“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”- Winston Churchill.

Now. Don’t get me wrong. I love my nana infinitely, she’s my role model and my favourite person in the whole world. The thing that annoys me is her ability to cope.

With anything.

I truly believe that her house could burn to the ground and she’d just make a cup of tea, or perhaps a gin and tonic, and be laughing stoically about it within a few hours. Whenever I have something to moan about, it’s my nana I go to, and you can guarantee that she’ll hand me a couple of ‘handbag mints’ and sit and listen to me whine, before persuading me, to the point I actually believe her, that nothing is worth my tears.

Perhaps it’s the fact that she’s lived through a war, Winston Churchill being the prime minister at the time, and promoting the typically British stiff upper-lip, take-it-on-the chin mentality.

Whatever it is, I’m jealous of it and I want to get some for myself. I appreciate that in this day and age when everyone ‘needs’ therapy, it seems important to talk about things and bottling things up is not the done thing.

But really, what did happen to bottling things up? There’s a lot to be bloody well said about it!

The thing is, everybody needs to talk these days. Let’s talk it over, let’s have a little chat, a problem shared is a problem halved.

Is it really, now?! A problem shared is a problem for two people.

The biggest mistake I’ve made recently was “sharing”, with my boyfriend of all people. I should have known better really.

If you think honesty is going to cause problems, it probably will. It is not necessarily the best policy.

It’s one thing to tell your best friend that yes, actually her arse does look rather large in those new skinny jeans. It’s another altogether tio open up your heart and expect it not to get trampled on.

So sharing your feelings isn’t going to make a lot of difference, is it? It’s just going to leave you with an emotional hangover  and a bigger problem than you had to start with.

The only person who can solve your problems is you. There’s no point whining about it, crying on someone else’s shoulder that life is so unfair. You’re just delaying the inevitable- having to actually deal with the thing.

Just by typing “find a therapist UK” into Google, 284,000 results will come up. Is Britain really that desperate to talk?

I’m now trying to learn a lesson from Good Old Nana Pat (less of the old, she would of course admonish- but since she’s hardly embraced technology, I don’t think there’s any danger of her reading this).

Don’t moan about it. Fix it. Have a cup of tea, or something stronger if you’d prefer, and take it on the chin. If it can be dealt with, deal with it. If not, I’d strongly recommend suppressing all emotion until you can’t feel feelings anymore anyway. It’s what Churchill would have wanted, and it’s what nana would do.

Hannah Leyland

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