It’s well into Autumn now and sometimes it can be hard to remember the warm(ish) days of summer and those long evenings. As the days grow shorter and colder and literally close in, very many people feel unsettled and low at this time of year. Autumn often heralds the start of low mood and mild depression and doctors have recognised this and called it Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. It is thought to be linked to the lack of sunlight and it can be hugely improved by spending time outdoors or by investing in 15 minutes a day in front of a light box!
SAD or not, most of us could benefit from investing 15 minutes a day on nurturing ourselves. It is easy to start the gradual slide into a mild depression. It is easy to allow stressful events in our lives or an overload at work to engulf and overcome us. Sometimes life just throws the worst of situations at us and there is nothing we can do except to get on and go through it until things improve. But we do not have to slide down the slippery slope.
It would be easy to say that if we look on the bright side, count our blessings every day and meditate on flood victims and starving children that we would feel better about our lot. Yet such a Pollyanna strategy could as easily irritate. After all, there’s always someone better off than us and someone worse off, it doesn’t ultimately help our own self right now. The Buddhists, Zen masters and Taoists have a more realistic way of living; they practice “mindfulness.”
Mindfulness refers to being completely in touch with and aware of the present moment, as well as being non-judgemental to your inner thoughts or your experience at that moment in time. It is very much about accepting things as they are right at that moment and not analysing or evaluating your thoughts, just noticing them. It is gaining ground as a way of alleviating depression, anxiety and even post traumatic stress disorder. I talk to my stressed and depressed clients about mindfulness and about finding the joy in small things. It is far easier to notice small beauties than it is to force yourself into thinking that your life is perfectly fine when the reality is that you are going through a complete nightmare!
So if things are all too much, if it feels impossible to be thankful, if you can’t see the wood for the trees then focus in on the very small things that ARE ok, if only in that very moment. Noticing the beauty in a ray of sunshine across your kitchen worktop; seeing a vivid and beautiful colour; hearing an exquisite piece of music; finding a conker that sits perfectly in your hand; feeling the tingling spray from a shower in the morning. Just noticing, paying attention to, being mindful of tiny things at that very moment in time can be enough beauty and joy to help you through the day. We all have a basic human need for beauty and joy, to keep us content, to keep our mood elevated, raise the feel-good chemicals in the brain. If we can do this daily, even for a short moment, it will pay off in the longer term.
We can accept our thoughts for what they are; we can notice how we may feel overwhelmed, rattled, angry, sad. They are thoughts, at that moment, not a great predictor of the future to come, nor an analysis of the past, only the thought of a moment. After that thought comes another thought and we can experience it without dwelling on it or judging it. And if we practise noticing any moments or experiences of joy or beauty that occur, then how much more comfortable does this feel than allowing ourselves only the feelings of sadness. Try it, I promise it helps.
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Friday, 7 October 2011
Monday, 4 January 2010
New Year's Resolutions and how to keep them
Happy New Year to you all in 2010. Today's blog is about how to get to the end of the year feeling great, having achieved what you wanted to achieve.
In common with many others born before the 1980s, I do think that the year 2010 still sounds a long way in the future rather than really today. Do you remember that programme "Space 1999" where they lived on the moon or some such planet?
But I digress....
How to start the year and carry on in a good groove? I find that there are a few big depression points in the year. One is when the clocks go back in October and it feels like winter. The next is Christmas for some, then New Year, which some people detest. Thereafter the stretch from the Christmas holidays to Easter and the clocks going forward again can seem very long and cold.
When you add to that stretch the disappointment that many people feel when they realise that they have failed in their New Years resolutions, it can make for dark days indeed. So how can you make those resolutions and actually stick to them this year?
The first option is not to bother at all! This will achieve the aim but may also set you up for a depressing New Years eve at the end of the year. I'm going to give you a new alternative.
I now assume that you have a few "resolutions" for the year ahead. Firstly, don't put yourself under pressure. There is no magic about the date of 1st January. How many smokers have resolved to quit and by the morning of 2nd January are back ont he smokes? Mainly because there was too much pressure put on a date that is only a mark in the calendar after all and the smoker was not ready on that day. That's why I am writing this post today. If you have alreday slipped up, don't sweat, start again tomorrow, or on Wednesday, it really doesn't matter so much.
Your first task is to get hold of a blank book, notebook, a small folder, file, page in your filofax, note in your Blueberry etc. The next is to note down your goals for the year on the front page. Write them quite briefly and succinctly eg. Improve my fitness, Lose weight etc.
Then take another page for each of your goals and now comes the interesting part. Each goal now needs to be made SMART. Smart goals are:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Realistic
T - Timebound
So my weight loss goal is to lose 12lb (specific & measurable) by Easter (timebound). Now I do my reality check and ask whether I CAN achieve this goal. Is it a realistic goal to set? Don't over-stretch yourself or you will set yourself up for failure. You want to be setting yourself up for success at this point. The question to ask is, "If I put some effort in, which does not impact negatively on the rest of my life, can I do this?"
If you have a goal which has a negative impact elsewhere in your life, it might not be a goal that you really want to achieve. Hence you most likely won't see it through. If running a marathon means that you spend a lot of time at weekends running and don't see your family, you may have derailed one of your values of spending time together. At some point this conflict will result in a change and the change may be that the marathon is not as important as family therefore you drop the marathon and feel disapointed in yourself. Goals MUST be realistic and fit in with your values and beliefs.
Now you have your SMART goal, put some detail into your plans as to how you are going to achieve this goal. It's all very well to have a goal but you do ned to understand HOW you will achieve it. A goal on it's own is not enough. So plan all the parts and tasks that have to come together to get to the timebound end with your goal having been achieved.
Again, each part of the plan must be SMART. For my weight loss goal I might write down that I will go to the gym. I will go once per week in January, twice per week in February, building up to a habit of going to the gym 3 times per week, which I want to achieve by May. Think about everything that surrounds these plans, make them achievable. I know for a fact that if I try to start off by going to the gym 3 times per week from today, I won't be able to keep it up. So my goal is realistic and increases with time. Too much change at once is not realistic for our poor little brains!
We are creatures of habit and the mind loves habit. So if you have a couch potato habit, the mind is going to be very resistant to a sudden change to a gym bunny habit. It will do everything in it's power to stop you going to the gym and holding on to it's couch potato life. After all, you have survived this long by lying on the couch.
Go through each goal in excatly the same way so you end up with a few pages of SMART plans, one for each goal. Now you are ready to put it all into action.
Every day or two, look at your plans and goals and check whether you have made prgress today or this week on your goals. If you do this systematically, you will jog yourself into taking action. The idea is to make progress weekly so you must review weekly at least. It is a good idea to set time in your diary to do this, just 15 minutes is enough. If you do it at the same time every week, you will soon establish this as a habit too.
You can note down your progress as you go through the months and then you can see, record and keep track. By the end of the year, perhaps you won't have achieved everything you set out to do but I know for sure that you will have made progress on each one. That will feel very satisfying to you by the time 2011 comes round.
OK, I'm off to the gym!
In common with many others born before the 1980s, I do think that the year 2010 still sounds a long way in the future rather than really today. Do you remember that programme "Space 1999" where they lived on the moon or some such planet?
But I digress....
How to start the year and carry on in a good groove? I find that there are a few big depression points in the year. One is when the clocks go back in October and it feels like winter. The next is Christmas for some, then New Year, which some people detest. Thereafter the stretch from the Christmas holidays to Easter and the clocks going forward again can seem very long and cold.
When you add to that stretch the disappointment that many people feel when they realise that they have failed in their New Years resolutions, it can make for dark days indeed. So how can you make those resolutions and actually stick to them this year?
The first option is not to bother at all! This will achieve the aim but may also set you up for a depressing New Years eve at the end of the year. I'm going to give you a new alternative.
I now assume that you have a few "resolutions" for the year ahead. Firstly, don't put yourself under pressure. There is no magic about the date of 1st January. How many smokers have resolved to quit and by the morning of 2nd January are back ont he smokes? Mainly because there was too much pressure put on a date that is only a mark in the calendar after all and the smoker was not ready on that day. That's why I am writing this post today. If you have alreday slipped up, don't sweat, start again tomorrow, or on Wednesday, it really doesn't matter so much.
Your first task is to get hold of a blank book, notebook, a small folder, file, page in your filofax, note in your Blueberry etc. The next is to note down your goals for the year on the front page. Write them quite briefly and succinctly eg. Improve my fitness, Lose weight etc.
Then take another page for each of your goals and now comes the interesting part. Each goal now needs to be made SMART. Smart goals are:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Realistic
T - Timebound
So my weight loss goal is to lose 12lb (specific & measurable) by Easter (timebound). Now I do my reality check and ask whether I CAN achieve this goal. Is it a realistic goal to set? Don't over-stretch yourself or you will set yourself up for failure. You want to be setting yourself up for success at this point. The question to ask is, "If I put some effort in, which does not impact negatively on the rest of my life, can I do this?"
If you have a goal which has a negative impact elsewhere in your life, it might not be a goal that you really want to achieve. Hence you most likely won't see it through. If running a marathon means that you spend a lot of time at weekends running and don't see your family, you may have derailed one of your values of spending time together. At some point this conflict will result in a change and the change may be that the marathon is not as important as family therefore you drop the marathon and feel disapointed in yourself. Goals MUST be realistic and fit in with your values and beliefs.
Now you have your SMART goal, put some detail into your plans as to how you are going to achieve this goal. It's all very well to have a goal but you do ned to understand HOW you will achieve it. A goal on it's own is not enough. So plan all the parts and tasks that have to come together to get to the timebound end with your goal having been achieved.
Again, each part of the plan must be SMART. For my weight loss goal I might write down that I will go to the gym. I will go once per week in January, twice per week in February, building up to a habit of going to the gym 3 times per week, which I want to achieve by May. Think about everything that surrounds these plans, make them achievable. I know for a fact that if I try to start off by going to the gym 3 times per week from today, I won't be able to keep it up. So my goal is realistic and increases with time. Too much change at once is not realistic for our poor little brains!
We are creatures of habit and the mind loves habit. So if you have a couch potato habit, the mind is going to be very resistant to a sudden change to a gym bunny habit. It will do everything in it's power to stop you going to the gym and holding on to it's couch potato life. After all, you have survived this long by lying on the couch.
Go through each goal in excatly the same way so you end up with a few pages of SMART plans, one for each goal. Now you are ready to put it all into action.
Every day or two, look at your plans and goals and check whether you have made prgress today or this week on your goals. If you do this systematically, you will jog yourself into taking action. The idea is to make progress weekly so you must review weekly at least. It is a good idea to set time in your diary to do this, just 15 minutes is enough. If you do it at the same time every week, you will soon establish this as a habit too.
You can note down your progress as you go through the months and then you can see, record and keep track. By the end of the year, perhaps you won't have achieved everything you set out to do but I know for sure that you will have made progress on each one. That will feel very satisfying to you by the time 2011 comes round.
OK, I'm off to the gym!
Monday, 16 February 2009
Equilibrium
Lost my equilibrium for a short while. Had a wobbly blip. It happens, even though peeps think it doesn't. As I said in an earlier post, this is the real world and it's not quite as fluffy as we would all like. Anyhow, the status quo is mostly restored.
I was in London today and I managed to take a short walk in Regents Park. I loved seeing the wonderful old trees. I always feel very grounded by large trees; they are so old, it's as if the wisdom of the world is rising through their roots. I find the winter, bare branches look enables you to see their beauty best. It was quite restorative.
I was able to do a little people watching too, which I find is best in cities. I saw a few people who looked like the sort of people I might have been friends with if I had that sort of a city life and it got me thinking about the "turn of a sixpence" theme again. When I got my A level results I had dropped one grade which meant that I was no longer eligible for a place at City University in London. I was heartbroken. All I wanted was to escape my small-town country upbringing and get living!
I ended up going to a very second choice small-town campus university which I was never entirely happy with. Then my life went in some strange directions and about 15 years later I found myself writing a letter to my Grandma that I was enjoying living in my new house but it was in the middle of a large town. Luckily I was right next to a park and could see trees outside my study window. I spent a lot of time staring at those trees that year and I longed for more grass and mud.
And so I realised that in fact I was a bit of a country girl. So every time I visit London I am faced with the image of what might have been and I honestly feel glad that it wasn't. Yet that one dropped grade held the key and I never knew. Everything would have been different and I would have been a very different person, and I am not sure I would have been happy shoehorning myself in to that life.
I am fascinated that small events in our pasts shape our futures so much. Who knows what I am doing right now that seems insignificant, yet could change the course of events.
I think the key is making the best of the hand we are dealt. It is not what happens in our lives that shape us and give us happiness, it is our responses.
I was in London today and I managed to take a short walk in Regents Park. I loved seeing the wonderful old trees. I always feel very grounded by large trees; they are so old, it's as if the wisdom of the world is rising through their roots. I find the winter, bare branches look enables you to see their beauty best. It was quite restorative.
I was able to do a little people watching too, which I find is best in cities. I saw a few people who looked like the sort of people I might have been friends with if I had that sort of a city life and it got me thinking about the "turn of a sixpence" theme again. When I got my A level results I had dropped one grade which meant that I was no longer eligible for a place at City University in London. I was heartbroken. All I wanted was to escape my small-town country upbringing and get living!
I ended up going to a very second choice small-town campus university which I was never entirely happy with. Then my life went in some strange directions and about 15 years later I found myself writing a letter to my Grandma that I was enjoying living in my new house but it was in the middle of a large town. Luckily I was right next to a park and could see trees outside my study window. I spent a lot of time staring at those trees that year and I longed for more grass and mud.
And so I realised that in fact I was a bit of a country girl. So every time I visit London I am faced with the image of what might have been and I honestly feel glad that it wasn't. Yet that one dropped grade held the key and I never knew. Everything would have been different and I would have been a very different person, and I am not sure I would have been happy shoehorning myself in to that life.
I am fascinated that small events in our pasts shape our futures so much. Who knows what I am doing right now that seems insignificant, yet could change the course of events.
I think the key is making the best of the hand we are dealt. It is not what happens in our lives that shape us and give us happiness, it is our responses.
Monday, 9 February 2009
Embarrassing Brits
I am again embarrassed to be a Brit for the second time in a fortnight. Last night it snowed again, probably about an inch and the temperature dropped leaving the place very icy this morning, with some dangerous roads. But most roads are passable if you drive carefully at the correct speed for the road, your vehicle and your level of driving expertise.
So what happens? Many of our schools are closed again because it is felt that it is "not safe for staff or pupils" What the hell is going on here? Why don't people just go to work and go to school? So they might fall over on the ice. So what? They are not going to die! My goodness if I had missed school every day it was icy I would never have learnt anything! And nor would any other children in North West Europe or Canada or anywhere else that's cold. Clearly our current batch of headteachers are frightened to take a stand, to make any kind of decision other than a scared one.
What happened to the Dunkirk spirit? What happened to struggle over adversity? What happened to ORDINARY COMMON SENSE???????????
I fear we are teaching our children to be complete cowards, frightened to take the smallest risk. We are teaching a nation to grow up like the Mavis character on Coronation Street - "Oooh, I don't really knoooww." Great, what a future to look forward to.
I must not forget to add, both Squeaky and I have suffered injuries from the weather. He was walking the dog yesterday when he fell over, whereupon Patchwork dog carried on walking/bouncing and poor Squeaky didn't think to let go of the lead. Heaven knows why as he usually drops it at the least pause in concentration, but not today. So dog bounces away and drags poor Squeaky boy behind her through the lumpy hard snow. Much crying and bruised faces and noses and wet clothes. Huge cuddles needed.
And stupid, stupid me! I was shovelling snow on Saturday morning. Just on the last 5 minutes. Aha, a great piece of ice, let's just move that away and then I'll be finished. Too hard to break it into pieces, let's just lift the big heavy ice in one piece and throw it over..... AAARRRGGGHH! And there I was, doubled over the shovel, my back knackered. And only just having had it expensively put back together again by the wonderful Patt (Here's her website, she is AMAZING! http://www.pattstock.co.uk/)
It is VERY irritating!
So what happens? Many of our schools are closed again because it is felt that it is "not safe for staff or pupils" What the hell is going on here? Why don't people just go to work and go to school? So they might fall over on the ice. So what? They are not going to die! My goodness if I had missed school every day it was icy I would never have learnt anything! And nor would any other children in North West Europe or Canada or anywhere else that's cold. Clearly our current batch of headteachers are frightened to take a stand, to make any kind of decision other than a scared one.
What happened to the Dunkirk spirit? What happened to struggle over adversity? What happened to ORDINARY COMMON SENSE???????????
I fear we are teaching our children to be complete cowards, frightened to take the smallest risk. We are teaching a nation to grow up like the Mavis character on Coronation Street - "Oooh, I don't really knoooww." Great, what a future to look forward to.
I must not forget to add, both Squeaky and I have suffered injuries from the weather. He was walking the dog yesterday when he fell over, whereupon Patchwork dog carried on walking/bouncing and poor Squeaky didn't think to let go of the lead. Heaven knows why as he usually drops it at the least pause in concentration, but not today. So dog bounces away and drags poor Squeaky boy behind her through the lumpy hard snow. Much crying and bruised faces and noses and wet clothes. Huge cuddles needed.
And stupid, stupid me! I was shovelling snow on Saturday morning. Just on the last 5 minutes. Aha, a great piece of ice, let's just move that away and then I'll be finished. Too hard to break it into pieces, let's just lift the big heavy ice in one piece and throw it over..... AAARRRGGGHH! And there I was, doubled over the shovel, my back knackered. And only just having had it expensively put back together again by the wonderful Patt (Here's her website, she is AMAZING! http://www.pattstock.co.uk/)
It is VERY irritating!
Monday, 2 February 2009
Let it Snow!
Well it's snowing beautifully here. I love snow. But let's face it, the Brits are useless at snow. Well aren't they?
This morning I drove into town and the roads were absolutely clear, about as wet as on a slightly rainy day. Yet there was some idiot who was driving at 20 mph. At 20! I ask you! Just a tiny flurry and the entire country turns into a quaking mushy scaredy mass. Frankly it's embarrassing.
I remember driving down the motorway in Germany in a blizzard, with an inch of snow on the road and it was so cold that the windscreen was icing up because the wipers and the heater couldn't kep it warm enough. We were driving at 40 or 50 and there were cars passing us! Yet when there is an inch of snow on the verge here, we feel the need to slow down to a crawl. No wonder the country comes to a standstill.
I remember in the 1980s being snowed in at home under inches and inches of snow with enormous drifts. Every way out of the village was a hill and we just couldn't get out. We missed days off school that winter because the buses couldn't get to us. I hated living in the back of beyond really but not that winter! And there were other winters that had a few days the same. But now we don't have proper cold winters with proper snow and people just aren't used to it. It's a shame.
This morning I drove into town and the roads were absolutely clear, about as wet as on a slightly rainy day. Yet there was some idiot who was driving at 20 mph. At 20! I ask you! Just a tiny flurry and the entire country turns into a quaking mushy scaredy mass. Frankly it's embarrassing.
I remember driving down the motorway in Germany in a blizzard, with an inch of snow on the road and it was so cold that the windscreen was icing up because the wipers and the heater couldn't kep it warm enough. We were driving at 40 or 50 and there were cars passing us! Yet when there is an inch of snow on the verge here, we feel the need to slow down to a crawl. No wonder the country comes to a standstill.
I remember in the 1980s being snowed in at home under inches and inches of snow with enormous drifts. Every way out of the village was a hill and we just couldn't get out. We missed days off school that winter because the buses couldn't get to us. I hated living in the back of beyond really but not that winter! And there were other winters that had a few days the same. But now we don't have proper cold winters with proper snow and people just aren't used to it. It's a shame.
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