It could be because of the expressive nature of poetry or maybe because of particular artistic temperament of those drawn to the medium, that the researchers note the suicide rate among poets is higher than occurs in the general population and also higher than other writers who use other literary forms.

With that observation as a starting point the researchers complete a word analysis of poems by writers who die by suicide and the poems of a control group who died by other causes. The results are interesting as the text analysis of poems supported the theory that suicidal people withdraw from social relationships and become more inwardly oriented, focused on themselves. The text analysis looked for more first person self references and fewer references to others and found them. Suicidal poets were also found to use more death words like dead and grave, but overall they did not use more dark and negative content words than the non-suicidal poets.

The researchers note that “The text-analysis approach to analyzing the poetry of suicidal individuals indicates that a combination of factors can also discerned in the writing of suicidal individuals. That is, text analysis can be used as a tool for understanding the way that psychological pain, preoccupation with death and self and association between thought and feeling can be manifested in writing and potentially predict (or indicate the current state of) psychological and emotional health”. Stirman, S. W. Pennebaker, J. W. (2001) Word use in the poetry of suicidal and non-suicidal poets. Psychosomatic Medicine, 63, 517 – 522.

Perhaps poetry is a medium that allows what is on the inside, and could not otherwise be articulated, to find expression.

How to make an ally of this criticism, as unwanted and as unpalatable as it is?

At first it doesn’t some possible, and at second it doesn’t seem possible, and at third I remember an exercise Max Shupbach presented in a workshop I attended what now seems like a long time ago.

Max worked through an exercise to help move from feeling like a disempowered victim of criticism and discover something meaningful in the critics message.

This is my recollection of the work, rather than Max’s original, which I no longer have a record of. It was something like this:

1. Name a situation where you have been criticised and describe it. Role play the critic – move like them and find a hand movement that is central to the criticism
So first up is taking out the content, and finding the central energy what was said to you (or in this instance me). Standing up I try to play my critic accusing someone (me)of sarcasm, without the words, I notice my left hand making quite a direct sharp movement. I repeat the hand movement and study it to discover what it means to me. It is a certain direct movement, angry and pointed.

2. How can you use that energy more in your life?
A big breathand I keep moving my hand around amplifying the movement I’ve dicovered. It becomes apparent that I could be more direct and express my anger/frustration/feelings more authentically. I reflect on how often what I say has a less than authentic veneer of niceness. My good nature is mostly genuine and there are occasions when my message can get moushed up and unclear, perhaps that’s when sarcasm is heard, it must be in me. I could certainly use anger more effectively, and bring it out more directly.

3. Stay in the role of the critic and look at yourself. What is going on, what is the critic seeing as missing in you?
I don’t know what my critic saw as missing in me, but I can see unexpressed anger. Held back or missing is an authentic expression of what I am really experiencing and want to say.

4. How did you already know that – there is no criticism that you get that you haven’t been aware of…
I do feel too eaten up by emotions I struggle to find an outlet for. My dog Shortbread was sick last week after chewing on a dead rat in the garden. When I chew on some allegorical rat I swallow it down. I like to think I have a strong constitution, that I won’t be sick, however I must be a bit poisoned by vermin. I do know that

5. How have you already started to change “I am starting to be so and so…”
I am starting to be more detached around my good, nice persona and to say what I feel. Starting…

I see, I start to see something useful…

My thanks to Max and Ellen Schupbach for their work in the world and permission to write about this exercise. More of their work is published here. I am grateful for what they share as they train leaders, facilitators and me.

I haunt myself with criticisms and on some days I am more resilient than on others, on a good day I might hardly notice my internal critics – or just not pay attention to my own petty complainants. Most days I am judged by my own high standards, so I’m well motivated to improve. I judge myself, and there is never a shortage of evidence to support how I don’t measure up. I guess housing my own complaints department provides motivation for change, wanting to be better. Engaging with my inner critic might even be emotionally healthy, I’m not sure.

External critics are more difficult to defend against, I find. That’s funny because I tend to think that criticism from someone could not be worse than that I dish out against myself. People who offer me feedback and helpful suggestions not only fuel my own inner tyrants, but their criticisms, in whatever guise they are delivered, are keenly felt.

Someone recently stabbed me by telling me I was sarcastic. They claimed my voice was sarcastic and that when I was talking in ordinary conversation I sounded sarcastic. I was sufficiently wounded to cry. My everyday identity, the me that I believe I am, was wounded in a way I couldn’t address or apologise for. The sound of my voice is like my height, something I can’t change.

I felt unfairly attacked, I have tried to pick up the accusation and find a grain in truth in it. I can be sarcastic, I am quick witted enough to sarcastically, or viciously, defend myself. I have a limited set of defences to fall back on and sarcasm is one, I use it to protect myself and my sense of self. It was Oscar Wilde who said that “sarcasm is the lowest form of wit”, and low it may be but I also find it witty.

The thing I said may have been sarcastic and hurtful, it was not my intent and even so I can be more careful with my words. I can be mindful about what I say but not about the voice I use. I can’t hear my my voice the way I am heard and perhaps I do sound more sacracastic than the average bear. I am carrying that particular criticism months later. It has fed my inner critics about not being helpful or kind enough, too direct, inconsiderate. I am shamed by and guilty of something I can’t really change.

Sometimes judgemental comments pierce our protective shells and not all negative feedback is useful. Even so I want to be able to face my critics, to learn from the unexpected, for the insight the information provides. I want to welcome the unintended, unwanted and mostly unwelcome messages, this one is more challenging to me than most – maybe that challenge make it worth working with to gain an appreciation of the message.

Much criticism can be assessed and integrated, and some I’m unsure of how to deal with. My sense of self-worth has been mostly recovered and my voice sounds like it did before. I have resolved to be authentic, before sarcastic, and more careful with the delivery of what I say.

I am stalked by critics, and I trust my voice critic intended only to protect themselves not to wound me. I would like to ask external evaluators to give me a break, I’d like them to know my inner critics are enough to deal with. It is also true that “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Another snippet of wisdom is thanks to Thumper, Bambi’s rabbit friend, who said “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all”. Actually I think it was Thumper’s mother who said it to Thumper, who then related the advice to Bambi.

On Amazon books a search on ‘happiness’ returns 20,375 results. Me thinks that is too much self-help. ‘Sadness’, by the way, returns 979 results – an emotional state that is much less understood, less valued, less desired…

I am as happy as the next person, I think I am happy enough. Full. I’m blue too from time to time.

It’s a natural state not a fault that needs to be be happied over or happied up. Generally we think that happy = good and blue = bad, and that’s not really true, blue is not bad. Where one state is present the other must be too. Blue is rich for quiet, for contemplation and reflection and for feeling. It’s not that happiness is over-rated, happiness is fabulous but blue is fabulous too.

Blue is a state that’s under-rated, and in the words of Lennon/McCartney “Let it be”. That’s why I am wishing you a Happy Blue year in 2011. Instead of trying to change how you feel, just allow yourself to feel how you feel. Happy Blue Year.

“Perhaps the most indispensable thing we can do as human beings, everyday of our lives, is remind ourselves and others of our complexity, fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness.”

Damasio, A. (1994) Descartes’ Error : Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, London: Vintage.

What was planned as a pleasant surprise work Christmas party, last week, caused me so much anxiety I had to decline the invitation for a fun mystery event at an unknown location.

The mystery party presented too much uncertainty, it has taken me a little while to put together the cause and effect of mystery leading to anxiety.

To understand my emotions, like the rising pre-party anxiety, I find it helpful to consider William Jame’s bear. Jame’s hypothesises that the physiological reaction occurs first and is interpreted by our conscious mind as an emotion. We don’t run from a bear because we are afraid our response to the bear is to run and then we notice our bodily responses, like sweaty palms and racing heartbeat. We are afraid because we run.

I noticed my anxiety when I was unable to accept the Christmas party invitation, rather than being unable to accept the party invitation because of my rising anxiety.

Maybe it is easier to think that rather than crying because I am sad, I am sad because I cry. The physiological tears come first closely followed by what you recognise as the emotion of sadness.

What I am starting to realise is our tendency to expect rational emotional responses to things and situations, is not rational. The best we can do is to rationalise emotional responses, and only after the fact. I suspect we are essentially emotional beings who think of ourselves as rational beings.

…and for people who have experienced trauma? Well, we’re even less rational and more emotional than others. Handle with care.

“Do you have any chopped up fruit?” I said.

“No” he said, “I don’t have a kitchen, just this stall in the street. I don’t have anywhere to chop fruit. I don’t have a fridge to store it in. There’s nowhere for me to keep sliced fruit. I don’t have a kitchen. When would I cut it up anyway? I don’t want to get up at 4am to chop fruit for my lovely customers…”

“I’ll take a green apple and a banana please” I said.

I could feel my facial muscles tense into a grimace and my breathing became more conscious. Buying something healthy before work should be easier, the multitude of muffin sellers in the city are, everyone of them, more gracious. I need to complete the transaction and escape the fruit guy. The day just begun, along with my interest in fruit, was rapidly spoiling.

“I don’t get home before 7pm” he said “When would I cut up fruit? I don’t have anywhere to store it? No-one in the city has sliced fruit” he said, and he kept it up, going on and on…

He was ranting, my morning feeling was evaporating. I stood to receive my fruit as his tirade bruised me.

He could have said “No” to my original enquiry.
He could have said “NO”.
He could have said “Sorry, I don’t have chopped fruit”.
He could even have said, “Wah? Chopped fruit? Are you kidding me?”

He could have smiled, sans rant, and preserved my morning, saved my mood and smile, not that he cared about his “lovely customer”.

I’m never going back, non, nah, neh, nein, nr, no.

I am not sure why it is that I feel unable to bring my whole self to work. There are experiences that I suspect are not welcome in the office, orphans. My workplace identity is only part of me, the regular, normal, routine, most dull parts of me to work, it’s all that work can cope with. Where I work is probably much like other workplaces. Employees are acquaintances of their employer rather than friends.

Not that I want to be particularly over-friendly or outrageous, and I’d like to bit more whole and complex, rounder and full.

Of course, it could be me who is prickly and not ready to share more at work, that would be another explanation. I am unhappy, but sometimes not all that unhappy with maintaining some distance between my work-life and the rest of my being.

I don’t know what goes on and I do believe climate change is needed and some warming of workplaces. Warmer, more welcoming, more accepting. In small ways I am becoming a climate change activist, a covert sort of activist creating little interventions. The trick being not to overheat anything.

I also work on ensuring my own internal micro-climate is tropical, innerwork.

Then a roadside sign, that stopped me in my tracks.

“You are now entering a 3 smiles per hour zone”

What? You’re kidding me. I don’t quite believe it.

Three smiles per hour?

Staring, I feel a thwack of emotions hit all at once.

I don’t know whether to puke, scoff, or shrug. My initial laugh of surprise dies down and anger rises, as do tears – rising to the brim but not spilling. I’m humiliated, the sign is so cheery and condescending, with it’s bright message. A lot of things all at once.

Someone must be kidding. What is the intent of this sign? To put smiles our cute little dials? Not one but three smiles an hour – and why stop at three? Am I accused of being too smiley in an hour?

What’s going on?

I want to click my heels together and be lifted up and whisked home. I want to hide for a while curled up in a blanket, safe, with my little dog, and hidden from the world. I feel I could simply bawl and bawl and bawl…

One of Michael Luenig’s poem rans through my head “They took him on a stretcher to the Home for the Appalled where he lay down in a corner and he bawled and bawled and bawled.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he wailed, when asked about his bawling, ‘It’s the world that need attention; It’s so utterly appalling. It’s so utterly appalling,’ he sobbed and cried and bawled, and the chorus rose to join him at the Home for the Appalled.” http://www.leunig.com.au/publications/

I was utterly appalled, and Michael Luenig’s wry take on the world allowed to clear my head with a dismissive snort and walk on. Pink singing “I’m alright, I’m just fine. I’m gonna show you tonight. I’m alright….“.

…when blue is all there is to be it could make you wonder why, but why wonder why wonder. I’m blue and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be.

It’s not that easy being any particular colour and I love people, blue or green, and I especially ♥ dear green Kermit

Turn the sound way up (even though tinny PC speakers like mine), and feel good… This is some song.

“This old world is a new world and a bold world for me.”