Valuable Lessons For Getting Support From Caroline Flack & Stephen tWitch Boss

I heard the news about Stephen tWitch Boss last week and I just. couldn’t. believe. it. 

He looked to have it all….

A career/work that he loved and using his gifts and talents. 

Dancing for a living and getting paid to do something he loved.. 

It’s reported he was happily married, had beautiful kids. A nice home. 

He had lots of projects coming up in 2023. 

He’s been described by many as a real good man. And by many others as pure love and light. 

So yes. It’s shocking and heart wrenching to hear he ended his life, when it seemed so full. 

But this is it. 

We can seemingly have it all on the outside but unless the inside is cared for too, the outside is a freakin’ glass house: very easily shattered.

People’s social media feeds and the media are all sharing the same thing: 

When you’re struggling, reach out. Talk to somebody. 

It’s this that I want to speak to. 

I will always recall a social post by Caroline Flack a few weeks or months before her death ( by suicide) where she shared the following…

These words in particular stayed with me:

”The last few weeks I’ve been in a really weird place. 

I find it hard to talk about it… I guess it’s anxiety and the pressure of life… and when I actually reached out to someone they said I was draining. 

I feel like this is why some people keep their emotions to themselves. I certainly hate talking about my feelings. And being a burden is my biggest fear… I’m lucky to be able to pick myself up when things feel shit. But what happens if someone can’t. Be nice to people. You never know what’s going on. Ever.” 

If you resonate with any of Caroline’s words…
If you find yourself in a dark hole… Or in a place where everything on the outside looks good, so good you feel pressure because you should be more grateful or happy, but you’re not, and inside is a very different story, please know there is hope.

 There’s huge valuable lessons to be learned here from Caroline in her post, and from tWitch too.

LESSON 1.

It’s important to reach out to the RIGHT people for support. 

Caroline reached out to someone when she wasn’t feeling great and they said she was draining. 

I’ve been there and done that.

I’ve experienced both sides of this kind of situation and there’s merits in understanding both. 

Similar to Caroline, when I didn’t know how to deal with my own emotions and I was holding onto unprocessed trauma especially in my 20’s, there was a period where I felt like I was really negative the whole time.

I struggled with myself ALOT.

I went through a very challenging, dark time where nothing felt right in my life.

I felt like I was the flakiest, most negative person in the world. 

I was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

Whilst also being a HSP ( A highly sensitive person.. ).

Since then, I’ve invested a lot of time, energy and resources into myself. 

What I’ve learned is that all feelings are guides.

( This is thanks to the like of Rumi, and beautiful souls like Lee Harris and Hiro Boga paving the way, peeps like these who instilled the lesson of of welcoming in ALL my feelings… ) 

I find it easier to separate myself from all the noise: both in my mind and in the external world too. I’ve befriended myself, my ego, my shadow and my inner world, which has served me well. 

I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I can acknowledge how far I have come, and how different I feel about myself and the world.

Reaching out to people in my 20’s, on some occasions I was reaching out to the wrong people so opening up didn’t help, I felt worse. I felt so broken. 

(And this is not to lay blame on those I spoke with, they were just experiencing life in a very different way to me. Plus there were people I did reach out to and they were like bright stars in a dark sky for me. )

Back then, I felt I was the problem and everyone else had it all figured out, which wasn’t true. 

That’s why it’s so important when seeking help and support, to get professional help and support. 

Reaching out to peers, friends, and family can be really powerful too, but other times, it can mean that we can be reaching out to people who lack the skills, emotional wisdom and capacity for themselves and their own emotions, never mind our’s.

With their advice comes their fears, their doubts, their wounds and their past experiences.

If someone is uncomfortable with their own feelings and you come bringing your’s, they will treat your feelings as they treat their own, whether that’s through denial, avoidance or with judgement. 

Many judge and make so called ‘negative feelings’ mean something, and that having feelings like shame, fear, guilt, doubt etc means that you’re weak, wrong or broken. 

( 100% pure BS. It means you’re human.)

Without the emotional capacity, or lacking their own ability to contain and process their own emotions and feelings, they can feel drained because they don’t know how to separate themselves from you emotionally or energetically, and as some describe it, they ‘take it on’.

Which means that you won’t get your needs met. You won’t get a clear space held for you, which you deserve. And worse again, the belief that you’re a burden or you’ve done something wrong gets activated and played out in reality. 

When what’s really happened, is that you’re not getting the support, love and care that you deserve. 

Clients have shared this exact experience, but luckily in the end, they didn’t let it stop them from reaching out again. For some, it nearly was that thing that pushed over the edge.

We’re all different. 

We all have different perspectives, experiences, mindset, beliefs and trauma’s.

Would you talk to Mary, the accountant next door if the plumbing in your kitchen is broke and causing havoc?

No. Mary hasn’t a feckin’ clue.

This is the same.

It doesn’t make sense for me to talk about my problems and challenges to someone who potentially lacks the compassion, wisdom and understanding of their own, plus it can be too much for someone who is not professionally trained.

The boundaries can become unclear and murky. 

Again, this is not the blame game here. It’s discernment. Even in professional circles, it’s important to select the right therapist, coach, healthcare provider and wellness support for you. And there’s amazing people at all levels of budget. 

This is about being mindful of who you receive advice and support from.

As Brene Brown put it: 

“Share your story with those who can bear its weight.” 

100% reach out and talk, but if you don’t get a response that isn’t compassionate or leaves you feeling worse, don’t make it mean you’re a burden. Just know they are not the right person for you in that moment.

If you’re someone that is drained by others and their ‘negativity’, this is a call to create boundaries and explore things like co-dependency.

It’s an invitation for you to explore what you might be holding onto in your own shadow, that you’re potentially unaware of but it’s being triggered in you by others.

OR….It’s exploring where you might be getting involved in or taking responsibility for stuff that is not your’s, so feeling depleted is an invite to step away and look after yourself. Otherwise, it’s a recipe for anxiety and energetic debt, as you look to control what is out of your control.

 It’s an invitation to get to know to yourself better, to come home to yourself and understand why you’re allowing yourself to go into energetic depletion in you and in your relationships.

Everything can be an invitation back to yourself and your power, if you allow it to be. 

If someone close to you is going through something, it’s ok to recommend that they get professional help.

It’s ok to say:

“I can’t give you the help and support that you deserve”, whilst encouraging them to receive other support.

I would even say, it’s an act of love and empowerment. 

I don’t feel drained like I used to at all, as I choose to see everyone as a powerful soul. I also view our wounds and pain very differently and I see our shadow side ( what others call negative) as being a powerful doorway for our greatest life, light and healing. 

That’s come from reclaiming my own power in myself and in my life.

LESSON 2.
Know that you, your past, your feelings or your vulnerability ARE NOT a burden to the right people.

Hear me when I say this: 

You are not a burden. 

Your shadow (which can be viewed as the negative part of you) is not a burden either.

In fact, when worked with in the right way, it holds the keys to your freedom. 

There are people in this world who will cherish your vulnerability. 

There are people in this world, who can see that both you and whatever happened in your past is in fact a doorway to your greatest healing AND your greatest future. 

I’ve witnessed this with my own eyes. 

I’ve witnessed those who felt beyond broken and repair, and who questioned their existence on this planet, open up to release the past, heal, blossom and bloom. 

If this is you, please know you can too. 

LESSON 3.
It’s not personal. 

As mentioned in Lesson 1., there are people in your life who care, but they might lack the emotional capacity to be able to support you in the way that you need.

They might show love in a very different way to you too, but it doesn’t mean that you are not loved. 

How they show up for you is NOT personal.

If they lack empathy, compassion and the emotional capacity/ wisdom for themselves, they aren’t going to magically have it for you. 

Maybe they didn’t receive it themselves.

And if they never received it themselves, they aren’t going to be able to magically give it to anyone, including you. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment if you want certain people in your life to give you something that they don’t actually possess.

You deserve support. You deserve to be listened to and to have your needs met. Open up and allow yourself to receive support from those who are able to give it and those who want to. 

Don’t get attached to help and support coming in a certain form or from a certain person as that’s a recipe for disappointment and potential resentment which fans the flame of the spiral downward. 

Instead, be open. Ask for support. Open yourself up to receiving it and it will come.

( Check out the links at the end for options.. )

LESSON 4.

Don’t keep your feelings to yourself. 

If you hate talking about your feelings, I want you to lean in to what I’m saying here:

Do whatever you need to do to get comfortable because if you don’t, life will find ways to bring you to your knees so you face whatever is there for you. 

Wake or be woken. 

Discomfort around feelings is the mind trying to keep you safe, but it also keeps you stuck and stagnant. 

It’s an ego tactic.

An attempt to control the uncontrollable that leaves you stuck in your head AND in your body. 

Discomfort around feelings is discomfort around being in your heart. Period.

Feelings are there to be FELT.

(It’s all in the name.. 😉)

They provide us with useful information about what is going on for us. They form an important part of our intuition. 

If they are not FELT, they freeze in the body. They become issues in the tissues and this leads to auto-immune responses, along with a whole host of other mental and emotional imbalances and diseases. 

Not to mention the inner emotional instability that it can trigger. When we hold onto the past in our hearts, emotional body and nervous system, we lack the capacity, tolerance and energetic reserve for the regular day to day stuff. 

We also lack the space to be able to welcome in the new.

Stephen Levine calls this ‘unattended sorrow’. We store up all the hurt, pain and losses in your life, until one day something really small happens and we can lose it.

Stephen tWitch Boss left a note where he referred to past struggles and challenges from his past.  Having worked with 100’s and 100’s of souls globally from all different cultures and countries, an inability to navigate the past is what haunts people in the present moment. Wherever you go, you bring it with you, whether you’re conscious of it or not. Some don’t even realise they’re holding onto the past as it can show up indirectly.

You might just feel off. Low. Heavy. Lost. Stuck in fear, doubt or imposter syndrome. Or where patterns in your life keep repeating and you don’t know why.

If this is you, please know I’ve witnessed these beautiful souls move from struggling with the past to peace in their whole being. I really believe that you can do this too, step by step and with the right support for you.

Important to note: As a Black man, Stephen tWitch Boss faced more than the average white cis male/female due to the colour of his skin.

Suicide amongst black men ( and black women) is on the rise. On top of the regular shadow side of social media use and mental health stigma, black communities are exposed to higher levels of trauma, stress, violence and the accumulative trauma that comes from racism. 

Plus there’s the standard/expectation of being ‘strong’ and having a high level of resilience and holding it all together too.

It’s important for white people ( I include myself in this) to acknowledge this so we don’t unknowingly contribute to the problems faced by the black community with our ignorance and instead contribute and are part of the solution.

Your feelings are here to guide you and keep you safe. Even the really uncomfortable ones.

Don’t let societal BS conditioning f**k you over. 

It’s not about fake positivity or TRYING to be happy and upbeat when you’re not. It’s about being TRUE. From here and only here, can the miracles can happen.

( And they do truly happen.. )

The antidote is truth and honesty. Self love for me isn’t always about buying ourselves the bunch of flowers, but it’s about loving ourselves enough to allow ourselves to fully embrace our shadow, shit and gunky side.

Feeling aren’t weak, they are a functional part of how you operate and interact in the world. Push them away and you are pushing away your power to be able to create the life and/ or business your soul deeply desires.

AND BTW…. Vulnerable IS the new strong. 
Being true and honest are the new strong too. They take courage.

And what you find most hard to talk about and deal with is, what you need to talk about and deal with.

So yes. Reach out. And if it doesn’t go according to plan, keep reaching.

Know that you are worthy and deserving of support. If you’re alive here on this planet, there’s a really good reason for it. You don’t have to figure it all out yourself.

If any of what I have shared here resonates, reach out and book a free clarity call with me. You can fill me in on where you’re at and at the very least I can point you in right direction of some resources. If you’re interested to hear more about how we can potentially work together, we can chat about that too.

Otherwise, scroll below and check out some of the resources listed below too.

RESOURCES

Samaritans - https://www.samaritans.org/ireland/samaritans-ireland/

Or google Samaritan in your home country.

Mental Help Ireland - https://www.mentalhealthireland.ie/get-support/

Aware

Depression & Bipolar Disorder Support - www.aware.ie
Tel:  Freephone 1800 80 48 48 (available 7 days, 10am-10pm).

Email: supportmail@aware.ie 

Pieta House

Free therapeutic support to people who are in suicidal distress and those who engage in self-harm.
T: 1800 247 247
W: www.pieta.ie