Thread by @mattyjl9

<mode of despair = "preach">

Forgive me if I veer into patronising territory, but in coming to terms with the GE result I've had a few thoughts. Feel free to mute me; I probably would.

Anyway...

In my 'real' life when I'm not a struggling musician, I'm a Clinical Psychologist. I'm obviously not gonna say where I work or who for, but the sheer grimness of today and in all likelihood the next five years has got me thinking about a brand of therapy I sometimes practice..

..it's called Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) and I think it might, *might* help me (and us?) get the through this coming term of Government.

On first look, the name might appear a bit problematic - "ACCEPT the result?! Why the f.. would I want to do that?!" But it's not about that; psychologically speaking, acceptance here means something else..

.. It means thinking about what things we do and don't have control over and changing our relationship with these things. Maybe that's a bit vague, but I feel it especially applies here to the horrendous result of last night, so bear with me..

.. stating the obvious, we have no control over the result now. Diddley squat. Does that make it hurt any less? Not a jot. Do we have to like it? God, no. However, battling with it and trying to kid my/ourselves about it only leads to more pain..

..so that led me think about *why* it hurts so much. For me, it's because I genuinely believed there was a chance we could have a decent, empathetic, caring society. That is in line with some of my core values..

.. so not having that hurts. Badly.

However getting angry with the result and wanting to burn the world - whilst understandable - takes me away from these core values doesn't it?

If I'm being angry, avoiding the facts, ruminating on the pain, I'm not able to act in line with these values. Simply: if I'm hating the world, I can't help it.

So what do I do? Firstly, accept the result. Not like it, but admit it's happened. I hate it, I'm hurt, and that's OK, but battling with it gets in the way of me doing what I value. (The 'A' bit of ACT)

Secondly - and importantly - find other ways of acting in line with these values. The Socialist Utopia I was hoping for isn't happening now, but the spirit of it can still happen, albeit in very different (and smaller scale) ways.

.. this is the 'C' bit of ACT. Being Committed to my values and not letting the pain and negative emotions get in the way. So practically, on the ground, here's what I'm gonna do..

Get involved with Food banks. Not via that Tory app, but donating at collection points and if time permits, volunteering:
trusselltrust.org/get-involved/c…

Donate toys or cash to Cash for Kids
cashforkids.uk.com

.. support the Whitechapel Centre, which helps those forced to live on the streets. A national scandal
whitechapelcentre.co.uk

.. keep on supporting Labour. My God there is work to be done, but getting out there and *doing* something is infinitely better than getting myself wound up and moaning in Twitter

..and so on, you get the point.

Basically, it's OK to be angry, but if I 'fuse' with this anger and let it drag me away from the world I want to live in, then I'm in a never ending cycle of anger and 'they' win.

.. this isn't what I wanted. Even if I do the most I can, it's a drop in the ocean; however doing what I can and *accepting* the fact there are things I can't do (i.e. bring down the government, change the minds of the new working class Tories) and making peace with this..

..will hopefully lead to a bit of peace and with any luck, a spreading of socialist values.

So there we go. Thanks for reading.

.. I'll get back to plugging my band now (come see us next Friday!), but if anyone wants to know more about ACT (it is fab), there was a good episode of All in the Mind on Radio 4 the other week..

bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00…

Let's look after each other

🌹