And so I’m back

Well I have hobbled, wheezed, crawled, skidded and stumbled into 2024. When I look back at my unseasonal enthusiasm for the last couple of new years, I feel a million miles away from that. I have felt depleted. I have no big goal this year and I think that’s part of my inertia too. Even this blog has taken a back seat. I have kept one foot in front of the other though. Or rather one welly in front of the other.

It’s probably a jumble of everything – still feeling the effects of grief in my body, still recovering from a virus in the autumn, the abysmal weather, the fecking menopause, the lack of light. I’m seriously thinking of booking a few days in the sun next winter because the impact of the weather this year has been so disruptive. Maybe I just really needed to rest?

I have still been cycling though, I missed a few days here and there because of a horrible bug at New Year and work and exhaustion. I am not burnt out, I’ve been there before and it doesn’t feel like this. I have tried to be gentle and compassionate with myself. It’s been hard. I’ve put weight back on, I’ve lost some fitness, my diabetes has been pretty wonky over the last few months. But I’m on the road to getting back to where I was.

I have had to do some of my cycles indoors and last year I had bought a second hand road bike and turbo trainer with great ideas about pedalling away in the sitting room. I absolutely detest it with every fibre of my being. I have an exercise bike that I’m perfectly happy on, but the turbo is quite frankly torture. I finally admitted defeat, took it off the turbo and round to my local bike store to get it checked and sorted out as a proper road bike. Shout out to Magic Cycles in Bowling because that guy is literally magic with bikes.

So meet Dory. You might notice her pedals look a bit different, yes they are for clipping in. For someone who has generally been quite accident-prone since childhood, this may not be the best idea. But someone kindly gave me their old cycling shoes and because I’d practiced clipping in and out on the turbo, I was determined to give it a try. And I didn’t fall. I did wobble, once, realising very quickly you can’t just clip out on one side, you have to do both. But I did fly home on this light wee nimble bike. When the weather is better, I’ll definitely be putting some miles on her.

But Ruby the gravel bike will always be my beloved one. She can go absolutely anywhere, any terrain, any weather. My bike doesn’t judge me. She is a consistent friend and companion, waiting patiently for me to get my mojo back so we can have more adventures. Just writing again feels good, another step forwards. The wee flowers are starting to bloom and hopefully I will too.

12 days of centuries

Well I’ve blooming gone and done it – 12 out of 12 gran fondo metric centuries, one for every month this year. For the imperialists among us 100km is 62.13 miles. That’s my goal for 2023 done along with still riding daily. And I have been reflecting on what the word practice means for me and how I want to use it in the coming year.

This final one was a truly dirty ride, mud, rain, wind, traffic splatter, foul weather and a filthy bike. There’s not much daylight in December days which meant I started and ended in the dark. This ride was going to take in all the big sights, pity I could only see the path in front of me for about a third of the ride.

Travelling west coast to east coast my main target was the Pineapple House in Airth. Built in 1761 as a summerhouse by the Earl of Dunmore, it has been labelled Scotland’s most bizarre building. The wealthy owner once grew pineapples there in pits and other exotic fruits in the glasshouses. According to the National Trust, you can now take a peaceful walk around the woodlands there. My arse. It was a flipping quagmire. And despite having three devices with gps capabilities I ended up going round and round the maze of woodland paths in semi-darkness and mud and ended up walking my bike through a muddy field back to the road. There might have been tears. And swearing. But I did make it there.

I’m sure it would have been lovely on a beautiful summer’s day. I also hit my two top favourite Scottish landmarks – the Kelpies and Falkirk Wheel. Unfortunately the Falkirk wheel was getting maintenance done, so that was a bit of a damp squib. Although it’s an excellent toilet and coffee stop.

The Kelpies as always were beautiful and impressive. Definitely something Scotland can be proud of, both landmarks are great feats of engineering and stunning in their own ways. There is something very magical about the Kelpies that connects me to our history and our folklore of sea beasts. It definitely taps into the child part of me finding mysterious things on my bike rides.

It was a super tough ride. I’m still not fully recovered from the bugs I’ve had recently and the unpleasant burning sensation I’m still getting in my lungs made the ride a struggle. I went very slowly with lots of stops. But I still believed I could do it and I was determined to complete my goal. This was part of my ponderings. I only knew it was possible because I had done a long ride like this every single month. That certainly doesn’t make it easier, just possible. Every single one of these 100km has felt like an epic struggle.

It’s the repetition of behaviour that makes a practice – whether that’s daily, weekly or monthly. The word practice implies getting ready for the real thing, but it also has this other meaning of repetition and ritual. Brushing your teeth is a daily practice – you do it to prevent decay. I now realise that my daily practice of cycling prevents the decay of something inside me. It prevents the decay of joy and hope and fun and lightness and child-like curiosity of the natural world. It is a protective practice. That’s just hit me like a brick, how truly important that is.

I hope you can find that too. Find something that you want to build into your life that prevents the decay of your soul. To find a way to access the life force that gives you meaning. Merry Christmas to all you lovely people who read my blog and nourish me with your support ♥️🎄

Uphill struggle

Ever have that feeling in life that you’re going up a huge hill, expecting some relief at the top only to find it leads to another hill? Life really does feel a bit like that for me just now. What better way to distract myself than doing a cycle ride with loads of difficult hills. It seems a bit mad, but somehow it makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, I can cope with life’s uphill battles. My sixth 100km ride of the year was my toughest one yet.

It’s been baking hot in Scotland this June and I’d picked a coastal ride as it’s normally windy and felt like that might cool me down. But the wee sea breeze wasn’t enough to counteract the sweat dripping off me while I tackled the steepest parts of this ride. The rollercoaster route also meant rollercoaster blood sugars with more hypos on this ride than I’ve ever had while cycling. Nothing about this ride was easy.

And yet through the tough bits it was also somehow glorious. Absolutely cracking views on the some wee roads I didn’t even know existed – thanks to Komoot for the route generation. I noticed my body was more capable than it used to be. I wouldn’t say for a minute the hills felt easier, but they felt doable. And I didn’t have to get off and walk like I used to. Those changes have happened so incrementally I had barely noticed.

And of course with every uphill struggle you get the childlike joy of screeching downhill. Flat rides are easier but they are never quite as much fun. I’m really trying to take that on board with life. My life is certainly never boring. Like many people, I have a lot of uphill struggles and often they feel endless. Of course sometimes you do have to get off and walk but it’s even more frustrating. I’d still rather try to keep cycling at 4mph than walking at 3mph. I just make sure that when I’m really wiped, when I stop, I take time to admire the view and absorb my surroundings.

And that’s the part that makes it all worthwhile. Of course life is going to be full of difficulties, pain and disappointment. But if we only focus on that, then hopelessness sets in. Even if you can focus on joy for a fraction of time, it makes a difference. Finding something absurd to laugh at in the ridiculousness of life can make the other stuff more bearable.

Focusing on love helps to soothe the pain of life. It can feel futile otherwise. There’s so much we can’t control. When we desperately cling on to control and avoiding pain and tragedy we don’t have any capacity left for noticing what can still bring us joy in the midst of it all. The small things matter more than we realise at the time, because life is one big thing made up of lots of tiny things and moments.

You can leave your hat on

I went for a wee spin around the park with my adult son recently and was a bit taken aback that he thought he didn’t need to wear a helmet. Okay we were crawling around the park, among the pigeons, but that’s my job, to keep the offspring alive!

It also amazed me being out over the bank holiday, how many folk were out on their bikes without helmets. In the cycling communities there is a very polarised debate about whether helmets are necessary or not. For me, it’s a no-brainer! I would literally like to keep my brains inside my skull. But seeing as it came up and I’ve been pondering, I thought I should do some proper research and found some very surprising things.

Nerdy stats warning! Most cycling safety reports say that helmets can decrease the chance of a head injury by 60-85%. And that head injuries are the most common injuries for cyclists. In fact, a report on cycling deaths in New York City stated that 97% of of cyclists who died in accidents were not wearing a helmet. Figures from the rest of the world are about half and half. In the UK an average of two cyclists a week are killed on the roads and most in collisions with cars. Unsurprisingly the lowest number of cycling accidents are in places like the Netherlands where there is fantastic cycling infrastructure.

I probably don’t need to read a bunch of stats to know this, which is why I prefer to cycle where there’s absolutely no cars and on cycle paths. But sometimes I still need to go on the roads to get where I’m going. It all sounds pretty dangerous and terrifying, but even more interesting is the behaviour of car drivers towards cyclists.

A psychologist in Bath discovered that drivers actually give less room to cyclists wearing a helmet, and also to cyclists who are clearly visible as being women. The researchers concluded that if drivers see a cyclist with all the gear and a helmet, they see them as more competent and therefore under-compensate for potential accidents. You can draw your own conclusions about why motorists give women cyclists a wide berth. Most of the stats say that accidents are caused by either drivers and/or cyclists not looking properly, so maybe we all need new glasses, not just helmets.

I’m under no illusions that cycling can be dangerous, but stats are a funny thing. We can interpret them in all different ways. Think about the statistic that says in Scotland, two people die by suicide every day. That’s a heck of a lot more people than die in cycling or even motor vehicle deaths. So it made me wonder, what’s the mental health equivalent of a helmet? How can we help people stay alive? It’s a tough question and after almost 20 years of working in suicide, I don’t have any magic answers.

I think keeping people safe from suicide is much more difficult and complex than keeping cyclists safe. People come face to face with suicide for so many different reasons – some internal, some external. I think that increasing resilience, healthy coping mechanisms, good self care and access to therapy all act like helmets. But some people’s lives are simply awful, full of pain and horror and trauma, where life just doesn’t make sense any more. They’ve had the equivalent of a crash and the best helmet in the world can’t seem to protect them. Sometimes they recover, sometimes they don’t.

Helping someone with suicide is like travelling with them through a dark place, they often can’t find their way to the light on the other side. When you’re helping, you hang on to the belief that light is there, even if you can’t see it. You have hope for the person who has none left. And if you are doing that regularly, you need to find a way to take care of yourself. You need to put your own helmet on.

My mental health helmet is definately cycling and being outdoors. It increases my resilience, it brings me joy and meaning being connected to nature and to myself. It grounds me and gives me space and time to process. So I will make sure I’ve got my safety helmet firmly on my head – metaphorically and literally.

Parallel process

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This week has been a tale of two very different states, as opposed to a tale of two cities. It has felt like a tale of triumph and defeat running in parallel. While my body has felt in a state of defeat, the rest of me has felt elated and energised.

The Wallace Monument, Stirling

I’ve been struck down by some sort of lurgy (a bug, for non-Scottish readers). A delightful throat, cough, congestion combo that’s left me feeling utterly depleted. But I couldn’t just take to my bed and feel sorry for myself as I was committed to delivering training this week, and to be honest, I didn’t feel that bad on and off throughout the week, probably adrenaline took over. It was more annoying than anything else, and disrupted my sleep which is not ideal on a busy week like this one, when we are working 16-hour days. Where it hit me hardest was not having the energy to cycle more than a few miles every day, or night, because in the busyness of this week, some of my cycles were squeezed in before bed.

I’m not used to having this depleted energy for cycling. I didn’t like it one bit. But I have tried to take some learning from this. Lots of us can get stuck in all or nothing thinking. Like if I can’t get out for a decent ride, then I won’t bother going at all. Well I’m still cycling every day, but I had to accept that if I wanted to continue that with my low energy then I’d also have to accept that a mere mile was good enough.

So I did cycle for just over a mile one night and I was going so slowly, it felt like returning to the beginning of my cycling journey. It’s just as well I was going slow though as I had to navigate through a crowd of jumping frogs who had unleashed themselves all over the path. If I’d been doing my usual speed, I would have left a trail of squished frog bodies in my wake.

I also got to experience a beautiful slow sunrise, dodging squirrels, ducks and swans. And took myself up a big hill to visit the historic Scottish landmark of the Wallace Monument. That was a very slow hike-a-bike journey, hardly any miles, but worth it for the view and the feeling of connection to my ancestors and their battle for freedom.

So maybe I could find some kind of freedom this week. Free myself from expectations about cycling a certain number of miles, or being at the top of my game all the time. Sometimes I’m just not, and I have to find a way to be okay with that, especially when it’s completely outwith my control. This week also provided a lesson in freeing myself from only relying on me. I’ve had to rely on other people this week to support me in many different ways. And I feel grateful for having incredible colleagues by my side, willing to let me lean on them when I needed to. I find that challenging and freeing myself from stubborn self-reliance is enlightening.

This week’s training was about suicide intervention and training up new trainers. This kind of work is something you can’t do alone. People have to work together to create safety. In this line of work, if you try to go it alone, no one is safe. We need each other. Knowing that I need other people is a strength, not a weakness. In fact, when you allow yourself to be vulnerable and to be supported by others, you get to witness the magnificent compassion and generosity of their spirits. You get to see other people be the truly beautiful humans that they are. If you insist on going it alone, you never get to experience that.

So this is my elation, literally being lifted up by the beauty, joy and strength of those around me. What an honour. And if, because of this work, many more people are able to support those struggling with suicide, then I also feel honoured to be a part of that.

Hitting a wall

Accessing joy is not something I usually struggle to do. Especially when I start writing about my rides and cycling. I couldn’t do it, so I didn’t write anything last week. Maybe it’s okay to just be honest about that. Maybe it will help someone else if I am.

Beach sculpture by the River Clyde, Old Kilpatrick

I really struggled to get out last week, doing most of my rides on the indoor bike. Still doing something every day, still getting out for walks but not quite getting on the outdoor bike. Yes I’ve been very busy with work, but I hit a wall. I know it’s an internal wall. An ongoing issue in my personal life that feels barely manageable most of the time and at other times makes me feel utterly powerless. The details aren’t necessary to understand the feelings. It’s an issue that I’ve tried to get help with from everyone I can think of, but no matter what I do I cannot change things. I couldn’t even bear to write last week because I felt so hopeless. It hit me hard when I went to look for some great pictures for my blog and there were none.

I have managed to shift this funk a bit and grateful to have managed out on the bike at the weekend. Even if it was in the rain.

I know that going out on my bike relieves this feeling. It’s like a balm that makes all the difficult stuff disappear. But I just couldn’t go out. I couldn’t access my best coping mechanism because it required energy I just didn’t have. So how do I get myself out of this place? The thing that keeps me going is that I’ve been here before, many times. Knowing that somewhere deep inside me is a residue of resilience, a fragment of fight still there. It feels I am grabbing on to it with all that’s left of my might.

It’s very much like the feeling of going up a hill on the bike. I’ve never given up. I’ve never just turned round and ridden back down. Even if I’ve had to get off and walk, I’ve still made it to the top somehow. You do that just once, and your brain tucks it away. Instead of “I can’t do this” it becomes, but you did do it before, so that statement is no longer accurate. Our internal capacity meter is often a bit wonky. We can endure much more than we think we can.

Although it might feel like you are wading through mud, it’s still possible to get through it. And then it’s behind you instead of in front of you and the path ahead is clearer again. This week feels a little clearer, a little lighter. So the next time life incapacitates me, I will have the knowledge that I may have felt bent out of shape, but I didn’t break.

The end of the line

I’ve got two blogs on the go this week as I’m writing a review of my year as well as my weekly blog. My head and my heart feel overflowing with all the things I want to say and how much I’m grateful for. There is one day left of this challenge now and I guess that means there’s actually still time for me to fail, but that seems pretty unlikely now.

It feels a bit weird to be honest. A year is a long time and I’ve just taken this challenge one day at a time, so it does feel a bit strange to be looking back on it as a whole. Of course I’m going to keep cycling, possibly even every day, but it won’t feel the same. This has been an actual transformation. This has felt epic, monumental. From being someone with an idea, to being someone who was actually able to follow through. I have a million unfinished things in my life, but this is something that I actually finished. I can’t tell you how much that makes me challenge my concept of myself. For decades I have believed these stories – that I am messy, I start things and don’t finish them, I’m undisciplined, I have no willpower.

I think it’s time to take a great big sledge-hammer to some of these myths. They may be partly true, but they are certainly not my whole truth. Not any more. I can achieve great things. I can finish things. I can succeed. I can apply myself. I can be disciplined. I can be determined. I can change things about my life. I am not powerless. I can do hard things. I think I can finally say, I am a cyclist.

I have fallen in love with cycling and it has made me fall in love with life. My bike has taken me on adventures – to hilltops and even to the bottom of rivers. I have crossed cycle paths with ducks, birds, swans, cows, horses, dogs, cats, great blue herons, rabbits, deer, stoats and rats.

I have watched the seasons change before my eyes every day. I have watched the trees change from bare to buds to full leaves to autumn glory and bare again. I have seen wildflowers through the seasons. I have cycled in rain, hail, snow, wind, storms, more rain and even some sunshine and rainbows. Many rides have been tough, I’ve grumbled, sometimes I’ve cried, but at the end of every single ride I’ve been smiling and glad I went out.

I am grateful for my body, for its strength and its ability to find energy from nowhere. I am grateful that cycling has helped me manage my diabetes better. I am grateful for encouragement from my online cycling groups. I am grateful for warm clothes and good waterproofs. I am grateful for hot showers. I am grateful for ITOL (Incredibly Tolerant Other Half) – his endless support, hot cups of coffee and rescue missions. I am grateful for good cycling routes. I am grateful for the incredible beauty of where I live. I am grateful for friendship and those who have ridden alongside me. I am grateful for the encouragement of so many people. I am grateful for everyone who has read my blog this year.

This final week has been harder than I thought it would be. The weather has been awful. I’ve been eating too much chocolate and drinking too much wine. There’s been life stuff happening. I’m not at full fitness and my energy is low. But I’ve still made it out. Just a couple more rides and this challenge will be over. I don’t feel relieved, I actually feel a little sad that it will be done. But there’s always next year…

The only important thing that is unfinished is me. And I can’t wait for whatever comes next.

Kind hearts steer us

Although this year has been an epic time in my life for cycling, it’s not an entirely new obsession. Over the years cycling has periodically played a vital role in my self-care. And I’ve dipped my toe in cycling challenges in the past.

I’d like to share a story from a few years ago about one of these times as I was recently reminded of how we often need others to help us achieve our goals, even though they are our goals.

I am fortunate to be part of a global network of suicide prevention trainers. Training up new trainers is an intense, challenging and highly rewarding piece of work. So when we come together as a team it’s important that we take care of each other so we can show up as our best selves to support learners. I love these training weeks, they are for me an example of how every workplace should be – the chance to grow and stretch yourself and learn.

One of the ways the training team take care of each other is to talk in advance about our self care needs and if we need support. Before attending one of these weeks in Denver, I told the team I was in the middle of doing a challenge to cycle 5km a day for 50 days and was anxious to know if the hotel had a gym so I could still make my miles.

After a long flight, I arrived at our venue to be presented with a red bicycle. One of my colleagues had arranged in advance for me to borrow a bike for the week so I could keep going with my challenge. He really listened, intuitively understanding that this was important to me. It’s not life and death important, like taking care of my diabetes needs, but a different kind of important. He knew that if I could get out on my bike that I would be able to show up better in my work. And above all, it made me happy.

I was deeply moved by this gesture of kindness. It’s years later but I still remember the feeling of overwhelming gratitude that someone really saw me and what I needed and was creative in his efforts to help me reach my goals. This gesture brought out the absolute best in me. That week I was able to be a better learner, a better teacher and a more supportive colleague. It taught me something so important about leadership and how to bring out the best in other people. This kindness became part of me and helped me to pay it forward to others in my life. There is such power and grace in kindness that we can never truly know the full ripple effect of our actions.

I have also realised that I am drawn to these types of communities because I know that I need them. Cycling communities where we encourage each other, diabetic communities where we commiserate bad days and support each other, work communities where I can learn from others and be challenged to grow, social communities where I can experience deep connections.

Over these past months it’s beginning to sink in that these two wheels are part of my support network – it’s not just a bike. It’s a lifeline. It’s a way to get me somewhere different and I don’t just mean geographically, but somewhere different in my mind, in my body, in my emotions, in my being.

I am grateful for all the travelling companions I have met in my life’s journey. I’m excited for the ones I’ve not yet met and what adventures might lie in store. Some of my companions are people, some of them are animals and some of them are bikes.

I hope that my words and this story has a ripple effect to remind others out there that even the smallest kindness to another human can change a person’s day, maybe even their life.

Slices of time

I’ve always loved that Philip Larkin poem, the Whitsun Weddings, where he writes about strangers sharing a train journey, on Whitsun. The line I love most, “and none, Thought of the others they would never meet, Or how their lives would all contain this hour”.

This always comes to mind and stirs my imagination when I go anywhere by train. And recently I loaded up Ruby with full panniers, ready for an adventure that involved more than 11 hours on a train, going to visit a dear friend who lives in Cornwall.

Travelling with the bike adds another layer of planning and I think I’m getting more efficient at it each time I travel. However what I don’t seem to have mastered is the art of getting the heavy weighted bike on and off the train without smashing the pedals into my shins!

It’s always a conversation starter too, with train staff, with other cyclists and passengers. Because I was on that train the longest of all the passengers who came and went, I saw a lot of people, sharing slices of time and conversations brought that Larkin poem to mind.

These moments of time are precious and fascinating. When we share slices of time with strangers I think we under-estimate the power we can have to influence each other. Kindness and being genuinely interested in another person can lift their mood, boost their self-esteem or even restore their faith in humans. A grumpy word or rejecting glare can wound or damage.

This theme stayed in my mind when I recently attended an event when someone reflected on how easily we make assumptions about the people we encounter when in reality we really only get to see a fragment of them and their lives. Even with close friends and family members, we still only see a fragment of their lives. We may never fully know the struggles they face, what challenges them, what fears they are facing, what sorrows they are enduring.

On the bike you fly by most things quickly, it’s why I like to stop and take pictures, to hold on to those fragments. I want to cling to that feeling of overwhelming heart-swelling gratitude at the sight of a beautiful sunset or seascape.

It’s easy for us to fly past people in life. I feel grateful for the kind of work I get to do. I have many opportunities to connect with others in profound and meaningful ways. I get to watch people transform in front of me in therapy and on training courses. I get to connect deeply.

Cycling gives me a chance to connect deeply with nature, with different landscapes, with changing seasons and weather.

In these places I also get the chance to connect deeply with myself. It’s just me, my body and the bike. I can feel the power of my muscles, my body stepping up it’s game on a hill or a long ride. I can also feel the power drain from my body when I haven’t fuelled properly or my blood sugar is dropping or rising. Every ache, twinge and pain is acutely clear.

I can also connect with what’s happening in my head and my heart. I can process feelings, problem solve something tricky, clarify my hopes and dreams. I also think about what I might write in this blog. I hope that my words do good in the world. I hope they encourage other people to believe in themselves and to try out new things. Not just cycling, although I’m biased, but definately getting outside – connecting with nature, ourselves and others in a meaningful way.

City of angels

In my city, there are angels lurking among us. They may be walking, driving, they may even be cycling past. In fact they exist in every city in the world, every town, every village, every community. We may never know who they are, but they are out there, saving lives.

I have spent time this week with some incredible individuals who dedicate their working lives to helping to prevent suicide. They all have their reasons for choosing to do this kind of work. For some it’s about loss or experiencing the impact of lives lost to suicide, or social justice. But for all of us, this work matters so much to us, giving a strong sense of meaning and purpose.

And although this is our job, there are thousands, millions of people out there either knowingly or unknowingly intervening to save lives. Having conversations at critical moments. Showing kindness which helps strangers feel like somebody cares, that their life might be worth something after all. Helping to train other people to feel confident and have the skills to do this is an honour. It feels like providing the light they need to walk along dark paths with those struggling to find a way to live.

This work has been a big part of my life for almost 20 years. Someone asked me why it means so much to me to spend time with others who also do this work. There’s something so powerful about getting round a table with people who share the same passion and values that nourishes and inspires me.

Being part of meetings this week meant I had the chance to cycle in Glasgow city centre. Our bridges over the river Clyde are so fun and distinctive. Bridges like our famous Squinty Bridge are landmarks as well as connecting parts of the city. They help us to find our way. Most cyclists love a bridge, it’s part of the adventure.

In suicide prevention work, helpers are like bridges between death and life, accompanying travellers staring into a deep chasm of despair, showing them there is a way through and that they don’t have to make their journeys alone.

So what’s the connection with cycling and suicide? For me personally, cycling is my connection to life, to feeling alive, to sustaining my life. Cycling teaches me how to overcome difficult things, doing this daily cycling challenge has taught me about resilience. Working in suicide prevention and being a therapist gives my life meaning and purpose. If you can find these things from anything in life, it can protect against suicide.

With every conversation that I have I with people struggling to find a way to live, I understand even more that it’s both simple and complex. Life wants to prevail. It’s our most basic instinct to keep ourselves alive and if you can offer people a lifeline, they will take it. But to sustain life, we need meaning and we need to ease each other’s struggles. Challenges in life can be overwhelming and unbearable. Whether that’s living in poverty, struggling to pay your bills, being tormented by the past, trying to make sense of trauma, despair and terror. In all those things, if we can find meaning and purpose, we can live.