The Key to Come Out of Your Mental Prison of Stress, Anxiety and Depression

It’s 8am on a cold morning when I start my daily walk before going to work. I close the door, and I notice that it is a cloudy winter day in Herne Bay, a small coastal town in the south of England. I get myself ready, including gloves and a scarf for my short walk while the streets are empty. I can only see the first few people rushing to work for 9am. Today I decide to walk towards the hill. I look up to the sky and all signs are indicating that rain is coming. It’s one of those days when I’m full of doubts - I’m not sure about my marriage, of how happy I am in this country far away from my family, while my job is very competitive, and my boss is another story. I feel like it is all a burden, forcing me to improve my English all the time. My great whirlwind of questions discolours this bad weather even more. I ask myself: - “What are you doing here?” “Is it worth it?” I walk grimly up the hill from where I will be able to also get a glimpse of the vast sea but, as I walk, the day gets even darker and I feel the wind intensify. With effort, I reach the top and I stay there. I stand still on the hill braving the wind. I feel how the cold penetrates through my heavy coat to my bones, but I still decide to stay there. For a few moments I wanted to see a green, tropical and sunny country. The smell of South America and the heat on my skin came to me. I felt my eyes watering before the rain. Nostalgia slowly eats away at the soul more than any other illness. A dramatic, natural landscape opens up in front of me with its dark sky full of heavy clouds and, in the distance, a rough sea which I notice is at low tide. A dog scampers across the beach which is, temporarily, waterless and I ask myself: - “Who would that other person be who decided to go out early in order to brave the bad weather?” I try to clear my mind of so many doubts and worries. I taste the bitter and pungent flavour of this winter into which I was not settling. I admire all of that beauty that I felt wasn’t mine and, when looking towards the sea, an image suddenly catches my attention. In the distance I see a black figure on the sand. I look closer to try to understand what the hell it was. A bird? A seal? Maybe another dog? I start looking for a way to get closer to that figure. I find some steps to get down the hill to the lower part of the town toward the beach and I start to make my way down. The closer I get to the point where I think I will be able to recognise the figure better, I realise that it is getting further away. Actually, it is too far away to try and approach but, at some point along the way, I manage to recognise the image of a man who was bent over and digging in the sand. When he stops, I notice that he was tall and white-haired ... he was collecting mussels. I look at this man surrounded by a rough sea, a deserted beach behind him and a sky on the brink of exploding. Maybe he did this every day, and that’s why he wasn’t scared. I realised I was witnessing a magical moment, and I watched him carefully and curiously. It was pouring with rain and I told myself that I should go back. I slowly start my walk uphill using the same steps, while the rain was soaking my hair and my coat was getting heavier. When I reached the top again I was exhausted and tired. I turn around looking for my mussel-hunting friend and I see him at work - nothing had stopped him, not the danger of the sea, not the wind or the rain. Inside, he knew everything would be fine and he could continue collecting his mussels. I told myself I should stop judging the weather, stop making comparisons and evaluations about something I couldn’t do anything about. I had to learn to accept the sun and the rain but my soul came from a country where we didn’t know about the cold, where the sunlight didn’t change and where we had no ‘winter blues’. My soul was brown, tropical and wild from the Pantanal marshland, with Amazon landscapes, the smell of jasmine and horses running on the hot South American prairie. My memory and my emotions could recognise that but it did not recognise this new, cloudy and cold land. I got home, I gave my husband a kiss and I started work knowing it was hard being an immigrant, but I also had to learn to keep collecting my mussels.