Speaking of Suicide

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Following on from yesterday’s episode, today Shona and Pennie explore the senses of touch and sound as a way of being in the moment and unhooking ou...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  When we’re in distress its really easy to be hooked by unhelpful thoughts, we’re often advised to be “in the present” but how do we do that in pract...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Having encouraged us to recall a difficult situation in the previous episode and acknowledge that it hurts, in this episode Shona talks us through h...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Today Shona talks us through the importance of self-compassion.  It’s not always easy to feel compassionate to ourselves so Shona shows us some ways...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Today Shona encourages Pennie to explore an emotion and takes her through an exercise which helps her to think about how a particular emotion feels...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Today Shona talks about our emotions, what they are, what their  purpose is and how we respond to them across our whole body.  She explains how emot...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Today Shona continues her tips on how to tackle unhelpful thoughts by guiding Pennie through how to deal with a particularly painful thought – the i...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  We have thousands of thoughts each day, many of them the same ones and lots of them negative, so today Shona explains the value of learning how to u...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Today Shona explains the value of paying attention to the chatter going on in our minds and provides some tips on how we can eavesdrop on our thinki...

Each day across the 12 Days of Christmas Counsellor Shona Macpherson is joining Pennie Stuart, in collaboration with Mikeysline, to share some mental health skills, practical tips you can try which might just help when you’re finding life a struggle.  Shona’s kicking off the series by suggesting we give ourselves permission to press the pause button more often, taking stock before we respond to th...

Jordan was a son, a brother, a stepson, a stepbrother, a loving boyfriend, a grandson, an uncle, a cousin and a best friend. He was tall and handsome and turned many a head, male and female. His friends both loved and envied him. At his funeral they described Jordan as; well-mannered, a great listener, kind and considerate, intelligent, cool but humble, ridiculously handsome, a true gentleman, hum...

In this powerful and moving podcast Alice Hendy shares with Pennie Stuart how she still battles on a daily basis with the repercussions of losing her brother, Josh, to suicide just a year ago.  Alice admits it has been an emotional rollercoaster and at times she’s almost wanted to follow her brother, her loss has been so painful, but she’s turned her grief and desperate sadness into determination...

In this episode of Speaking of Suicide, we're bringing you an episode of the OnFARM podcast . The news in February that East Lothian farmer Grant Brand had taken his own life left many in Scottish farming shocked and upset – and, of course, sending heartfelt good wishes to Grant’s family. This episode pays tribute to Grant, hearing memories and thoughts from his brother Jamie Brand. We also hear h...

It's less than a year since Annette’s partner, Bob, completed suicide.  Even though its still so recent and raw Annette felt really strongly that she wanted to talk about the events leading up to Bob’s death and just what the experience and aftermath of suicide feels like when you’re the one left behind.  Even though Bob had a long history of mental health challenges and was seeking support and he...

In this episode of Speaking of Suicide, sponsored by Williamson Foodservice , Pennie talks to her good friend Joe.  They’ve been friends for a number of years and have shared a lot of laughs and conversations, but it wasn’t until recently that Joe admitted he’d contemplated suicide.  In this compelling and hugely thought-provoking conversation Joe talks openly and honestly about the events leading...

In this hugely courageous and touching conversation Mark talks to Pennie about how childhood trauma has left him battling with anxiety long into adulthood.  He shares how it got so bad that he contemplated suicide and took himself off to Glasgow with the intention of taking his life.  Since then Mark has worked hard to turn around his life, he’s found daily cold water swimming in the Cairngorms as...

In this heartbreaking and breath takingly honest episode Patrick and Wendy talk about losing their son, James, to suicide.  They talk about the moment when Patrick found James and the devastating consequences of his death for the whole family, including his partner and their 3 young children.  Since losing their son, Patrick and Wendy have found solace in offering support to other people bereaved...

Simon Greaves is a Mountain Guide in the Cairngorms but for many years he worked as a manager in education.  Ironically, although his role as a senior manager involved supporting stressed and exhausted staff who were struggling with mental health, he found it incredibly difficult to speak up about his own mental health problems.  For 2 years he contemplated ending his life before everything came t...

One of the world’s strongest men, Luke Stoltman, pays as much time working on his mental fitness as he does on his physical strength.  Losing his mum to cancer taught him all about the importance of talking and sharing, opening up about your feelings and emotions.  He now gets up at sunrise every day and swims in the sea to help him keep mentally healthy, he also dedicates a lot of his time to hel...

In this episode Pennie talks to Ron Williamson, founder of Mikeysline.  Ron talks about his shock when his nephew, Michael, took his own life and the conversations he found himself having with Michael’s friends at the funeral, a number of whom had also contemplated suicide.  Ron then set up Mikeysline with the view that men in the Highlands needed an alternative, somewhere they could talk to like...

Speaking of Suicide is a series of frank, thought provoking and tough conversations about men and mental health.  Made in support of and in collaboration with the Highland based charity Mikeysline, as well as hearing from people who have either suffered from mental health problems themselves or have lost someone to suicide, Shona Macpherson from Mikeysline provides insight and ideas for how to rec...