Babushka part 1: How many roles do you have?
Alongside our studio based celebrations for National Mental Health Awareness Week we’d like to introduce you to Babushka. Babushka is a well loved member of the Be Bold Be You team, here at our Belper based studio in Derbyshire. She asks the questions that many of us daren’t feel we can, whether it be out of politeness or the general westernised unspoken agreement that you don’t ask what you can’t answer yourself. Babushka herself has discussions over whether her native area of Russia classes as West or East but that’s a politically fumed chat for another day! Right now, she wants to ask you: “How many roles do you currently have?”
Today, Babushka is going to ask “how many roles do you have?”
Parent; worker; child; lover; friend; sibling…
How do you see yourself in these roles? Do you communicate them to the wider world or are they something that you choose to keep to yourself? It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it?
It’s interesting that in the 21st century, especially in the last ten years, there has been a huge movement to visually represent our lives. Social media is the common link to this notion and, since lockdown, how many of us have chose to give someone a call via video, rather than “phone to ear” so that they can see just how we are and what we are doing.
Here’s a question for you though, if you chose to visualise your day to day life, with it’s various roles, would you project the things that create positivity or the roles that may feel slightly less “main stream” or socially acceptable?
When you think about your roles in life, of which there are many, how many of them give back to you?
As a parent we have moments of joy and days where we clock watch for their bedtime because you just need some time out. As a worker/employee/colleague/business owner there are days where we want to shout from the roof tops of the things we have achieved but we, may, also want to shout from the roof tops how much we despise the colleague at desk seven, how dare that person steal your idea and mark it as their own or that you just, quite frankly, hate your job. As a child, you may not fit under the legal category of “child”. What about if you’re a 40+ something child of the parents that once cared for you every damn day and the tables are now beginning to turn to them needing you to provide for them? As a lover, are you the ones that openly express their love by holding hands and sharing date day meals on social media or are you the one that feels like you’re carrying the can whilst your lover takes time to reconnect with themselves and the world around them.
This relates to friends too - are you hanging in for them to make you smile or are you the one sending the text messages to check in? Perhaps you’re all just waiting to switch off from one role and hang out for a day/night of being able to wear another, more preferable, role with pride and fun! And are you the sibling that can finish the other’s sentences or are you communicating because you have the title “sibling” (or family) yet feel you have no idea how to connect due to little in common? The last paragraph was rather harsh to type! (Blame Babushka!) But what it does do is give us a different list of roles:
Carer; provider; giver; creator; leader; connector; follower, moralist, enforcer, observer
Perhaps you switch between the above, depending on the situation you’re in? Perhaps some days you feel able to stand tall and others you just want to sit behind a closed door.
You don’t need me, or Babushka, to tell you the importance of looking after your own mental wellbeing. It’s a form of health that has gone unrecognised for far too long because it doesn’t have a physical “look” to it. As mentioned earlier, social media has kicked us into creating a “look” for something to be real. Sometimes, social media can create a notion of needing to be seen to achieve in order to be succeeding in life - with a role. A fab family day out in the sunshine versus a family fall out because, well, perhaps you’re not even sure what the because is! Which would you promote to a wider audience? Which would you allow yourself to express to others?
Our role at #BBBY is to create a space in which you feel able to express who you are and create a moment where you feel able to go “this is me”. Not only do you feel able to go “this is me” but then feel confident enough to allow the your community to see it - alongside whichever role you choose to present at the time. Sounds scary? Sounds awesome! Speaking as Kirsty for a second (Babushka has, erm, gone to wash her hair!) let me put it differently… When a child creates a “masterpiece” whether it be a blob of playdoh, a scribble on paper or glue covered loo roll covered in glitter they show it with pride. It doesn’t matter what materials they’ve used, or how “abstract” it may look, they have created it and they’re confident enough to be able to say to the world “I made this and it’s cool”. Why, as adults, should we be any different? You don’t need to be wonderfully creative you just need to feel confident enough to express. Just because we take on a role doesn’t mean you have to suppress your identity/personality/humour/overall look. This is what BBBY is all about - finding the confidence to wear your personality.
