TRUE STORY

The Healing Power of Yellowstone: My Binge-Watching Experience

A Personal Journey Full of Inspirational Quotes

Annie Trevaskis
4 min readSep 6, 2023

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Montana scenery: mountains, clouds, forest
Montana Scenery. Photo by Lucas Parker on Unsplash

Yellowstone is a neo-Western starring Kevin Costner that follows the owners of the largest ranch in Montana. I recently managed to watch 47 episodes in ten days. I really ought to get out more.

I could blame Matt Haig. I have a copy of his Comfort Book, and I reached for it on a particularly low day and got this advice:

You don’t always have to do stuff. Or achieve stuff. You don’t have to spend your free time productively. You don’t have to be doing Tai Chi and DIY and bread-making. Sometimes you can just be and feel things and get through and eat crips and survive, and that is more than enough.

I am a doer. So, when I started to struggle with my latest failure, when anxiety and worry got the better of me, and when sleep became disturbed, I got busy doing things. I did yoga and healthy eating, I started trying to think and act my way out of the mess I was in. I wrote goals and lists of what I needed to do. I was not going to give in, dammit. I was going to actively work my way back to a better place. It didn’t work.

So, when I read Matt Haig’s advice, I burst into tears and decided to try surrender instead. I gave…

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Annie Trevaskis
Annie Trevaskis

Written by Annie Trevaskis

I came, I wrote, I conquered. That last bit might not be true, but at least I am putting up a good fight.

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