One Year of Blogging: An Ode to Fearne Cotton and Gok Wan
Hello!
Well, here we are... one year on! And I thought it was only right, seeing as my first public blog post featured a picture of my bed that I'd celebrate my blogging anniversary on my bed. It's been the most wonderfully rewarding experience to share my good days and bad days on my little corner of the internet and I want to say thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, whether you've been here since day one, or you've started reading recently, I really do appreciate every read. Now, I started this blog to give myself and others a space to feel accepted and to feel that it's ok to be not ok and that living with anxiety can be just as full a life as anyone else's. And on that note, I wanted to celebrate All In Your Head's first birthday with an open letter to Fearne Cotton and Gok Wan.
Fearne started a podcast called 'Happy Place' in March of 2018 which is the place where she speaks to people from all walks of life about how they stay grounded and keep everything together. I must admit, I was pretty late on the bandwagon to this podcast and only discovered it a month ago but I can honestly say, it's changed my life and I thought that I would use my own happy place to talk about it.
The first episode I listened to was between her and Gok Wan. Gok talked about being bullied at school, struggling with finding an identity, and having an eating disorder so naturally, having experienced all three of those things myself, it really hit home. I could ramble on for hours about how his experience with anorexia really comforted me as I still struggle with body dysmorphia every day but actually, the one thing that really changed my life, the eureka moment if you will, was his theory of the superhero costume. Now, the superhero costume is an item of clothing that you can put on and once you're wearing it you think "Yes. This is me feeling confident and I can take on the world." Four days after I listened to that podcast, I bought the most over-the-top sequinned cardigan that I'm wearing for this blog post. Incidentally, I bought it the day after my grandmother passed away and I looked at it and I genuinely heard Gok's voice in my head saying "This is going to be your superhero costume."
It's silly, fun, and something that I never thought I'd be able to pull off but here I am. And now that I'm going through grief, I find that when I put this cardigan on, I can't feel sad because it rattles when I move and casts reflections all over the room. But as Gok says, it's more than the cloth, it's people's reactions to it; it's how you feel; it's how you move in it. It's a small piece of joy in an incredibly difficult time. And I've realised that whenever I wear this, nobody knows I'm going through a dark time. Nobody worries that I'm going to cry when I wear it. People smile and tell me I look like a disco ball and that it makes them feel happy. And that's what made me realise that Gok was right because the fact that a cardigan can hide my grief to the point that it makes other people feel happy is such a wonderfully powerful thing and I cannot thank him enough for giving me that confidence.
And Fearne... what can I say about that incredible woman? She's so kind and attentive and having listened to her podcasts for a month, she feels like a friend in my ear on my way around Edinburgh. And Fearne, if by some stroke of madness you ever read this, I'd love to meet you. So, although I have never met these two wonderful people, I cannot thank them enough for easing my grief from afar.
So, here's to one year of this crazy thing we call life on All In Your Head, and I hope I can keep you interested for another year!
Thank you so much.
Lots of Love,
Sarah xxx
Photography: Lindsay Evans
