Bono Vox

BONO VOX:
-       an alteration of Bonavox, a Latin phrase which translates to "good voice"

As I continue my mental health crusade, sharing my experience (good, bad, ugly) in real time, I am honouring a call for the full expression of myself through personal storytelling. I am using my voice to inspire others, battling against any remaining barriers preventing people from seeking help for their mental health.

“Nothing to stop this being the best day ever”
-       Love is All We Have Left, U2, Songs of Experience

I sing all the time. Music has always been there for me in my darkest moments. Specifically, U2 has always been there. I sing under my headphones as I walk (especially fun in the cold winter air!), I sing in the shower, and I sing as I drum in the studio. Until the last few months, I sang quietly. I don’t do that any more.

In the dark, cold middle of March 2017, I packed a bunch of bags and boxes, stuffed them into my car, and left my home – I thought for the last time. I was getting space away from the man who broke my heart, to focus on healing, and on getting to know myself again. Somehow, over 14 years of marriage, I lost ME. I was certain I could never live in The House That Love Built ever again, and was staring down the barrel of sell-everything-split-the-cash-and-it’s-over. My marriage was Going Out Of Business.


“When all you’ve left is leaving,
and all you’ve got is grieving
and all you know is needing…
…there is a light, don’t let it go out.
This is a song for someone like me.”
-       13, U2, Songs of Experience

In that cold darkness, as I struggled to learn how to breathe again, how to sleep again, I began to realize the enormity of the watershed moment in which I found myself. Stripped of the emotional core of my identity, I had lost my voice, and I was quickly losing my will to live. I had to make a choice to live, or to die.

With the village of support that gathered around me the MOMENT I asked for help -- when I chose to live again -- I found my voice. My Bono Vox. Speak your truth. Then let your people love you, and I promise you that there is a brighter day ahead. So many smart people have figured shit out about how our brains work, and our whole societal structure is realigning itself around How We Take Care of Ourselves. Now is the moment of the Bono Vox for all of us.

“If you listen you can hear the silence say
when you think you’re done, you’ve just begun
Love is bigger than anything in its way”
-       U2, Songs of Experience


Just think of the transformed relationships possible in a world where people speak their truths, let love be their guide, and breathe. I think about it every day, and am lucky enough to be able to work towards achieving that in a corporate setting. No wonder my work life has been such a focal point in my own healing and recovery. As I said to a colleague the other day: I have been making gallons of lemonade…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finding a New Calling: PR and Change Management

There’s something exhilarating in finding that, after a 40+ year journey in Public Relations, I’m finally seeing PR hit its sweet spot in the world of Change Management. It’s not that PR wasn’t meaningful before—far from it. But there’s a natural progression I hadn’t anticipated that feels like everything’s come full circle. The Melbourne Mandate: A PR Calling for the Big Picture For those unfamiliar, the Melbourne Mandate was a sort of manifesto for PR pros worldwide, a call to arms to practice PR as something more profound and lasting. It championed trust, transparency, and ethical alignment as the lifeblood of PR work—a vision I could get behind from day one. But I’ll admit, back in the early days, this was a high bar. PR often still boiled down to the “spin doctor” tropes of corporate messaging and firefighting for a client’s image. In the background, we were all holding on to those Melbourne Mandate ideals, trying to make them our day-to-day reality. It’s taken years, but a...
Read more

Better, Faster, Stronger

Happy Canada Day from a proud Canadian. Facebook – which I use only judiciously and strategically – likes to remind me what happened on this date over the years. I can completely turn it off if I wish, and for a time, those daily trips down memory lane had the power to completely undo me. So much so that I completely stopped Facebook for awhile. Then I learned how to build my social media bubble: I “unfollowed” a whole community of people; I changed my notifications and trained myself to leave the app alone. And I went away to focus on healing. Walking. Music. Talking. Sharing my story. Yoga. Weight lifting. More walking. Sleep stories. Mindfulness. Journaling. Gratitude. Random acts of kindness. And embracing all of those who gathered around me in my time of need. I called on an army of helpers, and made myself my Mission: to once and for all see me for the magnificent creature I am, and lean into Just Being Me. It has been a project more daunting than any other I hav...
Read more

shoulda, woulda, coulda

In the absence of your story I had to write my own. In the absence of your love I had to find my own. In the absence of your voice I had to hear my own. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. Share your story, I’ll share mine. Together, who knows what we will find. I had a love once I thought I knew But he held back the things that were true. In the absence of his story I had to write my own. In the absence of his honesty I had to trust my own. In the absence of his truth I had to find my own. Shoulda, woulda, coulda Share your story I’ll share mine. Together, who knows what we will find. I had a love once I thought I knew. Don’t hold back the things that are true. Don’t hold back the things that are true. In the absence of his story I had to write my own. In the absence of his honesty I had to trust my own. In the absence of his truth I had to find my own. ...
Read more