Recently, my beautiful cousin spoke to me for a long time about mindfulness. And I mention it because even more recently I discovered just how practising mindfulness can help. In the spirit of being honest, when I first spoke to my cousin, I didn’t think it was for me. I thought a mindfulness meditation was a thing I’d struggle with in many ways. Then, one down day last week left me feeling particularly shaken.

I truly believed that I’d hit rock bottom. Considering how well things were going, I can’t quite believe how pessimistic I felt. I was tired of being anxious and I wanted to give up. I felt hopeless and I was convinced that every day of the rest of my life, I’d be miserable. I’ve felt all of this before, but this time the thoughts were scarier and more consuming. Perhaps all of the anxiety I’d been feeling over the last couple of weeks had been smothered in a way, by all the good stuff I was feeling and this was it bursting out. I was exasperated by the fact I still felt anxious when the past couple of weeks had been so truly amazing and rationally, I knew I should be so calm and happy.

In the end, I rang The Samaritans and they stayed on the phone until I was out the other side. I didn’t call them because I believed I might kill myself. I called them because I didn’t know how to explain how I was feeling rationally and I didn’t want to panic family and friends. I felt like if I didn’t get it out of my head by talking about it to someone, I would be giving the feelings more power over me and they would become too much for me to handle. The Samaritans were amazing and if you ever need them, you can call them 24 hours a day on 116 123.

They did what they could, but a half hour after they’d convinced me to try putting the phone down and getting on with my day, I had pretty much decided that I was going to carry on feeling helpless and I’d just call The Samaritans every day for the rest of my life so that they could get me through it.

But then, laying flat on my back, on the floor, listening to a mindfulness video, I discovered the power of being in the moment and coming to the realisation that we have power over our minds, not the other way ’round. It honestly took ten minutes of being mindful for me to believe in myself again. Since then, I feel stronger than ever. I only wish I’d believed enough to try it sooner and I’m so grateful that my cousin mentioned it.

What’s also amazing is that once I’d been mindful I finally felt I could tell people around me how I’d felt. I told Dave, I told my brother, I took control back and I moved onwards and upwards.

Right now, I’m sat on an actual sofa (because we have one actual sofa now) and I’m looking at our beautiful living room (that now has house plants in it, including a wonderful cactus we’ve stuck a hat on and called Patrick) and I’m smiling hugely even though it’s all grey and gloomy outside. These last two weeks have been far from miserable. Believe it or not despite my emotional all over the place-ness, they’ve been great.

I’ve applied for lots of jobs and despite having heard nothing yet, am still feeling determined. They’re not all in schools. I’m applying for all kinds of things, because saving money for my masters feels like the priority now.

I’ve started writing my first ever song and I’ve been keeping up the piano practice.

I finished Jane Austen’s Persuasion and I thoroughly enjoyed it… It made my heart sing.

I bought a foot stool and can now reach the top of my new wardrobe.

I’m getting to know the new area. I’ve been ’round to the local shops and been into town a few times now and it feels more like home every day.

We’ve had more wonderful friends over to visit.

Dave and I have been out for dinner and been to the cinema, been record shopping together and we’ve started working through the list of films we’ve been meaning to watch for ages. Without setting off anyone’s cheese allergies I have to honestly say how lovely it is to be in the same place and actually be able to spend time together and do actual couple things. So yeah, we’ve not managed to annoy each other yet, but watch this space I guess.