Feel like the world is out to get you?

We can finally reveal some big, fancy news this week, about our ABC podcast No Feeling Is Final. Full details at the end of the newsletter.

(Spoiler: the news is not a second season. But! having just checked back in after a year, I will say this. It’s *very* relistenable.)

First up though, the kindness of inanimate signs, and the unexpected pleasures of being told to fuck off. . .

The dangers of leaving the house

Ever feel like the world is out to get you? 

And I don’t mean figuratively.

I’m not talking about those days where everything seems to go against you, where you’re convinced that the world is conspiring to make sure you have a Very Bad Day. 

I’m talking about something more constant, and less dependent on actual bad things happening. I’m talking about the low hum of apprehension that - for some of us - is an all too familiar companion every time we leave the house.

It’s the feeling that strangers are literally out to get you. That everyone you meet in the street is a potential threat to your wellbeing.

From the sinister . . .

Those two guys walking toward me, are they talking about how easily they could jump me right now, just for fun?

To the petty . . .

If I don’t smile just right when I order my decaf flat white, is this barista going to deliberately put regular coffee in there, just to fuck with me?

Incredible threats

To be clear, I don’t believe these thoughts. On half a moment’s reflection, none of these is what you’d call a 'credible threat'. Sometimes I’ll even laugh at how ridiculous these thoughts can get.

Yet there they still are, whenever I leave the house.

Defaulting to fear

I’ve been noticing lately just how much of a default setting this has become for me. 

Fear. Unease. Paranoia that sinks into my bones. 

Four days on a silent meditation retreat helped me realise the shape of this ever-present fear, how tightly it’s tied to the projected judgements of others.

What are they thinking of me? Am I doing something wrong?? 

I’d been hoping the retreat would be enough to make this fear go away. But as our resident Sage on the Feelings Mountain Gareth reminded me just yesterday, that’s not quite how it works. 

‘You got the insight,’ he said. ‘You found out what’s really going on in there. But now you’ve got to do the actual work.’

Oh, right.

(Dammit.)

Right! So... what’s the actual work again?

When you’ve read as many self-help books as I have, it can be hard to know what ‘the work’ actually is. 

I can name ten things I could be doing much more regularly, to respond to this state of perpetual fear. (If only I wasn’t so exhausted from feeling so freaked out all the time amirite.)

Meditating daily. Defusing those random, fearful thoughts. Reminding myself “It’s okay, it’s safe to relax” whenever I feel myself habitually tensing.

All useful strategies. Less so when I try to do them all at once.

Like Jack Kornfield says about choosing a particular spiritual path - they’ve all got something for you, but the trick is to actually pick one.

(And to keep picking it, for more than a few days. Which is the bit I find particularly challenging. Just me?)

Sometimes the world helps you out

So I’ve been looking for a sign lately, any kind of sign. Something that says, ‘You belong in this world like anyone else. You’re safe here.’

And lo, Melbourne delivers.

These have been peppering the town, all over the place lately.

Random messages scrawled on road signs. Little tiny doses of unmitigated kindness.

The more of a reach the pun is, the more pointedly nice they feel.

I don’t know if they’re all by one person, or the result of some delightful copycatting. But they are unexpectedly lovely.

All eyes on you

There’s this funny thing about the default fear I’ve been describing. It’s the feeling that the world’s eyes are trained on you and you alone.

Intellectually, you know you’re not the centre of attention, yet you feel awfully exposed, looked at, scrutinised.

These little street-sign adornments flip that around. I still feel unexpectedly singled out, but without the judgement. It’s like they see me, and the cloud of fear trailing along with me, and they say, ‘hey you! We see you! You’re alright!’

And these little signs also do the reverse. They remind me it’s not all about moi. 

Because if someone took the time to pop these up all over town, I’m probably not the only one who's been walking around feeling overexposed.

Another kind of sign

Finally, as if to ensure things don’t get too saccharine sweet, on the very same day I spot that last sign ("ew are limitless"!) I also walk past a guy in one of Melbourne’s busier laneways, standing there and flipping the middle finger at every passer by.

I don’t know if it was a performance piece or if he was just a dickhead, but when I got close enough he dutifully thrust his two middle fingers at me for no discernible reason. 

I didn't stick around to find out why. But it did make me laugh. 

Because on a typical day, that is genuinely how I imagine every stranger is going to respond to me, right up until they don’t. Seeing it actually happen was unexpectedly funny.

So well done Melbourne. I see what you're doing. Keep it up.

And finally, the big news!

This time last year we released No Feeling Is Final with the ABC. It’s a six-part memoir podcast about Honor’s experience of being suicidal, and what it’s like to seek help when you’ve hit rock bottom.

It’s the story we’d always wanted to tell, but had never had the chance to. The story behind every bus ad or well-meaning Facebook post that ever told you to “Just ask for help!”

In short, it's an honest story about profound despair, written by people who’ve been there. 

We had no idea how it would be received. Would we ever work in mental health again? Would we ever work in media again??

But it made a splash right away. The good kind. (Phew!)

It topped international lists of ‘the best podcasts of 2018’. Many, many, many of y’all got in touch to tell us what the show meant to you.

Then the splash died down. We still get little ripples washing ashore regularly. Like meeting Kate and Andrew at our Big Feels event in Sydney last week, who’d both independently found No Feeling just a few weeks ago, which had then led them to this sacred feelspace.

But we thought it was mostly all over and done with. Until we found out . . .

We’ve won a Third Coast Award.

Cool!! So…um... what’s that then??

Third Coast is like the Sundance Film Festival of podcasts. It’s held in Chicago, and it’s quite honestly astounding that our little podcast about suicide from Australia has won this major international award.

It means serious kudos for Honor Eastly and the little team who made it with her at ABC Audio Studios: in particular Joel Werner, Alice Moldovan, Russell Stapleton and myself.

And it means the show will reach more and more people out there who really need to hear another way of talking about this stuff. It's one more vote of confidence for this new way of talking about big, scary feelings.

Shit yeah.

(Oh and it also means we get to go to Chicago next month to get the award!Woo!!)

Any Chicagoans with hot tips for tourists send 'em our way??