Viva Lewes Issue #157 October 2019

INTERVIEW
Imagine Eating Lemons
Helping children with anxiety
‘Your thoughts are very
powerful, they change the
way you feel. / Imagine eating
lemons and your mouth will
think it’s real.’
This is what Chester Chestnut
learns in Jason Rhodes’
excellent children’s book
Imagine Eating Lemons. It’s a
long way from being preachy.
Instead, it uses rhyme and
wonderful illustrations by
Richard Dearing, to take us
inside Chester’s experiences of
rising anxiety – ‘Today he starts
his lessons, / he’s the only one
that’s new. // “What if I’m too
shy to play, / I don’t know what
I’ll do!” – and the steps he’s
learnt (through mindfulness) to
lower it.
I imagine it would be a lovely
book to read in a group,
everyone joining in the
refrain… I like the repeating
pattern too: you don’t solve
anxiety once and for all;
you need to keep taking the
steps. (Those sneaky slippery
thoughts.)
I met up with Jason to chat
through how the book had
come about and what his
intentions were in writing it.
“For me, extreme anxiety came
on when I was about 25”, he
tells me. “My world got smaller
and smaller. My anxiety at times
would make me physically sick.”
So he tried, he says, “to find
tools” to help. “I tried CBT,
hypnotherapy, I read all these
books. And then I stumbled on
mindfulness, and things just
clicked into place. It was one
realisation that did it: someone
said, the body can’t tell the
difference between a real threat
and an imagined one, and the
penny just dropped. I realised
that, whenever I struggled the
most, I was focussing solely
on worst case scenarios. Now
I really want to pass on what
I have found, especially to
children.”
He believes if children learn
these things early it could,
potentially, save them a lot of
grief later.
So why the rhymes, I ask him.
He laughs. “The rhyme was
not intentional; nor indeed
was writing a book! Someone
suggested it, and then the
ideas just started to come. The
chorus came first. And the
character. And yes, rhymes do
help; it’s like song,” he says. “It
makes it easier to remember.”
The lemon at the centre “comes
directly from an exercise,”
Jason tells me. “If you really
imagine eating a zesty tangy
lemon, your mouth starts to
salivate. It proves the body and
our thoughts are connected! All
your mind’s trying to do is keep
you alive. It’s on your side. Just
sometimes, its methods cause
problems.
“Mindfulness is about
recognising which thoughts
you’re giving your attention
to. We’re not comfortable with
discomfort; we think we can’t
tolerate it. In fact, staying with
it long enough to separate the
negative thoughts from the
sensation can stop it escalating.
We can grow much stronger
and more resourceful just by
being present.” Charlotte Gann
Imagine Eating Lemons is
available in Boon Books.