Listen. Really listen.

It’s been a tough week. Every so often I let the financial pressure of freelancing in a tough market get to me. With kids to support, this was always going to happen. But something that’s helped me through is no shortage of people around me who listen. Properly listen.

It starts with a burst of adrenaline, and then descends into an awful fight, flight, freeze state, as described in a previous post. The danger then is allowing every subsequent thought, or problem, both trivial and genuinely concerning, to be sucked into this debilitating fear vortex.

So I toss and turn futilely on the couch, trying to soothe myself with Studio Ghibli films, helping I might drift again. But I never do. Plan B is getting out for a walk, and summoning reliable and wonderful friends who help me. They listen. Some have advice from the same lived experience, but listening can be enough. We live in a world of too many surface level relationships. People without the bonds go off the edge. Loneliness is crushing.

On the dog walk, I talk openly about how I’m feeling. Not only does it help me, but it opens the floor for the other person to air their grievances, and many do. We build relationships. Eventually, I get my head together and address the quiet spells, seek solutions, press on.

My fiction series of short stories, Stories for the Apocalypse was, in large part, about exactly this. A society quietly collapsing as nobody knows how to truly let it all out in the right way. Writing helps. Several friends who’ve suffered far worse than I preached about the importance of unconscious writing – journalling.

This self expression is key. And being heard.