Contemplations from the campervan (an office with a view)
Statistics
Yesterday (10th September 2024) was world suicide day, some stark statistics for England 2023:
- 5656 suicides were registered in 2023. This is 372 more than in 2022.
- The overall suicide rate was 11.2 per 100,000 which is an increase on the previous year.
- The male suicide rate was 17.1 per 100,000, compared to a female suicide rate of 5.6 per 100,000.
- Males aged 45-49 years were found to have the highest suicide rate (25.3 per 100,000).
Source: Samaritans
If this isn’t grabbing your attention, I’m not sure what will…
Little Acorns
With this as our context I want to take a step back and consider the proverb – “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”. The intention here is a positive one, meaning – something great can come from a modest beginning. However, the reverse is also true….
“Many little problems can become big problems!”
The mighty oak now can seem to be this immovable object. Too tall to climb, too wide to cut down, with deep roots that continue to creep into the self-conscious, draining your energy to feed its growth taller into your visible world. Harder and harder to hide in your everyday behaviours. People beginning to notice the mask you hold dropping.
Who are you listening to?
See, dramatic behaviours/actions like meltdowns, breakdowns or even suicide can often find their roots in humble beginnings. That of small, but everyday ‘negative self-talk’.
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures, pp. 20-21;
Your inner voice, being self-critical, focusing on the bad, affecting your mental health and how you face each day. The constant criticism can lead to depression or anxiety, and it definitely won’t have you working at your best.
How this starts and where this originates is very individual, my personal experience would say it goes back to the loss of my father age 13.
Are you talking to yourself or listening to yourself
This question was posed to me last week, well just put out there to explore. It was a simple phrase. Could even be seen as a bit cheesy. The thing is, it’s a great question to contemplate and to challenge yourself with.
If you are listening to yourself and the voices are kind, then fantastic – read no further. However, if those voices are less positive, and they may just be ‘a bit’ negative rather than excessive and unkind, they are possibly the beginnings of a ‘mighty oak’ you will find hard to cut back or uproot.
So, my advice to you is – when you hear the voices (and let’s be honest we all do) saying less than positive things, let’s just put a pause on them. It may be helpful to spend a bit of time identifying what the voices have said (was it a one-off incident that brought this to you or a consistent behaviour), it may also be helpful to act upon the message the voices are communicating – making a change for the good.
But what I know will be helpful, is to talk back to those voices. Maybe not directly as if in some dialogue (or argument) with yourself, but with positive affirmations about actions you can take, changes you can make, things you have done that are good for you and others.
This is not about making passive positive statements, like “I am amazing” or “I can do this”. Whilst these are helpful its important to add a tangible to the statement… “I can do this because …
- I have been here before and have learnt
- I have overcome disturbance and change
- I have a team to help me
- I will ask for help
These are more proactive and self-referencing. Taking this approach should help you prune the ‘mighty oak’ and halt the growth of its roots.
In closing
If you are feeling a bit shitty (or however you wish to phrase it) about yourself, and struggling to get to ‘positive self-talk’ then try this:
- go look at some photos of good times with good people, physical ones are better. The tactile nature of holding these and moving them about is so much more enriching than scrolling on your phone
- Sit back and listen to music of your youth (or any other period of relevance to you), when energy was high and what you worried about was haircuts and clothes
- Make that meal that fills your belly with the hearty memories you desire and brings smells and textures that lift you up
- Look up, look up at what is there rather than what is not. Yes, some things may have gone, been lost, missing but other things, people and opportunities will be present (where there is a gap, there is a memory to be made)
- Watch a film that brings you good vibes and the energy to step towards asking for help or just speaking kindly to yourself
Oh, and remember those statistics above…I am 46 years of age, please keep an eye out for people like me (and you). You won’t be the only one feeling what you are feeling, and you won’t be the only one wishing someone would hear your story (hear being key – letting people talk without judgment).
On this occasion, please talk…
For this reason Executive Coaching is a good thing, its such a growth opportunity and that’s why I love it – get it touch should you wish to explore your voices or just fancy a chat – click the link or e mail kurt@bemorelnd.co.uk.