��Ʒ����������ҹ����

I am a solicitor who has learnt (the hard way) over many years of practice how to look after my wellbeing and mental health. However, my self-care routines aren’t working at the moment. Am I doing something wrong?

As a child, I recall travelling across the Yorkshire Pennines in a minibus during a blizzard. It was dark, the storm was fierce, and the terrain treacherous. An anxious silence was broken by the driver saying, apparently to no one, and with a slight shake of his head: “Go on then!” Three heartbeats later, the rear of the bus hit a bend in the road. It was not a bad crash, but it was a crash. The driver took the wheel again and we made it home without further incident. This anecdote has occurred to me a lot over recent weeks as I have listened to many people describing experiences of their good habits or ‘positive mental-health practices’ not working so well. Often these come with recriminations: “I feel bad, so I must be doing something wrong.”

Positive psychology has much to offer in a time when we are being encouraged to mind our mental health almost as frequently as we are being reminded to stay two metres apart. However, we should be careful not to limit ourselves to two alternatives – to either:

1. give in to our ailments, or
2. outrun them indefinitely

American psychoanalyst Gary Greenberg suggested that, in the pandemic, the role of therapists might be one of ‘cataloguing the losses’ and, to an extent, this has been borne out. In addition to the obvious losses – life, health, income – everyone reading this will have their own story of smaller, yet significant, losses that couldn’t have been imagined before the pandemic. I respectfully suggest that it is impossible to indefinitely outrun the aggregate grief accompanying these losses, no matter how advanced our strategies might be. Feeling bad in these unprecedented times is much more likely to be a consequence of very real circumstance than any personal failure. This is some storm we are driving through, after all. The driver in my story realised the bus would crash and made an active, informed decision. Letting the bus slide was a demonstration of his skillset rather than evidence of a lack of skill: he relinquished, rather than lost, control. Through some blend of experience, training, intuition (and perhaps luck) he understood that, in that specific moment, wrestling to keep the bus on the road would likely lead to a worse outcome. I hope there might be benefit in this anecdote for anyone struggling to stay positive just now.

Many years ago, I told my therapist that I was afraid to cry in case I would never stop. I now know that equating ‘allowing myself to feel’ with ‘loss of emotional control’ is a common mistake. It is vitally important right now that we continue with the positive mental-health practices that we know help us – but we might also consider making space for the times when our usual habits don’t work. Temporarily relinquishing control of our emotions is not the same as losing emotional control. Whether it is with a partner, a friend, a family member, a pet, or perhaps even a therapist, don’t be afraid to say to your heart: “Go on then”, and just allow yourself to feel, before taking the wheel again.

It is not always a choice between crashing or getting home safely. Sometimes, crashing the bus is a necessary part of the journey. The skill is knowing when and how to crash safely

This question and answer is hypothetical and was written by Matthew Henson (existential psychotherapist, trainer, group facilitator, and member of the Law School Psychological Services team: ). Any response or advice provided is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional, psychological, financial, medical, legal, or other professional advice