The Magic of October
Or, do I have reverse SAD?
Around this time each year, as the nights draw in and the weather shifts from “cold but sunny” to just plain “cold”, I find myself bombarded with messages about how to survive the misery that is winter in England. Specifically England and not the UK because everybody knows that the Celtic traditions allow for celebration of the darker seasons, so for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there are traditions to be followed around winter that give it shape and support. In England, however, we seem to have forgotten these so we just grizzle through six months of greyness while we wait for spring.
But apparently I am living in Southern hemisphere time because I have spent the past six months dragging myself through the long days and crying through my suncream only to finally remember what joy feels like just as the sun disappears behind a cloud for the foreseeable future. While I don’t want to tempt fate, this week has been filled with a treasure-trove of happiness - from devouring a plate of seafood risotto the size of Italy at a restaurant featuring an eight foot tall mural of Princess Diana and James Hewitt, to listening to Rebecca Kuang talk about how she wrote Yellow Face, via receiving unexpected but perfect gifts from friends, alongside accidentally ruining a couple’s first date when I complimented them on their chemistry and in doing so instantly killed it for them - this week has been FUN. And god, I’ve missed fun.
There is a bigger post to write here on the impact of chronic illness on mental health. The “unexpected but perfect gift” mentioned above was a copy of Miranda Hart’s new book where she talks about just this and if you have someone with a long-term illness in your life (or if you are that person), then please do go and read it. I will write that post but this week has been too joyous to hang out in the sadness for long, so instead here are a few of the things that got me through a dark summer:
Spoon theory: created by writer Christine Miserandino back in 2003, spoon theory was designed to help people with chronic illness manage their energy levels. The idea is that each day you wake up with a certain number of spoons and these spoons are then spent on different tasks. What costs you one spoon one day might be five the next. You might wake up with ten spoons on Monday and two on Tuesday. The lack of control of how many spoons you get and the rate at which you spend them is a key factor in the theory and it really helped me understand why one day I could do an everything shower, curl my hair and apply a full face of make-up and the next day I didn’t have the energy to pick up a mascara wand. So if you’ve seen me this year and wondered why I looked like an albino hamster, it’s because I simply didn’t have the spoons for make-up that day. Thinking of your energy levels as a bunch of spoons that may or may not be in the drawer when you open it is somehow much less painful than wondering whether an inability to care about matching socks is yet another sign of you failing at life. Give it a try.
Booking stuff in the diary. As a general rule I haven’t had a lot of energy for doing things this summer and when I’ve thought about doing things I’ve been plagued with anxiety about them (a new experience for me, such fun!). What worked though, was booking things in my diary way in advance and then forgetting they were happening until I looked at my calendar on a Monday morning. This might not work for you if you’re more organised than me but if you also work about a week in advance then booking stuff in for three months time gives you space to forget about it while also giving yourself the option of doing something that week if you want.
Radical responsibility. My friend, Ruth Cooper-Dickson, created the concept of “radical responsibility” in a Substack post a few months ago and it has stuck with me. She looks as this as the idea that we are responsible for how we behave and act when faced with whatever situation we are in. This doesn’t mean we always have to get it right or behave perfectly but at the end of the day, we own our behaviour. It also means we own when we say yes to things we don’t want to do, or when we say no and then feel regret. One of the things I’ve found the hardest over the last few months is my own tendency to dwell in self-pity when things are hard. Reframing this to “things are hard and I am choosing to feel frustrated by that” doesn’t feel like a big shift but mentally it gave me the space to feel that frustration and then choose to find another response.
Trusting myself. I take a ridiculous amount of Vitamin D. I am probably single-handedly keeping the Vitamin D industry in business and accidentally funding all those ads that are popping up for it on your social media feed, sorry. When I explained this to my doctor at the beginning of the year he agreed that it did seem like quite a high dosage and suggested I take less. So I did. Because he’s the doctor and he knows best. Except then I felt miserable for six months. So now I’ve whacked it back up to full throttle again and I feel better. Is it real? Is it a placebo? Will I regret this in the future? Who knows. But it’s working for me now and I will take that.
Going back to bed. When in doubt, go back to bed.
If you’re looking at bringing more joy, pleasure and excitement into your life (or just want to know who you are outside of the roles you’ve been playing for too long), then I’ll be running Sovereignty and Seduction with the amazing coach, Nikki Armytage-Foy, from the 8th - 10th November, in London. EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT FINISHES THIS WEEK (and as a subscriber you get a further discount, just DM me for the code). You can find all the details here or DM me if you’d like to discuss it.
I love Ruth:). And this newsletter!
Thank you for including me in this ♥️ I have loved the spoon theory ever since you told me about it.