Author: Susan

I wish someone had told me at school that I’d never need to do quadratic equations ever again. Or know how to calculate the angles on an isosceles triangle. Instead, I sat in maths class and sweated and strained under those hideous numbers until nothing at all made sense. Luckily I avoided Mr McCart’s eraser missiles (other mates were not so fortunate – I’m looking at you, Louise) – an old-fashioned teaching technique that seemed to assume that terror, and a little bit of violence, would suddenly make the ‘maths light’ come on in our heads. All it achieved was chalk marks (I know, I’m a certain age) on our wool blazers and a sense of encroaching dread before and during class. On one memorable occasion my friend Karen was asked a mental arithmetic question and simply cried out “Seven? I don’t know!”, before slamming her head onto the desk and moaning loudly. We all sat with widened eyes as Mr McCart, for once, remained silent.

I’ve been thinking about those terrible classes recently because of the noise out there surrounding ‘useless’ degrees. You know, the ones that don’t lead to big-earning careers. I’m all for STEM education (and we need to get more women and girls onto these courses) but it’s making my heart sad to hear my beloved arts so maligned. Recent cuts to the arts are painful here in Northern Ireland. Of my two degrees (English Literature and Psychology) only one is a science and is now considered ‘useful’ but I haven’t gone on to earn big bucks as a psychologist. Instead, I studied the topic for the love of learning. Nonetheless I’ve used my new knowledge to great effect in my (charity) job working as a story teller with people in the criminal justice system. Both degrees have come together in the most unexpected way. It’s a small salary but the impact packs a punch. Who knows, it might even change the world. 

The arts not only change our hearts and minds but make the world go round. They speak truth to power. And there’s the rub – writers and artists are always feared by the establishment. It’s no surprise that dictators quickly go after artists and burn books. Art opens our minds to questions, philosophy, semantics, ideology and all things in between. Without William Shakespeare how could we know how to cope with grief, ambition, fear? Without Charles Dickens how could we know to question a society that leaves the vulnerable to starve? Without Margaret Atwood how could we get a glimpse of dystopia and the harm it can cause? Caravaggio showed us the divine. Van Gogh broke our hearts. Picasso opened our eyes. 

If we focus only on money and numbers, we humans will lose something very precious. Art, put simply, is life. 

I recently spent a few days in Liverpool to attend a work gathering – they’re called Think Days at The Reader (isn’t that a great name?) and we did lots of thinking, but also lots of reading and chatting and laughing. It was such a pleasure to be at a work event and feel like I wanted to be there. Getting paid to read poems in the garden? Yes please. Clearly, I’ve found my tribe.

Looking out at the sunset from the plane on the way home I started to think about how much this means. For so long I’ve been doing jobs in the voluntary sector that just didn’t sit all that comfortably with me. Square peg, round hole kind of thing. I did the work, sometimes working very hard, but it never clicked. I needed to find my people – somewhere I felt like I belonged and where my voice would be heard and where my skills made sense.

It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve started to unfurl and stand up to be counted. I tended to hide in the background, assuming it was safer, but it was lonely too. And then I had one of those lightbulb moments during an online coaching course that quite honestly opened my closed heart. I’m sure I’ve talked about Mel Wiggins before (find amazing stuff here) and this six week course was my attempt to shake off past fear and step into the light. Meeting for a few hours every week with a small group of amazing women was transformational. Maybe the fact that they were strangers to begin with allowed me to be myself? I didn’t have any preconceptions about how I should or should’t behave, or things I shouldn’t say. I could just be myself. It was very freeing. 

And then on the last session something extraordinary happened.

Mel had asked us all to think of a phrase to say to one another as we went on our way into the future, almost like a blessing. Mine was relatively simple: ‘I wish for you bright hopes, deep breaths, hugs on dark days, and a sense that you matter and you belong.’ Sounds good, doesn’t it? We duly read them out to one another and they were received with grace and much gratitude. Then Mel asked us to read our own blessing out loud, but this time changing ‘you’ to ‘me’. 

Well.

When it came to my turn I spoke as confidently as ever, but then suddenly on the words ‘matter’ and ‘belong’, I couldn’t speak. It was as if my mouth was physically clamped closed. Time slowed down as my fellow members raised their eyebrows and kindly waited for me to finish. It was excruciating. I could have closed my laptop and run away but I somehow found the courage to just sit with what was happening. Emotions bubbled up from somewhere (very deep down, I think) and after gentle coaxing I was finally able to whisper those two words to myself. I matter and I belong. A simple phrase that plumbed the depths for me that day three years ago. It’s one that I still hold onto. It’s personal, spiritual, emotional. And it’s a phrase worth repeating. 

Say it with me (out loud if you dare). I matter and I belong.