How to be Well....despite feeling Crap!

When I think back over this last year...I can't help but be amazed. Earlier this year I was hanging on by a thread - see April's  'Path of Least Resistance' - I was the sickest I had been over a consistent period and facing homelessness again.

It has been an incredible year...one that I don't want to repeat but one that has also brought such a deep, resounding sense of Joy and Peace to my life. Reading over my year of blog posts I have a grateful respect for the journey I have been on and realise that I have learned to be well - despite feeling crap.

What is being Well? To me it's Acceptance and Surrender - not resignation - but accepting exactly how things are - acknowledging your pain, physical, mental and emotional - listening to what it is telling you, but not letting it define you. It's surrendering all your past desires and ambitions and finding what you're left with is who you truly are and what you truly want to do.....It's grieving fully for those losses and through that process making space for what your true self wants.

It's Compassion.....I spent years giving selflessly to those in need, but I realise now I missed an important ingredient to the miracle of Compassion - having compassion for myself. This illness has taught me the power of that. Part of learning Acceptance was learning Compassion for myself.....it is hard to lack compassion for others when you embrace and have compassion for your weakest moments. Charity begins at home....I always thought that meant your friends and family...but now I realise it begins even before them - being kind to yourself.

Unguarded Moments

Men's prison has a smell that is indefinable. Layers of life's smells intermingled with the bubblegum fragrance of institutional floor cleaner. Every sense is assaulted. The damp, darkness of an old Victorian wing blends with the moist heat of the radiators. From the ground floor you can see the 2 floors above through a mesh of iron mesh floors and stairs. Wearing a skirt was never an option.


Heavy doors clang loudly and your keys and chain jingle in time to your walk. I don't remember the first time I met Tony*. I do remember it was early on in my time in HMP Chelmsford. I was there as a drugs worker. I didn't really know what I was doing, but carried myself in a way to assure others that I did.  Just days before I met Tony I remember praying, thinking - how on earth can I help these broken, hardened men. I remember the reply clearly....just listen.


In the early days I was still able to use the 'listeners' cell on the wing. Tony came to see me. A big bear of a man with prematurely white hair and pale blue eyes. His hands were large, and as I looked at them I tried to block out the thoughts of why he was inside. I was not there to judge him, that had already been done. I was there to assess and counsel. I decided not to say much at all, just to listen, and over the weeks I visited with him, he began to share and cry. He poured out the darkness in his soul, some sessions he said little, he just wept.