Thoughts from the Canadian Wilderness 1: Grief, Burnout and working towards Acceptance
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- Опубліковано 9 жов 2022
- I hadn’t decided if or when I’d even put this out there. Then mental health awareness day seemed like the right time to do it.
There may be more to come.
I’ve been sharing the journey from garage workshop to business owner for a few years now.
This isn’t the first time I’ve shared a bit more personally about work/life balance, mental health etc, and these are often the videos I get the most meaningful response from. This connection is what keeps me doing what I do on UA-cam and Instagram.
You can find me on Instagram @alastair_freebird
Or the business
@freebirdinteriors
And now
@freebird_trade
Membership site:
www.buymeacoffee.com/freebird - Навчання та стиль
Bravo!
You are an inspiration
Brave and True.....
Thanks for sharing such an honest reflection, Alastair. What I think doesn't really matter but over the last couple of years of watching and learning from so many of your videos, you strike me as an exceptional human being. You're articulate, generous, and clearly very shrewd. I don't know much about autism but assuming it's contributed to making you the fella you are then I think it may be a blessing in disguise.
Thanks Jack that’s a really nice comment!
This video shows an incredibe level of self awareness and emotional intelligence - valuable traits that many of us lack - thank you for sharing!
You're not disabled, you're gifted. Embrace your family and what you are achieving. You've helped so many people while building a good business model. Enjoy the down time 👍
Thank you 🙏
Well done Alastair ,that was very brave of you to make such a personal account of youre family and bussiness life !!! You are a very talented person !!! Best wishes going forward !!
Many thanks
Alaister you've been an inspiration for my work as a young uneducated but dedicated woodworking, showing your flaws in life and work takes strength. It's been super helpful, you're a great craftsman and a teacher. Greetings from the netherlands
Thank you so much, its always hugely encouraging to get this sort of feedback about my impact on others. I remain overstretched and need to find a simpler work/life, and I can't help thinking that if I do eventually have to choose, then my strengths are in the teaching more than the business side of running a woodworking business
Alastair you are an amazing well thought talented guy, this comes across in every video you put out. Strengths and weaknesses they make us whole, you can't have one without the other. Talking enables understanding and acceptance, keep doing what your doing. We all have our flaws without them we would not grow.
Many thanks for this Stuart
Your shared journey of your life via it be audio, looking at your face your environment and interactions that us viewers see is the real deal of life you are extraordinary in many aspects that out weigh the things you feel in life that say *masking* many years of hearing your voice I have finally made the time to reach out and say" be kind to yourself" you're been a coach in many ways with this video you've most likely resonated with many viewers. From one speck of the universe I'd like to say you are one exceptional person who's given more without knowing . Keep it up Alastair! Your inspiring! Your so unique and many has said *gifted*
This is very kind Paul thank you, and while I'm tempted to brush it away with false modesty, what you are doing is affirming my instinct that the real underlying value I can bring to my viewers beyond hinge videos and build videos is this ongoing human story. I increasingly feel that the fitted furniture work is an uphill struggle, but it provides the backdrop to these opportunities to share or teach what I have learned along the way about life, acceptance etc, I feel like this is my real 'calling' and seems to fit more squarely within my skill set. For me, connecting in this deeper way with others as a result of my own pain around my son etc is one way to redeem the whole situation and give it more meaning. Thanks again
Isaac and your family have a fantastic Dad. Your plan sounds like it will work for you. Best wishes Alastair 👍
thank you 🙏
Thanks for this honest reflection. As an amateur woodworker I have learned a lot from you - especially in installing alcove cupboards! As a church Pastor I chime with your insight that our brokenness needs to be embraced, The great myth of our society is that beauty, wholeness and perfection are achievable, and that only when we've 'got it all together' can we truly live life. We all live with some degree of brokenness and imperfection and to know that that is OK, and that that is the site where authentic life happens is truly liberating.
Thank you for this David
Dear Alastair, I would like to thank you your videos, both the technical ones on furniture making and the vlog types as well. You give me such an inspiration about woodworking and the psychological ups and downs during an install, preparation, however, we cannot see that we shall reach improvement in some time. (Self) acceptance is also a key element to work effectively and maintain our work-life balance. Often we are angry to ourselves for so many tiny and unnecessary reasons, and we realize that it's not worth to be upset about that particular thing. That toughest thing is to have a load of patience in this running world. The clients are impatient, everyone wants everything right now, technically no mistakes are allowed. But we do have mistakes from what we can learn. Please, keep on uploading your videos, they are great. Wish you the best!
Hello thank you very much for this comment. You have expressed things very well, and it is a good reminder and encouragement for me to keep doing what I do! I wish you all the best for 2023
Came in for a woodworking vid, and left a Better father. Many thanks for the honesty here mate. There is so much correlation into my own life it’s uncanny. Keep fighting the good fight.
I love this comment Dan, thanks for feeding that back to me, best wishes to you too 👍
👍
I think you are truly remarkable, look at that view and see just how far you have come. Parents will always worry about their children all you can do is love them take care
Alastair, thank you so much for sharing- you’ve pretty much just described my own life!
After the lockdowns from Covid, my 10-year-old son’s slightly ‘quirky’ behaviour became seemingly more erratic, then violent to the point where he had threatened to kill us; he had become so distressed that no-one, even in the family would be allowed to see him or be in the same room. Certain sounds would drive him crazy, and he often misunderstood our intentions. He had got to the point of what we now know to be ‘autistic burnout’.
My wife and I were grieving the loss of a son- he hadn’t died, but apart from the screaming violent meltdowns, it sure felt like it. The feeling that that connection to him and the way of life we once had known had disappeared.
As you mentioned, as someone who makes things for a living, we should be able to fix one of our children, make everything better with all the love and affection we have for them. But whatever we did, we didn’t have the expertise to solve his problems- whatever they were!
So I turned to my business, ploughing all my energy into it, feeling helpless and to be honest, emasculated. But the increasing pressures at home meant that I was also burning out. The more we learnt about autism and our son, the more I saw those autistic tendencies in myself- all the masking I had done certainly in my youth and early 20s smoking weed and drinking- made sense now. I had been hiding from reality!
My son had become so bad because he was so good at masking. He internalised everything. Now everything is externalised, we see and hear all his pain and joy- the therapist says this is good!
You are raising a family, have made a successful business and around it a community of like-minded people who have benefitted greatly from your expertise, dedication and your honest mistakes. Give yourself a break and enjoy what you’ve created. You are perfectly acceptable!
Cheers,
Ross
Ross, thanks so much for commenting. Although I fear this type of video might be self absorbed, really I’m hoping it connects with someone going through something similar. So it makes me very happy to know it has connected with you. I have some limited experience of the sort of child hood autistic behaviour you’ve been dealing with with your son and I think I can imagine the pain and frustration involved when you just can’t connect with someone you love and want so badly to help but they are on a different wavelength and deeply resistant to your efforts to help. Love gets mixed with frustration and anger and guilt. You get drained. It sounds really hard what you’ve all been through. Not least for your son who really is suffering the most and probably desperately wants to be understood and to be able to connect. I think there is a widespread misunderstanding about autism that they (/we) are emotionally detached. I think more often it’s an excess of emotion, combined with difficulty socialising. which on the positive side may get channelled into obsessive projects, but on the negative side turns into overwhelm and either withdrawn or extreme behaviours. Anyway… too many words but I hope things get better with your son and all your family relationships and you can find ways to connect and create freedom for everyone to feel safe as themselves.
Thank you for your encouraging feedback 🙏
Did he get an injection before the behavioural changes?
@@smgibv4393 vaccines do not cause autism, shut the hell up with this idiotic, dangerous conspiracy.
Bless you Alistair I totally Empathize, there's some uncanny Parallels with my own life, so I totally get it. Thank you for being so honest, You are a inspirational person on many levels injoy your holiday 👍
Thank you so much James - for the encouraging words and also for letting me know this was relevant to you. As I've said here on other replies, my hope with this video, apart from being cathartic for me personally, is that it will resonate and help others process their own situation.
Go easy on yourself and may I suggest to treat yourself like you would like to be treated? Thanks for sharing your very personal situation. Wishing you, your family and all those who depend on you the very best. Cheers, David
I suppose in the end its what do you want out of life,I used to work 7 days a week now I only want to work 3 days a week less money but a much better life I guess its trying to find the balance that suits each individual.your work has inspired me to do what I enjoy.Many thanks for that.
Very candid, authentic, honest and brave. I hope you find the peace you're looking for.
Thank you 🙏
I honestly don’t think there is anything wrong with you Alastair. You’re handling things with honesty, with clarity and with self-criticism. Now, that’s the way it’s done! Get up, dust yourself off, and take the wins where you can. Hayden
Thank you
Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome
Really interesting to listen to that Alastair. I’m no expert in the slightest, but acceptance is the biggest challenge for me. I also accept now acceptance will be a lifetime of study to which at times they’re aren’t any answers, but at other times I’ll gain a better understanding
Hi Leo thanks for commenting. You are someone I sometimes think about in the woodworking world and wonder how it has been from you going from able to ‘disabled’ which is such a loaded word. The fact that you have written ‘disability woodworking’ on your Instagram profile suggests a certain level of acceptance and embracing it as part of your identity. Or at least as part of your current reality. The identity thing is what I often wrestle with. My son is irrevocably changed in brain and body by a bleed on the brain which, to my mind ‘shouldn’t have happened’. So acceptance was difficult because I felt like the real Isaac was somehow stolen from us, and as a father my instinct was to fight against this. But it was a futile fight that not only didn’t serve Isaac’s best interests, but actually risked damaging my relationship with him and his chances in life. So it gets me thinking how for all of us, our identity is shaped by what we go through. I suffer from thinking too much - I have a lot to learn from Isaac himself who, at least for now, doesn’t even ask these questions. He’s happy!
@@Alastair_Freebird I hear all of this pal. Post accident I even tried to distinguish between ‘disability’ and ‘disabled’ as for some reason I saw one as temporary and the other permanent, however I didn’t realise the extent of the issue at the time and was in complete denial of my situation.
When in down times I can revisit all of the reasons as to why I shouldn’t have been in the car at that junction at that time when the idiot who hit me did (and there are plenty), but all it ends up doing is exhausting energy I don’t have to spare and sending me down to the bottom of the well I’m trying my best to climb out of. Professional help has benefited me as it allows me to ‘offload’ without thinking about the burden of placing these thoughts and feelings on my nearest and dearest.
I’m in a better place now pal, but suffer from similar as you say in over thinking things when they don’t go the way I would like / want them to. I am a different person now to what I was pre car crash, but I’m also learning that different doesn’t necessarily mean negative. I’m so lucky in my new found interest of woodworking / making stuff to find personal achievement and satisfaction to a degree I wouldn’t be experiencing as an ‘able bodied’ person as I wouldn’t be focusing and devoting the same amount of time to it and using my problem solving mind.
Flip side is I still get extremely frustrated with normal everyday tasks and adapting to my real world job now as a disabled person as opposed to my life prior to May 2018. As I said previously, it will be a lifetime of study and one I’ll likely never master
When your born into this world you’ve basically been given a ticket to a freak show ….. If you were born in America you got a front row seat ….many people have told me that I’m “Mad” ….They’re re slightly taken aback when I agree, but as I say to them, “I know I’m Mad…….but it’s those who don’t know they are Mad that worry me”……!!!
At the end of the day mate, you’re a decent human being. There are plenty out there who don’t care about other people and just look out for themselves. I run a similar business to yourself albeit on a smaller scale and you’ve been an inspiration to me. Your methods and the whole way you go about it are spot on and I must admit I’ve nicked quite a few of your ideas and for that I thank you 👍🏻
Learn to live and appreciate what you already have.
Life is short
Hope that doesn't sound harsh
Not harsh. Directness is refreshing and helpful for an over thinker like me!
What was it that led you to an autism diagnosis? We're of a similar age and I must admit that I've wondered about AS myself but considered investigating it too trivial to burden my GP with (typical bloke!), despite the - I believe - enormous impact it's had on my life. All the best 🙏
Hi I’m so sorry I didn’t reply to this til now. It was a long slow process starting with an American relative suggesting to me that I have ADD. I initially rejected the whole idea but started to notice things, then read up on it, then felt that looking into it all might be helpful. Took a few years to be seen properly through the NHS and get this diagnosis, I’m still tempted to question it but it’s sort of helpful too.
Great idea Alastair, where abouts are you?
I can to Vancouver for a Sketchup conference, then stayed on 10 days exploring mostly north of Vancouver. Here I was on trails above the ‘sea to sky gondola’ just south of Squamish. Incredible area, so beautiful.
@@Alastair_Freebird
That’s great man well done 👍🏻 I don’t think I’ve ever commented before but I do watch and enjoy your carpentry videos. You do quality work ! And the vids are extremely helpful.
I only asked as I lived in Canada for a few years so it interested me where you were exploring……it’s a fantastic place to be.
I am a carpenter and did some timber frame work there, back in uk now. All the best dude
Being a finish carpenter/ contractor who has made lots of cabinets and before that spent 30 yrs as a Police Officer, middle management & Homicide Detective I kind of understand the level of detail needed to build and prosecute?
However ; when instead of focusing ON ME, I focused on others I found that is a trait of Christ! News flash there is no great evolution of man ? Because there is not one shred of evidence of macro evolution! And only one truth exist not many! Read your Bible and call upon your creator to reveal himself to U! I hv experienced more stress than you could imagine! Like literally struggling for your life!
Stop focusing on U. Your fine focus on others and stop reflecting? That’s a woke trait we need real men in this world!
Hi! I also am a Christian, and have built my business on serving others. Giving free technical advice on youtube but also across many personal messages, I believe that 'a generous man will prosper', but more deeply than that I believe it's just right to do good regardless of reward. I took a similar attitude in my physical business, overpaying early apprentices, and fighting to prevent deportation of my first apprentice who had been trained to a high level in this country but was due to be sent back abroad due to his father's immigration status. As my business grew, and especially since having a disabled son, the personal costs of my slightly naive ways of doing business became greater and greater and I found myself hitting up against personal barriers (we all have limitations) which were preventing me or the business moving forward. It became increasingly clear that serving my customers, staff and online followers without serious consideration of my own financial reward actually meant I was putting them before my own family. Which is a wrong set of priorities. Yet I was hitting upon real personal limitations in my ability to manage a growing business effectively. So a diagnosis of neurodiversity has been helpful in making sense of things. I also feel at liberty to be so open as I am in this video because 'the most personal is the most universal' - I have consistently found in my interaction with my trade followers that this sort of vulnerability aids others' self awareness and gives them permission to face and deal with things, as real men should. I will certainly not apologise to you for a short period of self reflection, during a 10 day holiday, the purpose of which was for me start to work through burnout. When we are willing to look at out own weaknesses and take responsibility for them, but to lean on God for strength, then we are on the path Jesus modelled to us. Are you dealing with your own causes of stress and the struggles for your life which you mentioned? Is it perhaps worth you reflecting on why this video has provoked such a strong reaction? I recommend looking outwards to serve and to understand, not to judge.
Money is not the answer and work brings stress. I work as little as I can 2/3 days a week. Mate drs will say anything to get you as a patient. We're all god's creation and we are what we are.
I agree, we are what we are. What has a label these days did not have a label before, and there are different ways of looking at it, the important thing is accepting ourselves.
Also over here doctors do not want us as patients, it’s hard to even see a doctor lately!
Nothing is impossible with God. We dont have to do everything ourselves.
If you genuinly open your heart for Christ, ask Him to help/guide you and reveil the truth to you...
You will get a life like never before when you trust in Him as our saviour.
Hi, I’ve been a Christian since I was 7 years old and prayed a personal prayer of commitment. Like many Christians I have experienced times of apparent miraculous answered prayer, and other times when God seems unaccountably silent. I have had a broken foot prayed for by Bill Johnson and experienced a weird sensation along the fracture line as he prayed. I once received a load of tools for free that helped move my business forward, the day after a friend and I said a prayer in my workshop. These things are not what the faith life is really all about, but I share them to try and make a connection with you. I grew up in a sheltered Christian environment and developed a naive expectation that the life of faith meant a life shielded from suffering. When I first encountered real suffering and then returned to the bible it was like my eyes were being opened - suffering had always been there, in fact Christ assured us of it (‘in this world you will have trouble…’). Our hope is not ultimately that all our worldly troubles will be taken away. The promise you have held out to me, presumably thinking I am not a Christian, is potentially deceptive, if it is intended to suggest that life inevitably gets easier or happier as a Christian. The greatest saints have experienced the darkest nights of the soul, and holding on to God in those times is the essence of faith. Our hope is above and beyond the troubles of the world which we cannot expect to escape. I went many years holding on to a form of faith that demanded God must heal, if only I could muster sufficient faith to demand it of Him. Eventually the cognitive dissonance reached fever pitch. I mean for example, I reached a point where I had to accept and serve my son as he is, not hold out forever for him to be healed. Because this was the most loving thing to do, and the only option eventually left open to me. I admire people who can hold this cognitive dissonance lightly - accepting both the ‘now’ and the ‘not yet’ in a spirit of surrender. I’m closer now to that surrender than I was in the bitter days after the trauma of my son’s birth and brain injuries. Lately I am much more comfortable accepting the mysteries of God and the life of faith. I can’t put him in a box. I find it healthier to be honest, to face the pain and the confusion and not to hide behind simplistic Christian words, and I try to remember to take that honesty to Him. I do pray, though with less fervour than I used to (hope deferred makes the heart sick). If you feel led to pray for me and my family I most certainly welcome it. Thanks for commenting.