Creative Confessions is a project from It’s Friendly, a company dedicated to building a more people-friendly and sustainable creative industry. They created this:#404 Mental Health Awareness Kit to mark World Mental Health Day 2019 earlier this month.

It’s an excellent resource for anyone, not just so-called ‘creatives’ who, according to It’s Friendly founder Veronica Mike, are four times as likely to develop mental health problems. She believes this is unsurprising when their work is “based on their own thoughts, ideas and emotions – and based on having them constantly judged, scrutinised and picked apart by others.” 

Your mind is your most important tool – continue to learn more about it and mental health in general, in order to take better care of yourself and others.

But hey, wisdom might not be that far away. Self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior poet” Audre Lorde once said that “Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge. They are chaotic, sometimes painful, sometimes contradictory, but they come from deep within us. And we must key into those feelings… This is how new visions begin.”

Happy World Mental Health Day!

Veronica Mike, writing for It’s Nice That

This quote from Audre Lorde resonates strongly with me. It is a reminder of why noticing how we feel is the first step towards tuning into our inner guidance. I like how it ends on a hopeful note. Perhaps this generous project from the people at It’s Friendly will encourage many of us to make space for new visions to begin.

[image: I photographed this along the towpath between Paddington and Little Venice. These irreverent tiles are easy to miss, so I’m always happy to spot one.]