One Foot in the Right Direction

Janet Dunne spent years searching for answers to bipolar disorder and depression, finding guidance in unexpected places ranging from hospitals and therapy to spiritual teachers and self-help books. Along the way, she discovered that many of those lessons pointed to the same simple idea: acknowledge your thoughts and feelings, but don’t let them control you. In this episode, we explore her deeply personal journey and the experiences that inspired her to share it with others.

Janet: Don’t hold on to your thoughts, don’t hold on to feelings. If it’s a bad feeling, let it go. If it’s a good feeling, let it go.

Sam: Just… let it go.

That sounds easy enough. But if you’re suffering from bipolar disorder, you might be inclined to resist that advice. Our guest today, Janet Dunne, says don’t. She the author of the book One Foot in the Right Direction: Bipolar, a Mental Health Problem and today, we’re going to learn  why letting go is so important. .

Theme: The Curated Chapter

Sam: Part memoir and part self-help guide, One Foot in the Right Direction chronicles Janet Dunne’s journey through bipolar disorder and depression. Along the way, she shares the lessons, people, and practices that helped her rebuild her life and find hope again.

Janet: I found my adult life harder than my childhood. My childhood was lovely. It wasn’t perfect, but I was a happy child. I made mistakes and held on to things, held on to memories, and I got myself into trouble basically.

Sam: Janet Dunne grew up in Dublin with a mystery at the center of her life.

When she was three years old, her father disappeared. Not in the way you might be thinking. He became an actual missing person. For years, Janet hoped and prayed that he would come home safely, but he never did.

What followed was a childhood filled with contradictions. There were difficult moments: struggles in school, anxiety, and grief. But there were also adventures with friends, afternoons spent with her grandmother, family stories, music, art, and laughter.

As Janet entered adulthood, the challenges she had carried for years began to intensify. Eventually, she found herself in Ireland’s mental health system searching for answers. What frustrated her most was the lack of explanation.

Janet: I live in Ireland and the system in Ireland when you have mental health, they don’t explain the mental health problems to you. So you’re just put on medication and you’re basically in the system that’s in Ireland because I was in the system. I didn’t have private health insurance, so I was going through the normal system that’s there for all the rest of the people.”

Sam: Janet wasn’t satisfied with simply being told what medication to take. She wanted to understand what was happening to her and why. When those answers didn’t come, she began looking elsewhere.

Janet: Right from the get-go when I came out of hospital, one of my first things to do was to run to a church and pray to God to help me because I was in a very, very weird place that I had never been before. So I was searching outside myself.”

Sam: Janet’s search for answers would eventually take her far beyond Ireland. Along the way she encountered therapists, spiritual teachers, self-help authors, and even an Aboriginal healer whose advice would become one of the central lessons of her book.

Janet: He explained to me that there was a darkness in my life and that that darkness was attacking me and not letting me have my life the way I want my life to be. 

Sam: So she asked if she could pay him for a healing session and his answer surprised her.

Janet: He said if I was to take money off you, I would lose the gift that I have. So in my head I just said quick, ask him again, ask him again, but don’t mention no money. And in the next breath then I said to him, can you do a healing for me? And I held back about money, yeah, I said nothing about money. And the healing started instantaneously and I just started crying buckets and buckets of tears. 

Sam: That was a powerful experience because she felt like she wasn’t speaking to someone interested in just making money. She was speaking to someone who genuinely believed he could help her.

Janet: And so, what he actually told me to do was when that darkness comes to pause, don’t say anything, don’t think anything and don’t do anything. And that will allow that darkness to pass by. But if I think any thoughts or say anything or move a muscle in my body, that the darkness will be able to attach. I know this sounds weird, but I did what you said and it really, really works.

Sam: And then she shared her experience with a friend who was also in need of help.

Janet: And I also had a friend who was suicidal and I explained that technique to him. And then the next time I asked him, how are you now? He said, it’s gone, it’s over. I explained about the Aborigine to him. So that was it. That was a great breakthrough.

Sam:  Just to be clear, these are Janets experiences if you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts I would call the 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.  Janet says another turning point came after a family crisis led her to leave Ireland altogether.

Janet: I was 10 years in the system before I actually took sick and landed in a German hospital. And that’s a really funny story because my psychiatrist in Ireland said, the next time there’s a problem in your family, I want you out of the scenario. I don’t want you to be any part of it the next time there would be a drama. And so when a drama happened in my life, I took the plane to Germany and ended up in a German hospital. And that’s, and that was another fantastic breakthrough because their system to deal with the mental illness was completely different to the Irish system. You know, the Irish system is old fashioned. The Germans are modern, forward thinking about mental illness.

Sam: Germany didn’t cure Janet’s problems. But it did change the way she thought about them. Her experiences so far led to thinking that recovery might require more than medication.

Janet: When I came back from Germany, I said, okay, Janet, you’re going to have to do this yourself now. And I looked up cognitive therapy and I went to cognitive therapy. Then I went to yoga, a yoga retreat for spiritual healing. It was actually a kundalini yoga course and it was absolutely fantastic.

Sam: At the Yoga retreat, Janet met a teacher named Satantra who reinforced some of he earlier advice she was given.

Janet: And he said that when you think of your thoughts, he said, your thoughts are like your happiness and thoughts coming into your head. You need to be like a tree with loads of branches and you let the thought come in like a breeze going through leaves. And then you just let it pass by. And that was similar to the Aborigine man. Don’t hold on to your thoughts, don’t hold on to feelings. You know, if it’s a bad feeling, let it go. If it’s a good feeling, let it go.

Sam: Different methodology but ultimately the same message, don’t fight every thought. Don’t cling to every feeling. Acknowledge your feelings but don’t hold onto them. Just…let it go.

Janet: I’m just hoping it helps people.

Sam: Throughout her journey, Janet searched for answers in many places. In hospitals. In therapy. In spirituality. In self-help books. In conversations with people who offered unexpected wisdom. But one of the most important discoveries she made was that no one could do the work for her.

Janet: I hope that they will realize that through some of the things that I learned along the way came from within me, solving the problem.

Sam:  One Foot in the Right Direction is Janet Dunne’s attempt to share that journey with others who may be facing similar struggles. Not as a doctor or a therapist, but as someone who has walked that road herself and hopes her experiences might help someone else find their own way forward. If Janet’s story resonates with you or someone you know, the book is called One Foot in the Right Direction: Bipolar, a Mental Health Problem by Janet Dunne, (D-u-n-n-e) Its available now. 

Janet (80 Pages) It’s not a, it’s not a long read, but I hope it’s an interesting take for people. It is. And it can help so many people.

Thank you Janet for sharing your story and thank you for listening.  

Theme: The Curated Chapter