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P2YL | 4. Ways to find comfort: Distraction

Katrina Robinson • Sep 29, 2023

An Impressionist scene showing a solitary figure standing on a blue shoreline at dusk with lights beginning to be visible o the distant shore.

When the unthinkable happens, it feels as though, suddenly and without warning, the ship you’ve been sailing on safely for so long has sunk, leaving you clinging to the wreckage in a choppy, grey sea.

Still painfully alive, but with open wounds and in deep shock. Greyness above you, greyness below. And bitterly, bitterly, bone-clenchingly cold.

At this stage you need the metaphorical equivalent of respite. You need to find comfort and a way to let the wounds begin their natural healing process, because yes, be comforted that the silent, hidden work of healing will begin whether or not you do anything conscious about it. But there are things you can do to help the process.

For now, the best thing is not too much violent action and lashing out. Save your energy. Just hold on. Then gradually, gradually, inch yourself into a lifeboat, and rest.

When my own personal unthinkable misery happened many years ago I kept diaries into which I poured all that rage and despair. For years I could not bear to read them, but now they give me vital clues on how to survive the trauma so at some stage you emerge from it and can regroup your forces.

1. Find activities that soothe and distract

Woman sitting on a sofa holding a cross-stitched, handmade, colourful cushion. Cushion design based on the work of Gustav Klimt.

What to do with those endless hours when your mind continues to churn over its misery like a rat caught in a maze?

I recommend distraction as a powerful balm.

I am no good at craft and early on in my life wrote it off as boring, but, going through my own miserable time, I bought a beginner’s simple cross-stitch kit from an art shop and was surprised at how it absorbed and soothed my jangling nerves. There is something mesmerising and hypnotic about the rhythm and repetition of the stitches. The feeling of wool and cotton slipping through the fingers, the handling of soft fabrics, soothes and strokes the skin. As the body is soothed, so the mind relaxes. My hands stopped trembling.

Working with needle and thread was a traditional female craft and as I sat doing my tapestry in the evening, I felt slightly comforted in the knowledge that generations of women had done the same, sewing into stitches and seams their misery and frustration at the hands of men and life. They had gone before me, gone through it, and come out the other side. Their pain was in the past. Perhaps, if they could do it, so could I? Perhaps one day my pain would be history too?

People are wired so differently. I recently asked around for other people’s ideas of soothing activities that helped them melt away the hardest times in their lives.

I found an interesting division between what helped women and what helped men but in the end it doesn’t matter, there is plenty of overlap between us as humans.

You can often guess instinctively what might work for you as a self-soother and in keeping an open mind, you discover new possibilities of finding calm.

Activities which others found helpful include:

o Jam and marmalade-making.
o Gardening.
o Cycling, then a bit more cycling, then even more cycling.
o Watching or listening to really good comedy.
o Colouring or any form of art.
o Crosswords, cryptic or otherwise.
o Absorbing myself in nature by going out for a walk and stopping to examine a leaf, a flower, a tree in detail.
o Walking as fast as I can up a steep hill to be rewarded at the top by a spectacular view.
o Putting together an intricate jigsaw puzzle of something beautiful so I can see it forming in front of me, piece by piece.

Woman dressed in black jeans and top, baseball cap on top of head, holding a garden strimmer, standing in an overgrown garden.

I am so grateful that there are so many ways of finding respite from painful feelings. Even if they are not magical solutions, they give us relief, help us regather our strength, and cope.

🤔 Are there any soothing activities you can recommend? 🤔

I'd love to hear them if so because I think the more tools in our armoury, the better.

Two late Victorian women chatting over wine.

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P2YL | 20. The power of pep-talks

by Katrina Robinson • 11 May, 2024

When I found myself divorced and alone in midlife, I felt scared. Somehow I would have to rebuild my feminine confidence, find a way to earn more money, learn to socialise and date again. Reading my diaries from back then I see I had to give myself pretty regular pep-talks as I was frequently dragged down by disappointment and set-backs. The first pep-talk was inspired by the British Royal Family. ‘The Reluctant King’ I heard the audio play Crown Matrimonial about George VI, grandfather of the present King Charles. George VI was the awkward younger brother of the suave and popular Edward VIII, and was called on to face the task of kingship because Edward VIII decided to abdicate. ‘Bertie’ (as George VI was known in his family) was a chronically shy man with a speech impediment who felt appalled at the future facing him. It’s on record he broke down and sobbed in front of his mother, Queen Mary, at the thought of becoming king: ‘I c-c-c-can’t do it. I c-c-c-can’t even speak properly.’