Christmas and New Year can stir up a variety of emotions, some grateful or hopeful, but also some difficult. For some people, organ transplantation and related illnesses do the same.<\/p>\n
Our mental health may need, from time to time, the\u00a0trained healers.\u00a0 There is no shame in that, anymore than going to a podiatrist or a cardiologist.\u00a0 We need more of these services, and easier, faster access when they are there.\u00a0 But it also depends on so much more than the professional healers.<\/p>\n
It all counts.<\/p>\n
The shop assistant saying hello and giving a smile, someone helping us find street directions when we need them, a chat over a pot of tea, the thousands of ways the web of goodwill holds us together.\u00a0 Unexpected carers, who include us in their daily threads, weaving us back into normal life when we are at risk of\u00a0feeling – or being – isolated.<\/p>\n
Family and friends, giving space to listen, to speak, not making us fit a mould but allowing us to be ourselves, in our own different ways.<\/p>\n
The networks of support for our very particular needs – like those\u00a0groups in yesterday’s blog\u00a0who,\u00a0receiving kindness themselves, develop ways of paying it forward.<\/p>\n
Those who share similar experiences to us and don’t need everything explaining, who know before we say, or recognise\u00a0deeper issues when we\u00a0scarcely have enough energy to give hints\u00a0or clues.<\/p>\n
It’s all\u00a0about our mental health.\u00a0\u00a0And reasons to be grateful when it’s named, accepted, befriended, and talked about.\u00a0 Grateful for the skilled professionals, and for the space we give each other\u00a0where we can breathe, slowly and steadily, while we regain our balance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Christmas and New Year can stir up a variety of emotions, some grateful or hopeful, but also some difficult. For some people, organ transplantation and related illnesses do the same. Our mental health may need, from time to time, the\u00a0trained healers.\u00a0 There is no shame in that, anymore than going to a podiatrist or a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-news-and-events","category-personal-story","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phtpid-kP","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1291"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1299,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1291\/revisions\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/live-loudly-donate-proudly.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}