‘This event is your passport to saner living. I might not be sane myself but I do a pretty good imitation!’ –Ruby Wax
Having struggled with anxiety myself for most of my life, Ruby Wax’s book ‘A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled’ stood out at me on the shelves during a shopping trip back home a while back, whilst I was beginning to seek outside support. Having previously been sceptical of the whole mindfulness phenomena, admittedly initially dismissing it as a pointless exercise for those with too much time on their hands, reading this book has seriously changed my viewpoint on this simple everyday method to take a little time out to de-stress.
Taking the format of a self-help book, we are guided upon a scientific exploration of the benefits of practising mindfulness techniques. Though Ruby recently studied for a Masters Degree Mindfulness-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy at Oxford University and clearly knows her stuff, these explanations are easy to follow and could arguably convince even the most sceptical of readers of the validity of mindfulness. The book continues to provide mindfulness strategies which the reader is encouraged to practice throughout their daily life, building up week upon week until this process can be invoked without major effort.
To be quite honest, I had never even heard of neither Ruby Wax nor her mental health activism before I happened to stumble upon this book. However, when I heard she was touring at none other than my university town, I could not pass up an opportunity to go and see her, taking my mum along with me.
A tour widely dubbed the ‘passport to saner living,’ I loved the way that Ruby was able to tackle sensitive topics such as depression and anxiety, whilst balancing her humorous and engaging persona.
Whilst being careful not to dismiss the medical and/or circumstantial causation for mental illnesses, Ruby focuses upon the way in which we all as human beings sabotage our sanity with our own thinking, in that the majority of us do not give our minds a break. Thus we are all to some extent ‘frazzled’. Undoubtedly partially a result of our fast-paced and hectic world and the void of continual stressors which bombard us, she explains that mindfulness techniques, seeking to focus the mind upon one or more of the senses, can be aid us to momentarily escape the incessant rush of thoughts that plague our daily life, thus preventing us from becoming overwhelmed, or ‘frazzled’.
Through use of humorous personal anecdotes, Ruby explains the basic concepts of mindfulness techniques and invites the audience to have a go at putting these into practice. It is particularly helpful that these techniques are easy to carry out as part of our daily routines, be it on the bus, in a lecture or even whilst doing an idle task such as queuing in a shop.
Following this, the audience were invited to ask questions. Whilst any open discussion of mental illness and thus effort towards the destruction of the stigma should be celebrated, I couldn’t help but feel that this section ended up turning into a personal therapy session for some participants. I feel that the focus should perhaps have been upon Ruby’s mental health campaigning, mindfulness itself- just factors that are more relevant for the audience as a whole rather than each audience member detailing their personal experience of mental illness with little or no development made upon this. It was however really interesting to hear of an audience member’s experience with the teaching of mindfulness in primary schools, which we discovered is becoming a more and more popular practice.
All in all, we had a fantastic night and I very much admire Ruby’s work towards raising awareness and understanding of mental health and the way in which she promotes mindfulness as one of the many techniques to combat stress, anxiety and related issues. She even signed my copy of her book, ‘Sane New World’!