Keep calm and carry on they say

Staring out of the kitchen window I noticed that at last glance it was bright sunshine and within minutes I am trying to comfort my terrified cat as he cowers from deafening claps of thunder.  In a matter of a few minutes and pretty much without warning, everything changed.  This got me around to thinking about where we all are at the moment.

I’ve been around a few years.

As I child I lived through the Cold War, watching the standoff that became the Bay of Pigs.  I was a teenager when the country was battling power cuts and three day weeks. In the glory days of my 20s we had ridiculous interest rates and high unemployment. In the 90 the property crash – my very flashy sports car was probably worth as much as my flat that it was parked outside. The noughties, the global recession. Now I have just lived through a pandemic and I am observing a war in Europe between a shark and a minnow, neither of which I expected in my lifetime. Worrying about a cost of living crises as we all are but I’ve lived through and survived three recessions.

Curved balls

The thing is, we can’t make provision for everything that life throws at us as life will always throw us a curved ball when we least expect it. What I have learned about facing mental health issues on a daily basis is that we have a remarkable amount of resilience, probably far more than we ever credit ourselves with. Leaping out of bed, excited for the day ahead is not something we are accustomed to. It can be a slow crawl with mental gymnastics on how we are going to do the everyday tasks, make that phone call, open that letter you have looked at for three days…….get to the shops…..put the laundry on.  Oh I’m getting exhausted just thinking about it!

That’s how

Here’s the thing though, because those everyday things can be such a challenge to us we’ve developed tenacity and skill which are finely tuned to deal with change even if we can’t always see it.   We walked side by side with it, embraced every morning and mostly come out on top even if it takes time to get there. Of course there are days when it really does just feel it is all too much and those are the days to give yourself a break and just don’t challenge – roll with it, take a break because tomorrow you will be stronger. That’s how we keep calm and carry on.