"How To Eat An Elephant?"💗
[18 JUNE 2025] 🤍-CONFESSIONAL MUSINGS-🤍 a brief follow up and personal ramblings. Re: Self doubt & Resilience. xx
If you like your newsletters without politics or preconceptions or seeking a break from the norm you may have just found your new hangout
18 JUNE 2025 - Another letter in the space of a few days. Stepping out of my comfort zone.
Dear Chasers💗
“How do you eat an elephant?” Desmond Tutu wisely said there is only one way to eat an elephant and that’s one bite at a time. What he meant by this is that everything in life that seems daunting, overwhelming, and even impossible can be accomplished gradually by taking on just a little at a time. That is the method which worked for me recently after a self-inflicted stress filled week, and it is how I intend to continue moving forward mentally.
Yesterday, I sent you a newsletter backdated from Friday 13 June. It wasn’t my best ever post and as far as I’m concerned it was all words and very little substance. I thought about that at the time of writing, dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s as they say. Even signing it off and considering scrapping the entire thing. I knew that to me, this was not a happy interesting, or a sad update. It was pain on a page, it was vague (blame the ‘handbrake’) it’s done.
I promised another installment because I knew immediately that you deserve more from me than that. I want us to let that one slide into the ‘bad-writing’ sluice of the mind. Just put it behind us now. I don’t mind that it’s bad because that hopefully will bring me closer to writing something good. I can’t guarantee that ‘good’ writing will be now, today in this letter. I do already know this one will be better. It will feel better for me at least because the subject matter won’t be as bitter.
Just for completeness though, so we don’t have to go over that tired topic, the most important part that I left out, or hadn’t made clear was that I didn’t do the only thing available to sort out the problems between us; I didn’t leave! That’s the follow up element to that newsletter in question (see below).
"Writing My Life- With The Handbrake On!"💗
If you like your newsletters without politics or preconceptions or seeking a break from the norm you may have just found your new hangout
There was once a time when my writing and my life were two different things. I forget that time and now there is no clear line between writing and living - and I count that as a blessing. Without writing I know that there would be no life for me.
I have been finding it difficult to write lately. I kept putting it down to a lack of confidence, motivation, inspiration but it wasn’t a lack of anything. It was the inability to bat down depression which was all consuming.
A person with my condition, well, I speak only for myself here; takes despair to the next level. Not only do I despair the reality and weight of whatever is happening or I’m experiencing, but I then go on to imagine, to fear, to ‘create’, if you like, my own added depths to that depression. I feel trapped inside a cage of my own creation.
Usually, that would be me talking about my relationship, but this is different. This is internal and my heart is rotting.
Over the years I have been abused with such spleen that I have become more timid with my heart. I have learned to fear my own capacity for empathy.
My imagination turns against me and stretches any difficult situation beyond the natural realms of observation. In other words my perception becomes infested with delusions. My persecution complex gets reactivation and begins to eat away at my natural resilience. You know you’re not handling it very well when you go completely numb and lose what little faith you had in yourself.
I lose grasp of the way I think. The way I think about how to live and love and fight and fuck is changing so fast that on a clear day I can taste the difference on the tip of my tongue.
Let’s Change Tone To Next Level Resilience!
Speaking of change its about time I change the tone. I heard a little story the other day and would like to share it with you.
It’s the true story of Eberechi Eze a footballer who, as a small boy, was scouted at the age of nine by Arsenal, put in their academy and joined the club. He stayed their for four years and at the age of thirteen they decided that he wasn’t good enough to make it to a professional level and they let him go.
That didn’t stop him though. He didn’t give up or let himself be deterred by the rejection. He looked around and found another club Fulham FC and he stayed there until he was sixteen and they turned around and said he wasn’t going to be good enough and they let him go! Can you imagine that, twice, since he was nine years old footballs clubs have told him that they didn’t think he was good enough. Again. That didn’t stop him. Here’s how journey unfolded:
Reading FC - and was released him six months later
Millwall - stayed for two years - rejected
Trials for multiple football clubs until he was eighteen
Signed at Queens Park Rangers and got a contract stayed
In 2020 he was bought by Crystal Palace.
He didn’t make his debut for Crystal Palace until 2023 he was 22 years old at the time, a year later he had played well enough to get his first England Cap and then this year on 17 May 2025 he scored the winning goal in the FA CUP Final for Crystal Palace who beat Manchester City 1-0 and it was the first major trophy that Crystal Palace had EVER won!!!
Can you imagine that!?
He’d started football at nine and been rejected right the way up through the years until he got a contract at eighteen - that’s resilience at it’s best.
So what does resilience actually do for us?
Well for starters if we had that inner fortitude to overcome our struggles it would benefit our physical and mental health and alongside that it will help us build better relationships.
What also happens is that we would become adaptable when we have to face challenges.
So how do we actually do it?
How do we become resilient?
Here’s some things I’ve learnt:
Acknowledge and accept that we’re always going to face obstacles and challenges and we’re going to have a failure through our life, and it’s not something to worry over because it’s something that is just part of our lives.
Set small goals, remember ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ - one bite at a time. Break those challenges into bite-size pieces so when we have a problem you know its only a little one so we know it’s not so hard to overcome it.
As we’re moving on to help us with out resilience is to build a support team/network i.e. seek out people like friends and family. People who will become our ‘tribe’. Get people around us that are supporting us as we are moving forward and, that will buoy us up as we are facing our obstacles so that we can share our problems.
The key is to develop positive mindset. I’ll stop here as it’s all new to me and now I’m just going to try and incorporate this little bit of information on ‘resilience’ into my life.
Where do we (I) go from here?
As at 15.30 Wednesday 18 June 2025.
Finally, I have arrived back here with my little family in tow. My partner and my dog. As soon as I got home, I discovered something important that had been left behind when I went on my ‘jollies’, I found my flippin’ personality!
I felt out-of-sorts whilst away. Now, in my comfort zone, I feel like my spark and enthusiasm for writing and existing in general has returned. I can feel it in my bones! I’ve had a big sore / scab on the bridge of my nose the entire time I was away. The moment I was in the van on route to where I live the scab falls off and my nose is fine, scar (or mark) free. A visible recovery.
It’s like all I needed was my own creatures comforts, like a messy desk, a dark room and a shit-stained toilet to make everything OK.
I’m actually on a mission to deep clean the apartment so I will jump off now and write to you again next week or so. Much love. x
Thank you for sticking around with me on this journey.. x
Yours Sincerely,
from your mate,
…Chasey💗
