I recently moved back into the Mainyard Studios family and seem to walk around thinking about how I feel now compared to how I felt when I was there before.
Coworking got me into shape mentally and professionally, and the mental health thing is enormous.
Here are few of the reasons that I'm not so down anymore, in fact, I've never been better, and the coworking movement and the people in it are a huge reason for my healing and development.
About a decade ago, I got in such a wrong way by working from home, and it took me five years to realise.
One day back in 2012, I mentioned to my friend Dan how I keep playing out in my head how I might kill myself by jumping in front of a train.
He answered, "I'm glad you mentioned that Bernie, I've been looking for a way to mention that you might want to go and have a chat with a health professional."
He was right. When I admitted to myself that I was not alright, I ended up going down lower than ever and then worked out how to build a solid foundation of self-awareness and resilience.
I'm not looking to hurt anyone, but I am sure we tell ourselves horrible lies about how good we are at working from home and our mental health.
We underestimate the false economy of 'saving money at home' vs paying for space or desk.
I very rarely say anything like this as I know from my own experience we hear things when we've decided to listen.
It took me a long time to make the connection from going fucking mad in my kitchen and wanting to blow my brains out to flourishing around other human beings.
When I worked from I'd get all pumped up, be so proud that my costs were low and then wonder where all the time had gone.
- One of the best recommendations from any decent coworking movement fan is to get people to start a meetup and find each other.
For example, every one a facebook group could self organise in a cafe once a week and work together.
A few of us in this group met via a Meet Up called KindredHQ in London back in 2012, that group saved my life BTW.
And I have more than one story of coworking spaces that were born from groups of people like us getting together.
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I have been in and around coworking spaces in London since 2010, and since I fully committed to coworking space since late 2013 my income has gone up, my mental health has gone from 'black dog' to 'consistently balanced mood' and, the definition around my work has got sharper.
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I love coworking but still, make a point of working from home. Staying in pyjamas and cooking your food is terrific once a week or two.
BTW -
If you are in London, we run two Write Clubs for two hours every Thursday and Friday in a coworking space.
Free, friendly and no one is going to pitch you anything!
