You're Not Alone in the Dark

Feeling suicidal? Worried about someone you love? This episode, inspired by an interview I did for BACP, explores how to navigate life's darkest moments with compassion and practical support.

It covers:

• A recent NHS survey finding that 1 in 4 people have felt suicidal (and why it's likely more)

• How working with your body can help lift you out of despair

• What to say (and not say) when someone is struggling

• Creating a world worth living in - for yourself and others

If you're struggling right now, please remember you deserve help. You deserve joy. You deserve to not just stay alive but to thrive.

This is episode 68 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast - trauma-informed and VAST/ADHD-friendly Self and self-care to help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from.

💜 You matter. Your life matters. You're not alone.

Feel Better Every Day! Learn from the self and Self* care practices the professionals depend on.

With a mixture of solo and interview episodes, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham (author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing) shares trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly self and Self* care ideas to help you:

• Feel Better (regulate your nervous system and do the things that help you create a life you don’t need to retreat from)

• Be Better (accept yourself completely with love, compassion and kindness – you don’t need to do a thing) and

• Do Better (turn what hurts your heart into action to support your family, organisations, communities and the world at large)

Thanks for watching.

New episodes come out every Tuesday morning (Ireland time) and if you subscribe (via your favourite podcasting app or by joining the Sole to Soul Circle), you’ll be notified about each new episode.

Sole to Soul Circle members get deeper dives each Wednesday morning.

WANT TO WORK WITH ME?

• There’s the book – 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing – and all the book bonus videos.

• All the free resources (for trauma, ADHD, menopause, solopreneurs, anxiety, sleep, confidence, resilience, finding purpose, meaning and joy and more) across my platforms and the library of self-care ideas and practices at https://selfcarecoaching.net

• You can join the Sole to Soul Circle on Substack (https://evemc.substack.com ) and get bonus interviews and content specially designed to help you dive deeper into each week’s theme.

• If you want to support my work but don’t want to commit to a membership, even for a month, you can choose any amount at https://ko-fi.com/evemc

• While my private practice for one to one work (trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly therapies, Self care coaching, clinical supervision and supervisor’s supervision) is almost always at capacity, if you’re based in Ireland or the UK, it’s still worth completing the short form at https://selfcarecoaching.net/contact to book your free telephone consultation in the hope that we can find a mutually convenient time to work together.

WANT TO CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

You can find me almost everywhere – please say ‘Hi’ and share your questions or comments:

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And if you’d like to leave a review and/or rate this and other episodes you’ve enjoyed, your feedback and support helps me help more people (of all genders) with trauma histories and/or ADHD take better care of their whole selves and create lives they don’t need to retreat from.

CHAPTERS

(0:02 – 1:13) Introduction to the episode and podcast

(1:14 – 2:32) Suicidal thoughts are more common than you think

(2:33 – 4:00) Personal experience with suicidal thoughts

(4:01 – 5:18) Systemic factors and lack of support

(5:19 – 6:38) Why “just talk to someone” isn’t always easy

(6:39 – 7:32) You are worthy of help and support

(7:33 – 8:44) Simple physical actions to shift your state

(10:15 – 11:33) Acceptance and sitting with painful emotions

(12:46 – 13:56) Let yourself dream of something better

(13:57 – 15:10) Noticing everyday acts of kindness

(15:11 – 16:14) Being part of a solution without pressure

(16:15 – 17:24) Journaling and energetic support practices

(17:25 – 18:18) Suicide in stories and lived experiences

(18:19 – 18:54) Encouragement

RESOURCES

• Samaritans helpline Samaritans.org/ireland

• Pieta House (Ireland) pieta.ie

• textaboutit.ie/suicide

• Mood lifting and heart-opening yoga poses at selfcarecoaching.net/book

• Join the Sole to Soul Circle: evemc.substack.com

Crisis Support: If you're having suicidal thoughts, please reach out immediately to your local emergency services, GP or crisis helpline.

DISCLAIMER

The content I share is not a replacement for one to one trauma therapy (etc). While you can do an enormous amount to support yourself, please always seek appropriate medical advice.

Thanks for watching. Please subscribe / follow and share with someone who you think will benefit from this episode.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and you're listening to episode 68 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. Every Tuesday I share trauma-informed and ADHD-friendly self-care ideas to help you take better care of yourself and your Self with that uppercase S, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself to help you create a life you don't need to retreat from.

You can find out more at the feelbettereverydaypodcast.com and you can get deeper dives by joining the Sole to Soul Circle as well as bonus interviews, practices, rituals and access to a rich archive including the entire Love Your Whole Self chakra journey.

You can also access resources via the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas and all the book bonus videos and whether you have the book or not and lots of other resources at selfcarecoaching.net.

Today's episode was inspired by an interview I recently did for BACP's website and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

They were exploring some of the NHS's recent findings around mental health to coincide with the launch of their 10-year plan and one in four people have reported feeling suicidal at some point over their lifetime.

Unfortunately from my experience and from like my lived experience and my professional experience this feels like under-reporting and there's so much going on in the world that has so many people stretched so thin not to mention, I don't want to list all the things that might make you feel worse, feel better every day, but unfortunately way too many people do feel suicidal and have felt suicidal.

Myself, I used to feel suicidal a lot throughout my childhood and teens and into my 20s but because I tried when I was 14 and thankfully I didn't succeed I'm always grateful for that because long before I learned how to teach mindfulness it gave me that visceral experience of being grateful that my actions hadn't been irreversible and now with what I understand about trauma recovery and ADHD and impulsivity who would have thought it would take until nearly 50 to find out I was impulsive but thinking it used to really scare me growing up. How it could feel so desperate and like it was the only way out and I was so lucky in many, many ways. I had a good life in many, many ways but that was a default well-worn neural pathway loop that I would regularly go down and it terrified me that something done so quickly could be it forever.

And I don't know what the answer is because there aren't enough resources for the people who I was going to say have the courage to seek support. Everyone has courage. It's not just about seeking support. It can be heartbreaking to hear about people who have gone to their GPs and been turned away and it takes so much to reach out, I always feel terrible when I can't help someone who is reaching out wanting me to work with them one-to-one because I'm in private practice I can't work with everyone who gets in touch with me.

I really wish that in Ireland and in the UK we had better safety nets in place, better supports to refer people on to, but at the same time I think that there is awareness. I think what they're saying they plan to do in terms of additional resources it's moving hopefully in the right direction but thinking like there's never really any exploration of systemic causes and how people feel about for example the climate catastrophe about what's going on in the world and how that can exacerbate feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.

And I guess for the Feel… element of the Feel… Love… Heal… framework, it's too easy to say, “Talk to someone! Reach out! Let someone know you're suffering!” Because when you're suffering like that, that's the last thing you want to do.

It can feel utterly impossible to voice it. It can feel melodramatic. It can feel not enough. It can feel terrifying and like fear of rejection. There are all sorts of things that can get in the way and there aren't enough supports in place. There is in Ireland there's Pieta House. You can reach out there. There are the Samaritans in most places.

But people need to know that they are WORTHY. People need to know that however you're feeling, you deserve help. And unfortunately, when we're feeling like that, we don't believe that we deserve help. We feel like we're too...