of the most positive and endearing I have ever met.

For the past couple of months I have been spending time with Lewis – an ex-serviceman – who I first met him outside Waverley on my way to lecture just before Christmas. The first time introduced myself he met me with a smile and proudly presented a letter that told him he would be given a flat in the next week. Since coming out of the army he has been homeless, naturally he has been feeling somewhat dejected that the government had rejected him after a lifetime of service, and seeing atrocious acts committed by other people across the world. My heart went out to him; we chatted for a while and I wished him luck with his new flat, offered my prayers and left for my lecture. Over the next few weeks I kept him in my prayers and felt comforted that he was safe and warm in his flat. However, after the New Year I arrived at the top of the stairs outside of Waverley and saw Lewis sitting cold on the ground once again. I was gutted. It transpired that the council changed their mind about the flat and Lewis had spent Christmas and New Year alone and cold on the streets, since there had been no time to book into a shelter. By this time he was feeling ill but still, he met me with a smile.

Last week I met him again, we talked over coffee and hot chocolate until I had to leave for my lecture. I have to admit, I love talking with him; his humility is a continuous lesson to me and our conversations always challenge my social conscience. It was the day of the woman’s marches across the world and the sad state of our world was at the forefront of our minds and, while I can think of few others that have the right to be angry at the world more than Lewis, he said something that shook me, “being on the streets has restored my faith in humanity.” I could feel my brain doubling back on its train of thought to process this unlikely statement. He told me that while he may despair in the businessmen with Rolexes who share only an averted gaze with him, he also met the people who cared to stop, the students who shared their bus fairs; the people who offer active compassion.

Community is essential to living consciously; knowing your neighbours, the concerns of others in your area and the issues that have detrimental effects on people are all motivations for living in a way that sustains and encourages community. My challenge to you is this: meet the people who you wouldn’t normally engage with, learn their names, share a coffee and hear their concerns, know the story of someone who has lost everything.

(†) We rarely skipped in fact; though walking seems rather dull, doesn’t it?

Five Easy and Practical Ways To Shop Ethically

1) Shop Local

 This is a simple and fairly obvious one, and yet one that I am guilty of not doing enough. But I see it as one of the most important. Shopping locally will support small, independent companies and help your local community thrive.

There is something particularly valuable about buying food locally; this does not mean your local Tesco! Most of the food I eat is fresh fruit and veg so I am now making an effort to go to my local green grocer more frequently who support local farmers. If you are not vegan then try your local butchers and do some research on local dairy products like cheese and ice-cream. By shopping locally not only are we helping out locals but I’ve found that my fruit and veg are super fresh, often organic and there’s less carbon footprint thanks to limited packaging and simple fact that my food didn’t cross the country in a lorry to get to me.

2) Bring your own cup

I will admit that I am a complete caffeine addict and most trips out involve a coffee stop at some point. For years I have been under the impression that paper ‘to-go’ cups are recyclable; unfortunately I was wrong and ultimately they will go to landfill. Coffee cups are lined with plastic to stop them leaking, not only that but according to this study each disposable coffee cup produces about 0.11 kilograms of CO2 (includes production and transport).

Bringing your own ‘to-go’ cup is really easy and some coffee shops will even give you a discount for bringing your own. Bonus! There are a lot of ‘to-go’ cups out there in different price ranges.

Personally I use KeepCup, not only is there now an eco friendly cork edition but there is now a KeepCup in partnership with Unseen and over £5 from each purchase will go towards this incredible charity and their work towards ending slavery.

3) Buy Fairtrade

Most people are aware of Fairtrade now and almost every supermarket and many other shops carry products that are Fairtrade certificated. The certificate ensures that everyone involved in the production – including farmers, factory workers and transporters – are paid fairly, particularly in developing countries.

4) Buy Secondhand 

I love charity shops, not only are you getting a bargain but items are being reused rather than ending up in landfill and it’s an easy way to give money to charities that are doing some amazing work, while at the same time buying things you love; in my case it’s usually books! You can get almost anything secondhand now thanks to high street ‘buy-and-sell’ shops and online shops such as eBay and gumtree.

Don’t forget to check if you can donate or sell your own things before throwing them away.

 

5) Research Your Retailers

There has been extensive research done on every big retailer now, including how fairly everyone involved in the production of products are treated and the environmental impact that they have and a quick google search will tell you a lot but don’t just check companies personal websites as they tend to gloss over the facts, look for research done by organisations such as Ethical Consumer.

Bonus:How many slaves work for you?

This is the hard-hitting question being asked by an organisation who are working hard to brig awareness to and abolish slave labour. This website will give you a simple survey and estimates how many slaves are involved in the production of your lifestyle. It’s very sobering and a survey I recommend everyone takes and spends some time reading their information. Being conscious makes us accountable, don’t allow yourself to be naive about such important issues.

Living Consciously in 2017.

Each year, rather than set specific resolutions for myself I decide on a theme and then create goals throughout the year and steps to achieve those. I find that works much better for me. Let’s face it, most resolutions are slipping by mid-January and by the end of February they have probably become a distant and unremarkable memory, like the husband of your second cousin twice removed that you met at that wedding five years ago.

Last year my theme and goals were very personal to me, and so I never felt inclined to share my goals and experiences. But this year is a whole other story and if I keep up my end of the bargain then you all get the joy of sharing the journey with me. There are two reason why I am sharing my journey with the online world; number one, one of my only solid goals of this year is to write more and number two, part of this year’s theme (as you will see later) is about activism and blogging is going to be my first step in that goal.

So what is this years’ theme? Quite simply ‘Consciously Living Ethically.’
People that know me well will know that although I can be shy about sharing my opinions to some, I am a very opinionated person. I have strong ethics and values but too often I don’t live up to these. So this year I want to focus on aligning my beliefs and my actions. A big factor in this process will be a lot of education on my part.

In case you were unaware I am vegan (yes I know, I’m so subtle about it!) and there are important reasons for that. The problem is, that I have limited my veganism to my diet and avoiding animal materials in my clothing (such as leather) and I buy lush products; partly because they are 100% free of animal testing and partly because their products smell so damn good. But veganism stretches to a lot more, including how we treat the environment.

Another ethical standard of mine is treating everyone fairly, but am I really doing that? Also, why don’t I campaign anymore? Actually, the last one is an easy question to answer; it became less convenient for me and so I became lazy. I used to live in London where I could regularly go to conferences and protests in order to raise awareness and make changes in the world, but now that I live in rural Scotland I just read the stories and possibly share them on twitter. It’s not enough and so it’s time to start taking action.

So what’s the blog for?
Each month I am picking an area of my life I want to improve on, start educating myself more and then take steps to consciously live it out in my life. As I go along I want to share some of the information I learn, experiences I have and talk about the practical steps that I am taking – and others can take – to live a life more ethical.

This month’s goal is consumerism. By which I don’t just mean the amount of stuff I buy but also what I buy, where it comes from, whether it’s production has had a positive or negative impact on lives and how it impacts the environment.

More to come!

Understand the purpose served

We can get into such a routine that sometimes we forget why we do some things, behave in certain ways and believe specific things. Each area of our lives should serve some kind of purpose I feel – I’m not just talking about productivity or particular contribution to society, but things which establish and feed into our own sense of identity or simply make us happy.

I was thinking recently about what purpose is served or provided for by certain aspects of my mental illness. Certainly a big factor that came up for me was control, but it also made me realise that it has given me a very unique view of the world. I have seen the best and worst in people while living along beside them in hospital; and my anxiety makes me analyse everything that happens around me, things which normally would of been quickly forgotten about – or even ignored in the first place – which has made me more curious about the world. I thrive on reading articles, fiction, non-fiction, long winded papers about human behaviour. It doesn’t make me any smarter but it does satisfy my need for bizarre and random knowledge about the world and makes me feel slightly more at ease.

But what about other things that are part of a well-rounded person? What parts of my life give me a sense of hope? Of content? Of joy?

For the past 6 or 7 years my hope has always been rooted in my faith in Jesus, that I’m never abandoned or alone even when I feel stuck in the darkest corners of my mind. Though it’s not always been easy to remember that. And when I started to get ill again a few years ago I felt utterly lost and scared. Honestly if it hadn’t been for my friends at the church I don’t know where I would of ended up. They were supportive and caring, they came to visit me in hospital and even turned up with books and notebooks to keep me occupied. While I was extremely grateful of all of this, honestly the best thing they did was remind me of Jesus. Each day I got texts reminding me that people were praying for me, some friends who visited prayed with me in the hospital and one person repeatedly sent me bible verses. I felt so far from God when I first arrived there that it was hard to imagine that I was someone who spent their days teaching children about Jesus and worshiping God every chance that I got. But that constant reminder that He was there, that I could still find hope within His love was exactly what I needed. When I got out of hospital I went with a friend to get my first tattoo, on my wrist I got an anchor with ‘Hebrews 6:19’ written underneath. When I have bad days now, it can be so easy to once again slip, to forget that there is an ever present hope, but at some point during the day it’s incredibly likely that I’ll catch a glimpse of my wrist, at which point I’m reminded of His presence.

Realising how easy it is to lose track of where we get our hope, it really brings it into perspective that the good can get pushed away. At the lowest and darkest points of our lives it is hard to imagine that such a thing as joy or even content could exist. It’s important to establish in the good times, what provides us with these things so that in our dark times we can be reminded of them. I love writing, but it used to be that at my worst I would never write, not because I didn’t want to, but simply because it never even crossed my mind that such a thing might pull me out of the depths of my despair. Knowing these things first, and providing resources to remind us of these things can really help. A purpose is served by each area of our lives whether you realise it or not. It may be something small, such as play dough makes me smile, I can be a bit creative, make a mess and have fun. It’s not productive but it is enjoyable. Something bigger is obviously my writing, it gives me a chance to organise my thoughts and make sense of the mess in my head.

Some things are negative, that doesn’t mean not useful though. It just means that maybe we need to find something else to provide the same purpose. For example, self-harm is coping mechanism that some people use to express pain (it could have a different purpose, depending on the person) and while it does that well, it’s not healthy. Finding another way to express that is something that should be worked towards.

Take time while you’re well to understand these things, to examine the little things because it could stop you crashing further, it may even save you and bring you back to a place of content. If there are areas of your emotional health and psychological needs that are not being provided for put things in place. Find things that give you an outlet for creativity, find things that make you content and happy, and something that provides that deep rooted sense of hope. I’m not saying I’m totally there yet and I’ve got all this sorted because I haven’t at all, I haven’t even managed to write this in a coherent way. But having a small insight into understanding your emotional responses and coping mechanisms can be a great first step.

Control Through Hardships

An unfortunate part of the human condition is suffering, we have all experienced times where we feel at our wits end, where we feel unable to cope. However, within this category I can see two distinct areas, areas which I like to call ‘rationalised hardships’ and ‘irrationalised hardships’. Both at the time can feel just as weighty and challenging, but the difference as I understand, is that ‘rationalised hardships’ usually have a distinct beginning and have a distinct solution, even if that solution isn’t easy to acquire or reach. ‘Irrationalised hardship’ on the other hand may have no distinct beginning or a certain solution – such as, cancer which is very much dependant on whether you respond to the treatment, even then you might relapse; or mental illness.

One of the big issues I find in mental illness is that the illness you experience can become a part of your identity, and it can seem hopeless and impossible to see a way out or a life beyond it. Most suffers of mental illness will express an extreme ambivalence towards recovery. There is a part that wishes it all to be over, to be able to lead a normal life and to not have to experience the traumatic symptoms of their illness’ but on the other hand, their illness’ have become so much a part of their understanding of their own identity that life without it can seem daunting and unimaginable. There are parts of my own illness which are very destressing and debilitating for me, but others that have become a part of me and help me to feel in control and contribute to my understanding of the world around me.

In order to help sufferers of mental illness – like cancer – treatments can be provided, using psychotherapy and medications, and people will often ‘recover’ or at least see improvement. The trouble is though, that statistics show that many won’t, and even of those that do, a high percentage of them will continue to relapse through their life. The issue then, with these situations, is that there is no clear certainty of resolve – no ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ as it were.

When we face ‘rational hardships’ we can often see that there is a reason for motivation to trundle through tough times, knowing that there is life beyond it worth striving for. It is in these moments that I personally find it easiest to reach out for help, from people around me and from God. I feel that I can strategize these moments and I can understand the different ways in which God could influence my situation. The real test for me, is trusting him with my ‘irrationalised hardships’; the illness that I cannot see an escape from, an illness which I am not entirely sure of how it formed in me and when it first began. It’s hard to understand that a Father who loves me could have allowed this to plague me, which I then in turn defend the idea that ‘that which does not come from God, cannot be cured by God’ which is a faulty theology, as with other diseases, God did not create them, nor did He inflict them upon people, but He has been known to cure them.

Those of us facing mental illness’ often experience issues with control, particularly when it comes to control over our illness’ themselves. Take for example someone with an eating disorder like anorexia being forced to eat, or someone being sectioned because they cannot keep themselves safe. These are obviously extreme examples but I feel they are ones that will demonstrate my point. Control is a large part of mental illness, whether it’s for the individual to feel in control themselves or they have auditory or visual hallucinations that control the individual and they feel that they must comply with these.

Obviously ultimately we have control over our own lives – free will – but the point of faith is to allow God that control, for Him to guide your decisions and through opening up to Him you will be shaped more into His likeness.

If you know someone with a mental illness you may notice that that person processes two different ‘characters’. One who represents the real them, that has real life passions, goals and personalities. However, there is also another side, one that sometimes people don’t notice at first, depending on the illness itself and how bad it is. This side is often completely ruled by the illness, it takes hold of people and slowly infects the rest of them. On bad days, you may not even recognize them as the person you know. While logically some people will know that they are an individual person apart from their illness, it can be hard to fully comprehend that and to trust that judgement, it is that nagging fear and sometimes obsession that can stop us from reaching out for help and relinquish control.

I guess I have no real conclusion as I have yet to come to a complete understanding of this in my own head, but with mental health – or any other ‘Irrationalised hardships’ you may face – it requires a lot of patience, from everyone involved. That includes the sufferer themselves and their relationship with God. Thankfully, God is patient. We see it time and time again in the bible, examples of His patience. Giving up control is extremely difficult for a lot of people – I count myself guilty in that – and if you are someone supporting someone with a mental illness, please be patient. Understand that it’s not that we don’t want others to have control, because sometimes we do, it’s that it’s so overwhelming for us to give up control that it can be seriously destressing and may even make things worse for a while if we feel that someone is trying to take that from us. Though with gentle nudging and not being scared away on our bad days we will start to trust you, I’m not a shining example of this myself but I do believe it can happen.

Self Awareness: It would appear it’s important!

A couple of years ago I met a someone who has now become a close friend (sadly no longer close geographically) and over the last couple of years we’ve shared a lot of our lives together, including our mental health journeys. Both of us have had issues with our mental health, as she describes it, we’re both ‘a bit broken.’ We’ve shared so much together, from drinks in candle-lit restaurants, writing songs together and filming silly music videos, to the low moments. Seeing each other in some pretty terrible states. No matter the circumstances, I’m always glad to have her around. She’s gorgeous, loveable and hilarious. She’s always surround by a simultaneously nervous and excited energy and yet somehow she seems to keep me completely grounded. She’s also incredibly insightful.

Over the past year I’ve watched as she’s moved forward with her life and made brave and positive changes, while I seem to have gone backwards. I’m very proud of her – I hope she knows that – but it’s also left me with some guilt about how I’ve reacted to my circumstances over the past year.

One thing I have noticed about my friend is her self-awareness, which I seem to lack. And that combined with her incredible determination to prove that she can be who she wants to be, and feels called to be, has pushed her forward. I had that determination, but without the self-awareness she has, I couldn’t see when I was pushing myself too much, or recognise when I needed to be a bit more caring towards myself and it caused me to burn out and my mental health suffered a lot because of it. So it seems that self-awareness is something of significant importance, and something we should be aim to have.

My therapist has told me that, amongst other things, she would like me to try mindfulness. I was hesitant to say yes to her, as I have tried mindfulness in the past and it just didn’t work for me. But since I have given up on her last tactic to help me, I felt I was in no position to say no.

This week I have been reading a book called ‘Why can’t I meditate? – How to get your mindfulness back on track.’ by Nigel Wellings. It’s a book written for people, who like me, have tried mindfulness in the past and it just didn’t feel right for them. I didn’t go in with high expectations. I read it because I like reading and I wanted to have more knowledge on the subject before I returned this week to therapy to say ‘I hate mindfulness!’ I was expecting a cliché self-help book full of well meaning, but meaningless platitudes, but I found myself pleasantly surprised!

It talks a lot about self-awareness and encourages us to examine and understand our attitudes towards different scenarios. Why we avoid certain things, why certain things trigger an unwanted reaction from us, and why we use different ‘survival’ techniques in life. There are things that provoke an extreme reaction from me, while for someone else that situation would pass them by without a second thought. And there are things in life that I can easily handle or ignore, but for other people it triggers them to have some sort of unwanted or unintentional reaction.

The book also talks about ways to overcome our avoidance to mindfulness and maybe something in there will help me. I have to admit, I haven’t tried it yet this week. Mainly because I haven’t been told I have to yet, and I’ve been putting it off until that moment because… well I hate it. It’s uncomfortable to me and makes me anxious. Whatever the outcome of my next mindfulness attempt though I’m glad I read this book. And even if you have no desire to try mindfulness I would recommend this book. It talks mainly from the perspective of mindfulness based cognitive therapy, though there is some Buddhist perspectives thrown in there too, and it’s insightful and helpful in beginning to understand how our brain is working and to help bring more rationalisation to our responses to different situations.

I guess basically I need to start working on having a bit more self-awareness in attempt to control my intense and impulsive nature a bit more.

Seeing Red

So Christmas is all around! (Sigh) The shops are filling there shelves with their Christmas products, the new John Lewis advert has hit our screens, filling our various news streams and breaking our hearts, and despairingly I have already heard the first Christmas song being filtered through a shops’ aisles. But the holiday advertising causing the big controversy this year is the Starbucks cup.

Yes, that’s right. That plain red cup you see above. Christians have been tweeting their outrage about this red cup and strongly advising, no maybe that’s not the right word. Promoting and instructing other Christians to boycott Starbucks for their ‘sacrilegious’ design. Confused? So was I!

In the past Starbucks cups have been decorated with designs to represent the ‘Holiday season’ in someway. And since in western culture Christmas is the most commonly celebrated festival at this time of year, we associate these designs with Christmas, despite the fact that like the snowflake design a few years ago, they tend to have nothing to do with the Christmas message.

But for some reason this year, Christians have decided that the choice of the plain red cup was an attack on Christians and our beloved festival, Christmas. Lets be honest, they’re reading too much into this. If you want to know the reason behind the design this year, you can click here.

At first this whole story made me laugh, laugh at just how ridiculous it was. But then it made me frustrated and a little bit upset. It made me upset to realise that these are the sorts of stories that reach most people concerning Christianity. The ones that show us as a bit psychotic, angry and bitter. It made me angry that people choose to represent our faith in this way and affirm what so many people believe, that as Christians, we are hypocritical. We tell people we are a loving and welcoming community and yet our actions all suggest that we are angry and judgemental. There are so many examples I could talk about here… However, I’m getting off track, so another time maybe.

This red cup doesn’t bother me, and it shouldn’t bother you either (unless you have a vendetta against the colour red, in which case maybe you should re-evaluate your priorities.) The fact of the matter is, that winter isn’t a season specifically designed for Christians. Starbucks is not a Christian company, nor has it ever claimed to be. They are a huge, profit driven company (who happen to sell pretty amazing coffee) and any association they’ve made with Christmas in their designs is simply an advertising tool and marketing scheme. I’ve yet to meet a Jew who will refuse to buy a coffee at this time of year on account that the cup isn’t dotted with dreidels. So to anyone who identifies themselves as a Christian: Lighten up and enjoy your coffee. There’s more important things in the world worth fighting for!

Let’s do this!

New blog! I don’t really know how to write an introduction to this blog because I’m not sure where’s it going yet, it’s an experiment really. I wanted to create a new outlet where I can write without being censored and discuss controversial topics I consider important, without the controversy edited out. So I can’t tell you what to expect on this blog, it’s going to be a mixture of articles that will probably irritate people, experiments with new writing styles and other medias, fiction and non-fiction writing, personal journey stories and posts where I rave about my favourite book that particular week.

My aim of this blog is to have a creative outlet, a chance for me to expand on the styles I’m comfortable with and to learn about new styles I’m not so comfortable with. And also to get people talking about topics most people want to avoid because it makes them cringe and not feel entirely comfortable. Or maybe topics they’ve just never thought about in any real depth before. I don’t guarantee major insight or profound epiphanies to come from this.

I have had blogs in the past, which some of you will of read but I have decided to delete them for various reasons. One of the reasons is that I don’t agree with some of the stuff I’ve posted in the past anymore, I don’t feel it represents my opinions or who I am now. And I’m sure that’s true for many writers who have published things in the past, but being the creator of my own blogs, I have the luxury of deciding to remove them. Another reason, amongst many is that some of my previous blogs were on Tumblr. While I love that site and think there’s a lot to offer there, I also found it quite toxic. I could quickly become wrapped up in blogs that weren’t helpful to my mental health and so I have made the decision to cut off all ties to that site. At least for now, we’ll see how long that lasts!

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what direction this blog will go in, and it would be fun to have you along for the journey!