TranscriptWelcome to Inspiring You To Motivate Your Mind, the podcast for people who people who experience depression and want to move their lives forward but feel stuck. I’m your host Wendy Taylor-Loftus.If you want to be productive - I will share action tips and strategies to keep you moving forward one micro-step at a time.If you lack self-belief and confidence in your ability to discover and live your purpose this podcast is for you.Inspiring you to stop blocking your own path and move forward in your power.Let’s get started.Today I want to talk about the Tough-Love.The thing no-one enjoys but appreciates when they look back. In that moment when someone is telling us like it is, we can feel as though they’re being cruel and not appreciating how we feel. Though nothing can be further than the truth.Firstly, what is tough love?Tough-love is doing or saying something for the wellbeing of an individual that they dislike; even though it’s for their good.But it’s in those moments; we cannot see what those around us are seeing - we can’t see the wood for the trees. When we’re wrapped up in our self-doubts and fears, we allow those emotions to make the decisions for us. We shrink into ourselves and swallow the lies those fears feed us. Then we find ourselves living a life that’s not fulfilling and that we don’t enjoy. But we’re too afraid to take a chance and move forward.A family member, friend or doctor can see past our fears and act on our behalf. But when we receive the tough-love treatment from people who care about us and love us, we feel as though we’re under threat, like they’re attacking us. But that’s not true - they are doing what is hard and saying what most people won’t. There are times in our lives when we need to hear the truth.There are times when we need to have a mirror held up to us and help us see the truth.Let me share with you the situation I found myself in something that I experienced.It was a hard time, but let me share it with you.I had probably been out of hospital for about three weeks and felt life held no meaning anymore. I believed if I died, no-one would miss me. Maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t get it wrong a second time. Maybe I would succeed in taking my own life. I was alone in my one-bedroom flat with no-one to call or talk to, and I knew my thought patterns were in a dire place and wanted to back to hospital.  Wanted to be back on the ward. At least the friends I had made there understood my situation and knew where I was coming from.I contacted my Psychologist, Bob someone I was seeing on a weekly basis after I got out of hospital and spoke to him at length on the phone. He said he would contact the ward. He tried to talk me out of it but I really felt I needed to go back, I just felt alone and unsafe. He called the ward, and in the meantime, I called a good friend who was on the ward at the time and told her I was coming back. I explained how I felt and what was going on.But before I could finish my explanation of why I believed I needed to come back, I could almost hear her foot stamp on the floor. Her words went something like this;“Don’t you dare come back! If you come back in here, I’ll be so mad with you. You don’t belong here, Wendy. If you come back, you’ll never get out, and then you’ll be in and out of the system like me. I don’t have a choice, but you do. I love you, and I’m your friend. I don’t want to see you come back here. I mean it Wendy, if you come back, I’ll never speak to you again.” She said we’d chat later and hung up.I cried so hard because I had no idea what I was going to do. How would I cope? How could she say these things to me? But in my heart, I knew she said these words because she cared and I knew she was right.It was tough it wasn’t easy to hear. But I could hear in her voice that pass that desire not to see me come back and she was right she didn't have a choice.