大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Harry Baker

Good morning.

It is one year ago this month that I went to therapy for the first time. I had friends who had spoken positively about their experience, but I had never taken the leap to try it myself. However, looking back on the previous year, I realised I had been in denial about how difficult I had been finding things. As someone who sees myself as a positive person, my response to things feeling tough was to tell myself (and others!) that it was about to get better - the harder I was finding things, the more I would double down on this belligerent optimism. In January last year I finally admitted that I wasn鈥檛 doing great, and started going to therapy to try and work through some of it - it was one of the best decisions I鈥檝e ever made. Even now when I feel I am in a better place than I was, I look forward to my sessions as a chance to process what has happened in the previous weeks, as despite making a career out of being a very good communicator, as a friend pointed out, I have a tendency to get stuck in my own head sometimes.

A Monday in January is supposedly the most depressing day of the year. This formula was in part worked out by a travel company to try and sell people holidays so I鈥檇 take it with a pinch of salt, but with shorter, colder days and post-christmas blues, it feels more important than ever to check in with ourselves and others around us. Through therapy I felt able to open up to those closest to me that I wasn鈥檛 doing well, and it was they way they held me in those moments that was as transformative as anything else.

Loving God, thank you that you are with us in the highs and the lows. Thank you that we are so loved by you and those around us, even when we are finding it hard to love ourselves. I pray that in the darker days you would help us find light to hold onto, and that you would help us be a light to those around us who may be struggling too.

Amen.