Jonny Benjamin - The Book of Hope: 101 Voices on Overcoming Adversity

Jonny Benjamin

Britt Pflger

THE

BOOK

OF

HOPE

101 Voices on

Overcoming Adversity

Five years ago, just after I had begun sharing my personal experience of mental illness, a teacher at one of the schools I visited asked me to speak privately to a fourteen-year-old student who was really struggling.

I will never forget hearing this young girl telling me she had completely given up on her life. It was heart-breaking. She explained that she had suffered with anxiety and depression for many years. She also listed the different medications and therapists she had tried. None of them had had any effect on her declining mental health.

I felt so helpless listening to this young girl express such despair. I tried to offer words of comfort and hope but none of them seemed to resonate at all.

Since that day, I have met many individuals experiencing mental health issues, along with their family members or friends, who have also told me that they have given up hope.

I understand their anguish. When I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at the age of twenty and admitted to a psychiatric hospital, I too very rapidly gave up hope.

It took years to regain some sort of faith in life.

However, I eventually managed to clamber out of the deep, dark hole of hopelessness I had been in. Inevitably I have been back down in that pit a few times since then, but somehow I always manage to find my way out.

One of the ways I do this is by learning from the wisdom of other individuals who have also been there. Psychologist Carl Jung called them wounded healers. Even though each of us may experience mental health challenges in our own unique ways, we can still learn a lot from one another on the different ways to overcome such adversity.

This is where the idea for The Book of Hope was born.

I firmly believe it is never too late to find hope. I learnt this on a trip to India a few years ago, where I worked with an NGO which was trying to raise awareness and destigmatise mental illness within society. There I met a number of inspiring older wounded healers who had overcome huge adversity; not just in terms of their serious mental health issues but also because of the extremely archaic mental health care they were under, which I witnessed first hand in many locations.

I have been privileged to learn from these individuals and from people all over the world (many of whom have contributed to this book) about hope, and how essential it is for anyone with a mental health diagnosis.

At this point I would like to say that hope is not necessarily a cure or fix. Personally, I have found that therapy, alongside medication and meditation, has helped me most along my journey. However, finding and holding on to hope has also been a necessity, especially during my bleaker periods.

My wish is that you too will find some hope within these pages.

*

I am eternally grateful to everyone who has contributed to this book. Words cannot express how inspired I am by each of these wounded healers and their stories, which have all been written with such honesty and depth. I feel unbelievably lucky to know these courageous individuals who all have such incredible strength.

I am also enormously thankful to my co-writer Britt, publisher Carole, and everyone else at Bluebird for believing in this book and making it happen.

Hope has never been more needed than in the extremely challenging year of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic literally turned the world and all our lives upside-down. It can be so easy to succumb to that despair. I found myself back in hospital again after a relapse in September 2020. My subsequent recovery was made much harder because of the lockdown and restrictions placed upon us. But gradually I overcame this period. The most important lesson I learnt during this time was the necessity of kindness and compassion; particularly towards myself. Within this, I found hope. We have seen such kindness and compassion within our society throughout the pandemic, as well as much suffering and tragedy of course. I truly hope the former extends beyond COVID-19. I now believe that wherever there is kindness and compassion, there is always hope.

It is my dream that no other person will ever feel that they have lost all hope again. Ultimately hope is all around us, and as you will see from this book, within us too.

To start, I have listed 101 things that have helped give me hope. I encourage you to make your own list, particularly during a period of good mental health (although it is also useful compiling this list when youre not in such a good place).

As you will see from my own list below, there is always hope. And just as the sunshine follows the rain, even if you have temporarily lost hope, it will eventually return again.

Things that give me hope:

1. The impermanence of everything

2. Birdsong. The sound of birds singing gave me such comfort when I lived in isolation for months during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020

3. Nina Simones anthem Feeling Good

4. Random acts of kindness

5. Seeing rainbows across the sky

6. Viktor Frankls autobiography Mans Search for Meaning

7. Continuous advancements in science and technology

8. Stephen Kings novel-turned-film The Shawshank Redemption

9. Our limitless imaginations

10. Butterflies. The transformation they go through in their lifespan is miraculous

11. The song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent

12. Individuals and groups tirelessly fighting for justice in this world

13. Watching live music at gigs

14. Trees. There is an oak tree close to where I grew up which is over 400 years old. Imagine all the storms it has weathered!

15. The entire voluntary sector

16. The warmth of the sun

17. Mitch Alboms memoir Tuesdays With Morrie

18. Any David Attenborough documentary

19. Newborn babies. According to UNICEF, there are over 350,000 born every single day

20. The vastness of our universe which we have uncovered

21. The vastness of our universe which we still have left to explore

22. Mary Olivers poems

23. Fields full of sunflowers

24. Inspirational quotes. I have a long list of them that Im constantly updating

25. The Eagle. These incredible birds have so much to teach us humans about life

26. The film Amelie, which also has plenty to teach us on the joy of living

27. Edvard Griegs classical tune Morning Mood

28. Teachers

29. Bren Browns TED talks

30. Monets paintings

31. Libraries. The British Library is a particular treasure trove for me

32. A smile from a stranger

33. Listening to the life stories of those who survived the Holocaust

34. Florence + The Machines track Shake It Out

35. The continuous changing of the seasons

36. Frank Capras Oscar-winning film Its a Wonderful Life

37. Unconditional love (particularly the unconditional love dogs have for their owners)

38. Enduring love (my parents just recently celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary)

39. The stillness of lakes

40. Witnessing human vulnerability

41. Maya Angelous empowering poem Still I Rise