I sat on the monument and leaned back. I felt the wind lifting my hair and cooling my face. There are few places where the birdsong is so bright and clear, and I listened. I watched the birds swooping and soaring over the fields. Autumn colours spread out before me. I looked out, across the familiar roads, bridges and fields, past our little town, along the river and the estuary, out across the dunes, to the sea. I took deep breaths and I rested, there in the quiet above it all.

Sometimes, you just have to find what helps.

Whatever it is that has descended on you – grief, depression, anxiety, stress or sorrow – has suppressed your light. Things feel a little harder. Perhaps your heart feels tight, or your face does; smiling doesn’t come so easily, and perhaps it doesn’t always reach your eyes. Perhaps you catch yourself doing things you dislike: gossiping or envious words or bitterness rise more easily within you, and they spill from your mouth. There’s frustration, and fear of failure, and fear of falling apart.

But there are small things that help. They may even bring glimmers of the joy that has begun to elude you. As you wait for the clouds to pass, sometimes all you can do is find what helps – even a little – and do those things.

Going up the hill helps, or taking half an hour at the beach, or playing with the dog. Quiet helps, and music, and cleaning. Making a warm drink or a bowl of steaming, spicy soup helps. Saying sorry helps, and trying again. Kindness – both given and received – helps. And it helps to put one foot in front of the other and do the things that feel hard, because you still care, somewhere deep underneath those clouds, and because these hard things are often the important ones. They are acts of care, and they matter.

I hope that if you’re struggling, you find your things that help this week. I pray you’d find your glimmers of joy.