Angela Scanlon - Joyrider: How gratitude can help you get the life you really want

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First published in Great Britain by Vermilion in 2022

Copyright Angela Scanlon 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover design: Anna Morrison

ISBN: 978-1-473-59809-6

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To Roy, Ruby and Marnie

My roots and my wings

There are a million books you could have chosen and here we are. Thank you! I hope you find something here that lovingly kicks you up the arse or gently leads you to unexpected places. Lets go.

Heres my theory People are either dogs or cats. Cats are slick and self-assured. Theyre grounded and confident. They love themselves, which is why many people think theyre arrogant. Dogs, on the other hand, will roll over and pant and lick and need they will do anything for you. They will love you forever but often at the expense of themselves.

I am a dog. I wish I was a cat.

Or maybe a Cog some sort of hybrid animal that was centred enough to love myself but not be a selfish cow. But heres the thing: self-love is not selfish. Its not obnoxious or indulgent; it does not come at the expense of other types of love that are deemed more acceptable. Yes, its written on t-shirts and mugs and all manner of shite but the act itself is something that cant be bought. Self-love is the start of everything, and without it we are on borrowed time, living a life thats dictated by everyone around us, everyone we are trying to make love us because we cant love ourselves. Loving ourselves comes only when we fully know ourselves, when were familiar with all the murky, annoying parts too and we accept them, eventually.

I spent 37 years trying to be someone else. Anyone else. Changing by the day, hour, minute. Popping on a new identity, a new opinion, a new approach depending on my company. I was a genius at reading people and stealthily changing tack to be more acceptable, more relaxed, cooler, funnier, more loveable. For a couple of decades now Ive been exploring all kinds of self-help stuff, buying anything that promised to fill me up.

Theres quite a list gong baths, reiki, psych-K, human design, pills, tinctures, homeopathy, traditional therapy, and the rest. Before wellness was a billion-pound business and when Gwyneth was still an actor, I bought all the things, did all of the retreats, and hoped that every potion I ingested, every book I read, would help me feel fixed. Im not sure what I was hoping to fix but I was yearning, often desperately, for a sense of something more, a longing for deeper connection, proper fulfilment, some sort of satisfaction, any satisfaction. I realise Im talking in the past tense; I still do lots of these things, I am still yearning for deeper connection and my instinct is always for the quick fix. Its ongoing and as soon as I get cocky and complacent, I am walloped around the head with the delightful self-doubt and that gnawing, nagging feeling that has followed me around since I can remember. I am, much to my frustration, not fixed. When Im under pressure I revert to all my old habits; sometimes it takes me weeks and a flood of tears to remind me Ive lost my way again and it feels like I start all over, but each time its a little easier.

For years I have made lists. Lists of things to do, things I needed to achieve, jobs I needed to get in order to make me feel full. A long-held belief that when I got there, when I did that thing, when I ticked items off the list and arrived at that elusive place in the future (an ever-moving destination), then I would be happy. Then I would be whole. But when I did get there when things I couldnt have imagined got crossed off those dream-lists I felt hollow and sad, and I was terrified that I was broken; that somewhere along the way I had lost the capacity to have joy in my life. To feel joy on any level. Maybe that circuit in me was faulty; unfortunate and excruciating but something that I might just have to live with. Then I thought, fuck that, this cannot be it. This half-mast existence, the volume turned down, the want always bubbling this cannot be it. Can it? Maybe in a bid at self-preservation or sweet desperation, I started to consider that perhaps it wasnt me that was faulty, but my system. That was the first bit of compassion I had given myself in a while, a glimpse at what having my own back might feel like and the realisation that until this point I had been coupled up with a Mean Girl myself. Maybe instead of striving to do all the things in the hope that I would somehow satiate the beast for a bit, I would confront her (and give her a hug). I would kill her with kindness or smother her with affection, I would give her love, introduce her to joy and force her to find herself. And so began a slightly different type of search

I do not have the answers. Im not an expert but I consider myself a human guinea pig, and over the years have built up a toolkit that I return to regularly. The heavier it gets, the lighter I get! I hope that some of the tools inside will work for you too.

When I became a mother, I finally sat still for the first time in decades and my little world imploded. In a way it was the forced stillness of those early days that got to me. Sitting for hours under a feeding baby, when she finally nodded off, I was afraid to move. For a long time, I was afraid to breathe. I had spent years creating a life that allowed me to run away, to distract myself and fill my ears and mind with noise. Even when I was chilling out, I was overstimulated. Reading a book while on my phone and watching telly at the same time. I was incapable of relaxing or switching off but was completely in denial about that.

I always pitied people who felt uncomfortable having lunch alone; it was one of my favourite things to do except I was never actually alone. I was on Instagram and reading a magazine, chatting to a waiter or reading the back of a menu, over and over again. I was technically on my own but not quite. Obsessed with busyness, itchy in silence, proud of my frantic energy and ability to keep going, unaware of its impact on me and everyone around me.