It’s the season to be jolly and for the first time in many years at this time of year, there’s a tangible feeling of contentment within me. Not only this, a tangible sense of hope and optimistic expectation for the next year to come.

In reflecting on my past year, 2021, I realised it would be easy to focus on the battles I faced with my clinical depression and how I resent being incapacitated by this for most of the Summer and well into the Autumn. I resent the sense I lost a lot of kayaking-time, exploration-time, adventuring-time and nature immersion-time because of my illness. I berate myself for not fighting my malaise harder, to ensure I at least managed short forays around the bay in my kayak. It’s this feeling of self-directed anger which endangers the possibility of self-compassion and reasonable perspective within me.

This is because when I come to think of it more keenly, I in fact enjoyed a wonderful year - despite being laid critically low with my depression through the summer and autumn months.

2021 started out for me with powerful positivity. My foray into making jewellery again in the closing months of the previous year, had been hugely successful and I looked forward with confidence to building on this success. Quite literally, a kitchen table hobby had become an enterprise, which then became a viable source of income for me. Not only this, I once more had something positive to focus on everyday - a purpose to my life. The added bonus of course was the huge amount of pleasure I gained from my unleashed creativity - I enjoyed a wonderful sensation of freedom.

January and February saw me bring to a close the most helpful and powerfully penetrating one to one psychological therapy I had ever encountered. This course of therapeutic intervention with a gifted NHS Scotland psychologist had begun the year before. The personal work I undertook with her was at times raw, painful, challenging and always insightful. By the close of the therapy, I had shifted my self-perspective remarkably and I was excited to feel the sense of being let loose on the world again. I believed I had a lot of good to offer.

We moved home. The previous year we rented a property close to the centre of Tobermory and while it was picturesque and quaint, it never really felt like home. There simply wasn’t a sense of security. At the beginning of this year we had the opportunity to rent a property on the outskirts of the town with guaranteed security and a tenancy where we are encouraged to create a permanent home. The sense of allowing roots to grow beneath my feet has been hugely exciting for me. I’ve now lived in Tobermory longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life. This year, after moving into our new home, I enjoyed the realisation the Isle of Mull is my permanent home. How lucky am I to be able to make that statement!

With the new home came my shed. For the first time in my life, I’ve a dedicated space just for me and my creativity. It has become my sanctuary. It’s the place I go to every day to make jewellery, to create, to enjoy my creativity, to learn new skills, to experiment with these and always feel comfortable with my solitude. I am happiest when pottering away in this workspace, inspirational music playing in the background, and the knowledge I’m pretty good at what I am doing. Acknowledging this important fact is a hugely powerful step forward for me. I love knowing the pieces I create and sell are being enjoyed the world over. This is hugely satisfying and affirming.

Springtime arrived and I began to kayak more. I took myself off for long days of exploration and sometimes overnight trips. While doing this, I ventured into the world of becoming a You Tube Vlogger, filming my ventures and making short films of my kayaking escapades. Once again I allowed myself the freedom to enjoy my creativity and celebrate this with a reconnected self-confidence in publicly sharing my self, my thoughts and my views. I haven’t built a vibrant You Tube Channel yet but I gain huge satisfaction from sharing my kayaking experiences in the way I would so often like to do for real with the many people who show such an interest in my pastime.

As a result of these films and my good fortune in encountering wild Scottish Nature in its finery; puffins, remote islands, singing seals, Fingal’s Cave, playful dolphins, beautiful scenery, sunsets, sunrises, isolated campsites, and so much more, I came to the attention of the Scottish Press and BBC Scotland. I was honoured to be invited onto a number of BBC Radio Scotland shows to speak of my experiences immersed in Scotland’s wild natural heritage. I enjoyed a couple of incredibly sympathetic articles about the same in two of Scotland’s foremost newspapers, The National and the Sunday Post. Finally, I was honoured to have a piece about me on the BBC News Website. This fifteen minutes of being nationally noticed was good for cementing the positive sense of self I’d engendered through my earlier therapy work.

In June I met the amazing Cal Major and her talented film maker partner, James Appleton. Cal is an inspirational ocean advocate, campaigner and educator. With great foresight she has created a charity called Seaful. This year she inspirationally paddle boarded around Scotland, raising awareness of our tangible human connection to the sea and I met her when she arrived in Tobermory. It was an honour to be invited to paddle with her and James around the Point of Ardnamurchan the next day. From this powerful shared experience has grown a lovely and genuine friendship. This blossomed through the rest of the year and it was truly wonderful for Karen and I to gift our previous yacht live-aboard home, ‘Anna Maria’, to Cal for her to use as she wishes to enhance the inspirational work she is doing through her charity. It felt genuinely good to give our yacht away, knowing she will be loved and sailed with great passion.

My social media presence has been a healthy one for me this year. Twitter in particular has been the virtual realm where I’ve continued to garner meaningful friendships and receive genuinely offered, unconditional love and support from literally thousands of people. It’s incredulous to me nearly 22 000 people have chosen to follow me on this platform. I’m truly grateful for all the love and support I’ve received through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It’s not been my experience in any way whatsoever, these online spaces are toxic.

I’m an advocate for sound mental health in society and I’m keen to vocalise a discourse about suicide and suicide awareness. I haven’t passionately campaigned about these, but it’s been rewarding to have been acknowledged for my voice on these matters. This year I have been filmed for two yet to be aired documentaries where I speak of the value of wildness in my life and how Nature is vital for my mental health. It was an honour to be filmed for internationally renowned flautist and performer, Eliza Marshall’s incredible project, Freedom to Roam. It was a huge honour for me to be asked to contribute to this project and yet again, this was beneficial for a healthy view of my self. I am also a contributor to Cal’s documentary about her journey around Scotland this year.

This year I became an ambassador again. I am currently an Ambassador for the cancer charity, Odyssey and in the autumn I was invited to become an Ambassador for the charity Seaful. I hold these roles with a huge sense of honour and gratitude, and I’m looking forward to a fulfilling relationship with them both.

Throughout the year, I’ve been deeply grateful for the unconditional love from my wife Karen. Despite my often crabbit, depressive demeanour, she has stalwartly been by my side through my deeply dark times. As with all my experiences this year, there is awareness to be gained here and it is this - I am loved.

Likewise too, it was wonderful to spend valuable time this year with my parents, both down in Herefordshire, and up here in Tobermory. The same message is clearly apparent for me to embody - I am loved.

Late in the Autumn I embarked on further therapy with the NHS Scotland psychologist and as before, this work has been hugely helpful for me. It’s ongoing and I think because of it, I’m able to write this retrospective with the positivity I am. Despite my chronic bout of depression, including a brief hospitalisation because of it in October, I’m able to draw out all the good from my year of 2021.

Importantly, I look forward with confidence to 2022. I do so with the awareness I live with treatment resistant depression and there’ll undoubtedly be time during my future, when this malaise takes grip of me again. However, with the recent work I’ve been doing for myself and reflecting on what has been a remarkable year for me, I believe I’m more in control of my mental health destiny than I’ve ever been before.

Thank you for your interest in me, for offering me your support, for your love, for your friendship, and for your willingness to accept me for who I am. I hope you know how important your acceptance is for me, because through you, I am learning to increasingly accept myself, for who I am and who I can be.

Merry Christmas to you.

LifeAfloat Blog

Christmas Eve, 2021

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