Why bother with all this stuff – you might be saying…

Well, simply put: because I believe in you!  

Nobody should dampen our aspirations, and there are people who care about you…

Evolution has given us stronger bodies, larger brains, and the capacity to think and dream.

I’m constantly amazed by the level of emotional intelligence I encounter- especially when meeting young people.

One of the attributes I notice is heartfelt compassion. Another is the depth of wisdom.

As humans, we are capable of doing all sorts of interesting and productive things: from learning languages/ supporting a charity / creating life-saving medicines / devising new innovations to save our fragile planet. 

However, and irrelevant of your age, the people of the world are hurting. Even those deemed as successful are talking more frankly about their mental health. I can think of a famous music mogul who said that he’s no longer using his mobile phone because it wasn’t good for his mental wellbeing!

I think that we are more alike than we realise. Additionally, we all possess wonderful and unique attributes. But collectively as a race, we are getting caught up and dragged down in the constant stream of uncertainty, the atrocities, and sad news stories of the world.

All this is on top of our own personal issues and problems!

Such feelings can desensitise us, leave us feeling empty and numb. We forget that despite the difficulties we have to endure in our lives, we all deserve to be content, or happy. Each of us could try to give ourselves permission to be kind to ourselves, and in so start finding moments of joy.

And why is this important? Because there are useful units of energy – when we do things we enjoy, such as running, that make us feel good. It feels like popping candy in our tummies.

But when our energy levels dip to such an extent that perhaps we find it a struggle to get out of bed, it can be hard to recall a single thing that’s positive about ourselves.

This is the reason that I devised Chopped –Up Jelly Heads: A growing community of ordinary people, supporters, and resources to help one another…

It took me a long time before I could think of anything that I was good at. Such are the pitfalls of depression… and then I remembered something: people liked sharing their problems with me – and I felt useful because they liked my honest advice. This subsequently reminded me, that as a child, I used to enjoy writing.

When I was bullied at school, I tried to tell my story and encourage kindness, years later, in a previous book.

I am also learning to be more self-reliant and I try to remember that the only two things we can truly control are our thoughts and our actions. (This took a long time for me to realise, and yet it’s an extremely calming fact.)

In short, we have to keep trying and remind ourselves that many people are far worse off than we are. And although we’re in different vessels, we share the same waters.

Life is a precious gift. We are fortunate to be born in human form: we need to look after one another, ourselves, our Animal Kingdom, nature, and our precious planet… and each of us are here for a purposeful reason!