It seems that our society doesn’t like to talk about death and grief - we prefer to avoid it, imagining that we can be young and healthy forever. What is the result of this avoiding? What is the cost? With the Great Unravelling on our doorstep in the form of COVID-19, political instability and climate change, can we afford to turn a blind eye to death any longer?

The practice of sharing emotions in a circle is nothing new, yet few of us feel as if we can safely express our deepest emotions even to our closest friends. So when I took part in a collective ritual of sharing our grief, fear and anger over what is happening to the planet, I was surprised by the results…

I don’t know about you, but the first thing that pops into mine is an image of a woman in a bath full of bubbles up to her neck, candles precariously balanced around the side, a glass of red wine in her hand.

“You can’t take a break,” my Inner Critic reminds me, “You haven’t saved the world yet. Look at it - there’s still so much work to do. How can you just sit around reading a magazine and enjoying yourself? Besides - the things that give you pleasure are bad for the environment.”

Sound familiar?

When I told people I was preparing, slowly, for the oncoming forced quarantines and potential shortages of food in the supermarkets, I was told not to be paranoid. When I voiced the fact that the global stock market is crashing, that trading had even been suspended, that our money may not be safe in our banks, I was told to be more optimistic.

Well, to me, being optimistic is not about covering our eyes and ears and singing "la la la everything will be fine". That's Pollyanna-ism, denial, self-delusion, or toxic positivity - and that may have served you just fine so far, but in the end it's only going to be more painful when you realise that sometimes you have to make tough decisions and act…

Striving to feel happy all the time is not a realistic (or desirable) goal. In fact, studies show that the active pursuit of happiness can make you unhappy — the more we value happiness, the less happy we feel when in low-stress situations. In other words, the thought “my life is easy and stress-free right now — so why don’t I feel happy?” causes us to feel more disappointment at our own emotions, leading us to feel even worse.

I know you don’t WANT to feel anxious — nobody does. But if you’re beating yourself up for not being OK right now, then please take a deep breath and read on.