In terms of ‘Lessons From My Life’, some are things I learned a long time ago and hold fast to. Others are more recent learnings – or even points I know I need to do more work on myself. This is one of the latter.

Today, my friend passed away after a short illness. It wasn’t someone I’ve seen very recently but during my teenage years, he was there, looking out for me and having a bigger impact than I realised at the time.

I received the news in my lunch hour by text message. My initial response, ‘Oh shit’, followed by extreme sadness. I stopped for a few moments and tried to take stock, but I had a load of work to complete before the end of the day and I tried to soldier through, in between moments of thought and grief.

At 2pm I had a meeting with some colleagues. They were late back from lunch and this angered me. Then, once they arrived and we started the meeting I was cold, sharp and, following critique from one colleague I got up and walked out. I just needed some space and to get out of there.

My point here is that grief, sadness, and many other emotions are real and we feel them and that’s ok. Often, and I’m especially guilty of this, we feel a stoic need to continue, to soldier on, to bury the emotion inside and put on the stiff (British) upper lip. Actually, what I should have done today was stop, give myself some time, excuse myself from the meeting and go and be with myself and my thoughts. It was my refusal to do this, to try and continue, to ‘be an emotionless robot’ which led to an escalation of my feelings and me having to leave the meeting.

So, don’t be a robot. Allow yourself to feel, experience and be led by your emotions. Give yourself a break. It’s ok to do that. And you may just find that although, at the time, it feels like you don’t need to do that, it may just stop things getting worse later on.