Welcome to January 2020.

Christmas is finished and we have stopped saying happy new year to people.

Our heads are down and the old routines are active once again. Any minute now the ads for easter will appear.

January, can be a hard month. We don’t have any money, it can be cold and depressing nothing to look forward to and sometimes a sense of real loneliness can overwhelm.

Sometimes though, all it takes is a smile or if you know someone, a chat. I was watching the TV last night and they have this campaign on ITV at the moment where you are encouraged to sit and talk to the person next to you rather than just watch TV. It’s great campaign, although it should be a lifestyle choice rather than campaign for January.

It’s not like our mental health issues or problems or need for communication is going to stop at the end of January, and come February everything will be magically ok.

Maybe there needs to be a change in our society to talk, to just have time for one another, to look out beyond our universe and see, and connect to someone else.

I feel it’s a generational thing that people believe that talking doesn’t help, doesn’t solve anything. The truth is, it really does.

I’ll give you an example.

(I don’t know… I’m going on a little bit about this, but I do think it’s important…!)

I met up with a friend after Christmas. We were talking, and there was a real sense of how when we have so much time on our hands (there is no work or we’re not working, the routine has changed etc), there is a sense of realising how much space and emptiness there might.

As I was talking and having a a cup of tea with my friend, they were saying it’s really nice to just be able to talk, to feel heard and be listened to… how we simply don’t do it enough.

Maybe we can just start by listening to friends, and if we haven’t heard from them in a while, simply reach out.