lessonsinkindness-blog

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

down the rabbit hole.

[Morpheus]:

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed, and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more”

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Among life’s many myths is the idea that should you try your best, be a kind person, and persevere in the face of adversity, that at the end of the tunnel will be a light. That light, when reached, will shine brightly and represent the realisation of all the hopes, dreams and aspirations that made the long journey worth it.

Understandably, when we are faced with life’s troubles and hardships, we need a lifejacket and oxygen mask to cling on to. That lifejacket or oxygen mask might be any number of things. Mixed up in those options somewhere I believe, are myth, fable, and at times, religion.

Society has always held a place for myths and stories. They help us build narratives around our experiences, make some sense of the world, and to a certain extent, find our place within it. They can help lift us out of troubled waters, give us hope under a black sky, and pull us out of the holes we sometimes find ourselves deeply entrenched within. There is no denying that the urge for these relief givers is great, fathomable, and at times, necessary. In the absence of information, or comprehension, or vocabulary, we can seek to turn to archetypes within the paradigms we know. Who hasn’t heard of a grieving widow’s loneliness soothed by the comfort of “knowing” their late husband is watching over them benevolently from another realm; or the parents of the teenager who goes home night after night from school feeling like nothing after being bullied relentlessly who have to believe that what their child is going through is character building, otherwise the thought of getting through the next year as a family, let alone 5 or 6, becomes unbearable. The person struggling with depression who is told that “these things are sent to try us”, or the child born into poverty who is told if they only “apply” themselves at school and “work hard”, they can “be anything they want to be”.

No one could, or should, blame anyone for doing what they need to do to get by. There are a lot of us that wouldn’t have been able to move past the traumas of our life if we didn’t give ourselves permission to be susceptible to some “magical thinking” every now and then. Magical thinking is defined as “the belief that one's own thoughts, wishes, or desires can influence the external world”. It’s a concept that is inherent to conditions such as OCD; the idea that if I complete all of these rituals, my family will come to no harm, and I will have protected them. In OCD sufferers, this magical thinking and compulsion can be so strong that it can result in the other extreme; a life crippled by uncontrollable impulses to complete irrational sequences of behaviours to avoid mental anguish. The cure becomes the curse in a perpetual cycle of cruelty.

I of course am no different to many other people in this regard, in a day-to-day sense. I am of course not implying I have OCD; rather, the opposite, that this creeps into day to day behaviour for many people outside of this diagnoses in the most tiny, insignificant ways that pale in comparison to the life of someone who is suffering from a genuine disorder. Just a few examples of my daily magical thinking might be my irrational belief that should I not say “thanks” to the bus driver, or pick up a piece of litter I see on the floor by a bin, that I will “deserve” anything negative that comes to pass later that day. Or my superstition that I have had a “gut” feeling when something dreadful has happened in my personal life like the death of a loved one, whilst I am sitting simultaneously in another room in a building far away, like I have had some kind of premonition. I distinctly remember feeling that I had felt an intense anxious sensation at exactly the same time my uncle turned out to have passed away.

Of course, what we know, is that one event has no logical or evidential link to the other. Yes, one might argue that should I be unkind to the bus driver, or fail to perform my civic duties and take care of the environment of my community, later in my life it may come to pass that there are indirect consequences, such as how people perceive my character, or the respect afforded back to me, but there is no reason rooted in concrete reality to believe that there is any tangible link to whether something negative happens in my life later that same day.

The trouble is, that for the same underlying reason why I will never acquiesce to religion, nor can I subscribe to the myth of social meritocracy.

Wanting to believe something is true, feeling that the world would be a better placer if something were true, genuinely believing something to be true, and it actually being true are all completely different phenomena. There is a place for myth and for story, where it perhaps help to heal a hurt, but there are times when a placebo ends up deepening the wound. It can also make people feel woefully inadequate when the rest of society buy into the myth that misfortune is self-inflicted or a necessary evil, or that there will always be reward after a period of sorrow. It’s a convenient truth, but not always a helpful one.

I’m interested in how people are supported to cope with the reality of the situation they find themselves in, and how they build resilience to cope with uncertainty of outcome, and frankly, the unfairness of the cards they may have been dealt in life. This isn’t the same as saying that I believe in personal martyrdom, or perpetual victimhood through life. I think people can learn to take certain ownership over their side of the coin, but I don’t think most people benefit in the end by being patronised into submission that all of life’s misfortunes are fair, just, and evenly spread. The reality is that they’re just not. I also don’t believe that the dose of reality has to come in the form of a bullet. I think we can hold someone’s hand whilst hearing their truth sympathetically, through walking the tightrope with them, rather than pretending they’re on solid ground.

So many of my friends are going through what can only be described as a really dark time. None of them deserve what has happened to them, none of them have invited misfortune or necessarily stand to gain anything from trudging through the mire. Tragedy has entered their life through the cruelty of random chance, whilst they watch the world around them spin on its axis whilst inside they crumble with uncertainty. The outside world wants to tell them they are not given “more than they can handle”, and that they will emerge victorious the other side. The world doesn’t want to hear that they might not, that this might be the breaking of them, that this might be that final straw. The reality of that is too vast, too bleak, too dangerous to think about right now. And so they are forced to scream into an echo chamber, with no one to help them catch the rebound.

As for me, I choose the red pill every time. Not because I am brave. But precisely because I am unashamedly, humanly, not.

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There's no earthly way of knowing,

Which direction we are going,

There's no knowing where we're rowing,

Or which way the river's flowing,

Is it raining, is it snowing?

Is a hurricane a-blowing?

Not a speck of light is showing,

So the danger must be growing, 

Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?

Is the grisly reaper mowing?

Yes, the danger must be growing,

For the rowers keep on rowing,

And they're certainly not showing,

Any signs that they are slowing

~ The Rowing Song, Roald Dahl

#blog depression selfcare redpill realism

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

there is no you, there is only me

Recently I made the somewhat life changing decision to quit not only my job, but working in London whatsoever. Now that I’m the other side of quite frankly, a particularly stressful few years, and have the privilege of being able to write this blog from my cosy home, with a cup of tea on the coffee table, daytime TV in the background, and no deadlines buzzing in my head, with only empty days ahead of me for at least the next week, it would be really easy to berate myself for not having made this seemingly common-sense decision earlier. After all, haven’t I been systematically stressed and burned out these past few years? Hasn’t my partner told me day after day I needed to “get out”? Haven’t I been mentally and emotionally exhausted pretty much every morning and evening for the past 6 years I’ve been working in London?

But of course, as with many of these things, when you’re “in” it, it never really is that simple, is it? It’s funny because a lot of people have told me they admire me for my decision, that they’ve wanted to quit the “rat race” too, but haven’t had the courage to do so. Yet when I look around me at all the self-help manuals sitting on book shop shelves, and the Insta-inspo quotes posted online daily, you would be forgiven for thinking this stuff is easy – that all you need to do is “chase your dream”, “snap out of it”, “be a go-getter”. But the truth of it, as my friends quite humanly identify of course, is that we don’t live in utopian vacuums. Very few of us have the luxury of no family responsibilities, or bills to pay, or an endless supply of confidence that assures us unreservedly that we will find something else. It’s not even about finding something else. “Something else” isn’t good enough…it has to be “something better” or to put it rather pessimistically, the whole miserable cycle starts again doesn’t it?

There’s also very real internal – and actually, external pressure too. I am very lucky to benefit from a circle of friends and family who are non-judgemental, who “get” this stuff, and understand that life is too short to be defined by the job that you do. But society at large doesn’t usually reinforce that message, does it? One of the first questions you get asked within the first ten minutes of meeting someone else is, “so what do you do then?”. I’d love to sit here and say I take absolutely no notice of what people think of me, and that I walk around in a blissful state of healthy self-esteem 24/7, but even though I consider myself to be a reasonably grounded person who doesn’t judge other people on this stuff, and who doesn’t regularly get too bogged down with what other people think of my choices, there’s always going to be that slightly icky, socially awkward moment when someone asks, “so what are you moving onto?” and your answer is “well…nothing actually”. Which is the position I was in until just a few days ago when I finally had some clarity about my plans. Of course, I did have a plan – even when I don’t think I have “a plan”, I always have a plan! (I’m just that kind of person!) – But the plan that I had in my mind was one that I was aware contradicted many people’s views of conformity. Typically, you leave a role because you have another lined up, and if you don’t, for whatever reasons, you are aware that future employers will speculate on why that might be. When your reasons for leaving are related to quite personal or family factors, it can feel awkward to know how to “explain yourself” as firstly, you may not want everybody knowing your reasons, and secondly, you may be aware that prioritising family over work, despite what people will have you believe, puts you a bit left of centre in comparison to what’s expected of you, particularly in your 20s. And if you happen to be an academic person, inevitably there will be pre-conceptions about what is a “waste” of “your potential”.

On the whole, I do have to say I’ve been very lucky that I’ve faced little more than a few bemused looks, and none of those have come from people I’m close with. Some have come from people I know who are incredibly career driven and who I think have their identity so wrapped up in their career that it’s just difficult for them to envision a different choice (which I can understand in a way), and some have just been curious I guess.

But whichever way I look at it, and whoever is personally in my life, it still felt a huge decision to me, and not one I took lightly, or felt easy to take.

I guess ultimately, it came down to me really thinking and reflecting over the person I want to be, and returning to what’s important to me about my identity.

It sounds a strange thing to see written down in black and white, but over the last few years, it’s felt more and more like I’ve been drifting away from who I really am and who I really want to be. I think about all the things that give me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside – family, connection, creativity, calm, meaning – and it’s just felt that that’s been all but evaporating around me, as there just hasn’t been any space. As I was walking along the country roads of Suffolk on a day trip on my first day of “freedom”, I was trying to remember the last time I could remember not feeling stressed about work, and I just couldn’t even identify a time. I tried to go further back than this past year which has been particularly tough, and think perhaps to my first few jobs, but no – I just always remember having this gut twisting knot of anxiety in pretty much any job I’ve been in.

To be honest, I think in many ways, that says a lot about who I am. I am someone prone to anxiety, I am a definite worrier, and a deep thinker, and as such I ruminate things a great deal more than the average person would. This has improved as I’ve got older, because despite having these feelings, I’m much more able to be assertive and self-aware in recognising where the feeling is coming from, and what it’s really “about”, so to a certain extent, you could say I’ve got pretty analytical about the whole thing – which helps. But it never has completely gone away. I’ve always had “imposter syndrome” in every job I’ve been- in – the feeling that I’m failing, that people are seconds away at any time from realising I’m terrible at my job and that I’m only ever a few steps away from being hauled into the manager’s office for something I didn’t do, or forgot, or a deadline I didn’t meet. Except for this never happened. Not because I’m some kind of superhuman high performer, but because that sense of anxiety has driven me forward to go way over and above what was expected, or needed, in jobs, to avoid that irrational fear of being humiliated for being incapable. And that feeds the vicious cycle, because once you become that person that’s giving 150%, when you do need to take your foot off the gas, you can’t – because you’ve built up a precedent in what other people expect of you, and it becomes like this Ferris wheel you can’t jump off of. And because that Ferris wheel is spinning so fast, all the colours blur, and the music becomes overwhelming, and lights are so bright, that you just can’t hear yourself think, and you feel so sick with it all, that there’s no way you could step off even if you really tried. You’re just consumed by it.

Anybody reading this would think by what I’m describing that I was some big shot CEO of a FTSE100 company or something. And that’s interesting isn’t it? We tend to think that these things only affect people in “high pressure” jobs, and that those of us broadly within the mundane 9-5 bracket should be able to cope. But I’ve been convinced by my experiences that no one is immune - this can, and does, happen to anyone, in any position in any company, given the right set of circumstances.

And just like any number of people out there right now who are dragging themselves out of bed in the morning, getting up at stupid o’clock to get into work, and coming home too exhausted to play with their kids, or have a meaningful conversation with their partner, or do even the smallest little thing for themselves, I just got to a point where I just couldn’t see a life outside of it. I convinced myself this was just what work was – feeling at best a sense of pride and achievement, but never without the background noise of constant pressure, stress, and our “more more more” culture where everyone has to bleed themselves dry every day just to survive. I just didn’t really think there was another option.

So going back to my original point, I think there are many and varied reasons why “quitting the rat race” is not as simple as it all sounds on paper. We can all pick up a book that tells us we’re wasting our lives worrying about work, and that before we know it, our life will have passed us by, our kids will be grown up, and we’ll have nothing to show for it. But I’m not sure any of us really believe that’s going to happen to us. It sounds crazy but I think a lot of us (me included) forget (or avoid) that very poignant, sombre fact that one day one thing is guaranteed for all of us – we will die. There will be no more us. We will cease to be. And having “but she worked so hard on that project” on my grave stone just isn’t what I want people to remember about me, as cliché as I know that sounds.

The decision was really difficult for me. I will admit that particularly in these past few years where I’ve watched friends get married and settle down with children, buy bigger houses, go travelling, or start new business ventures; things that didn’t feel like they were going to happen for me, work was really one of my main outlets. There’s a bizarre, slightly martyr like comfort in knowing you’re needed somewhere, even if that somewhere is an office in a generic part of London in a sea of companies, in an ocean of commuters. You derive some sense of self-pride and importance in it, as it’s what you have to define yourself. Particularly, I found, as you go through your twenties, it is a particularly socially acceptable way to identify yourself. You pick a box, one of which may be “hard worker” – and you set yourself up there. It’s only later down the line, it stops feeling like a choice, and more like a trap, that you forget there is a “way out” door to – all you have to do is turn the handle and step out – so why does it feel so hard?

Well, it feels hard because…it is. Like anything in life, if you’ve lived in a certain context for long enough, not only does it weave itself into your sense of core identity, the stitches make it harder for you to pull away. If you wanted to, you could grab a huge pair of scissors and slice through them, but that feels too dramatic. And too hard. And too tiring.

So I guess what it really came down to were some revelations – which by the way, didn’t come around overnight. I realised, over coffee with a very good friend who I credit for helping to spark this whole change off, that I did actually have a choice. The reason why this genuinely felt like such a lightbulb moment was that I had never even considered the possibility of leaving a job without another to go to – because that’s not the done thing, right? I started to realise that actually, my skills are my skills. They aren’t attached to a particular job, they’re attached to me – so they’re portable. And that means that there was something out there I could bring them to, but something which doesn’t have to feel like it’s taking over my lifestyle, and perhaps, who knows, I could do some of this on my own terms.

It also worried me the more I started to realise how everything in my life that was a “should do” got prioritised. So I’d ignore absolute exhaustion to get up at 5am to be in for 8am, to travel almost the entire opposite direction through London an hour early than my shift started, so that I could finish that urgent project that needed to be worked on, or answer that email that had been worrying me since last night. So I’d grab something shitty for breakfast on my way onto a crowded train, eyes half closing with every bite, sandwiched between people, endless people. So I’d find myself putting my headphones on not to listen to music, but just to reach some semblance of “silence” – some escape from the constant noise around me all day, every day. So I found myself ignoring quickened heartbeats and shallow breath as I clambered through underground tunnels to cram myself on a carriage. So I’d set endless reminders on my phone of all the of the “work to dos” and the “home to dos” and end up swiping all of them out of sheer apathy.

And what about the “want tos”? They’d just get slowly pushed down the list. So I’d schedule in seeing friends like appointments after work, endless rotations of rushed coffees and hurried dinners, rather than the lazy, open ended sleepovers I missed. So I’d look at my craft room and just sigh and turn off the light, another evening of not working on anything, too tired from the commute home. So I’d start researching holidays online and then just give up halfway through, realising there was no time to take annual leave that month, too much to do, too much to worry about.

Of course, these were my choices. But somewhere along the way, they stop feeling like choices. Somehow it just felt too tiring to try to get out – and the question was what would I do instead? I had to earn money and I had to work. But I didn’t want to feel like this any more.

So I flipped the question from a “should” to a “want” – what did I want to do if the “shoulds” weren’t an issue? Well, I knew that ultimately, my career is important to me, but that I wanted it to be just one piece of the puzzle rather than the whole picture. I knew I wanted flexibility, and time to be “me” again, and rediscover who I am without the individualism of the corporate world, and the commuting hell, and the ego wars, and the meaningless urgency to everything, and the personality clashes, and the email mountains, and the constant ladder climbing. I just wanted to be paid for something I enjoy that would pay the bills but allow me to be who I really am, and to re-prioritise around my life. A pretty tall order in today’s world.

I’d love to say I’ve packed it all in and am planning to open a craft shop (my dream) – but sadly, bills have to be paid and life does have to go on. But my next role I took time to choose carefully, and I am determined now to only walk a path that works for me, my partner, and our little family. It’s been too long conforming, too long bending myself into a mold of who I thought I had to be, and too long pretending I can do it all. I can’t. And most importantly, I don’t want to.

#ratrace #selfcare #worklifebalance #wellbeing #anxiety

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

you know me better than that

I seem to be talking a lot with people lately about the concept of confidence. About what it means to be a “confident” person (if it means anything at all), and how interesting it is that we all source our sense of confidence from different parts of ourselves. Is a lack of confidence the same thing as low self-esteem or shyness? Is it really as simple as saying someone is a confident “person” – or not? I’ve also been thinking a lot about how confidence ebbs and flows given the context and how bizarre it can feel to be so completely self-assured in your life but so under confident in another.

When I think about my own journey with confidence, I’d start as far back as I can remember, when I was little. I have pretty strong memories of being what I’d describe as painfully shy from an early age. When I look back on being a child, I just remember feeling I was never truly “myself” around anyone. I always felt the need to filter myself, or found myself getting anxious about situations where I’d have to talk to strangers or just in fact people I didn’t see very often, even family. This may not be the way it really was from the outside, and I wonder if my Mum would have a different view on it. But I do seem to remember being a true introvert as a kid, and genuinely preferring my own company because I just didn’t know what to say to people without feeling stupid or embarrassed in some way. I remember always feeling a bit “oh really, do I have to?” when friends wanted to play a game. I just wanted to read a book in the corner. And yet somehow, I have always been someone with a lot of friends even at that young age.

Things seemed to be that way until at the very least mid-teens. I have a theory for why that might be. I think I’ve always been somewhat my mother’s daughter in that I’ve always struggled with shyness and confidence. Perhaps, who knows, it’s just part of my make-up. I also think some of it had to do with being “commented on” a lot. There was a bit of a running joke/jibe when I was little from my Dad that I “didn’t eat enough to keep a fly alive”. I also got lots of comments about being “skin and bone” because I had a very small appetite and I was probably also quite picky with food like a lot of kids at that age. It kind of became a bit of a….”thing”. Not devastating or a huge big deal in any means but there were times jokes about being anorexic were made and I just felt very analysed. And that’s the first time I remember feeling a sense of embarrassment about my body and the way I look/acted. It also didn’t help that many adults I knew then were extroverts and tended to point out through my early school years that I was shy when talking in conversation with others around me, as if I wasn’t there. I just remember finding it mortifying that not only was I shy, but that everyone else was picking up on it and putting it in the spotlight (yeah, general tip on that one: not the best idea if you want someone to come out of their shell). I don’t know quite how to explain it but I guess it boils down to just feeling awkward. And it’s a bit of an unconscious thought that my mind picks up from time to time, if it has space to think for too long.

As I moved into my early teens, I did naturally build a large circle of friends and although they aren’t the same friends, to this day I’ve maintained a busy social life with lots of individual friendships across quite a wide range of personality types. Some of my friends are the polar opposite to me in so many ways. I did all the things teenagers do – I had my slightly rebellious stage (I say rebellious but I was never horrible to anybody – I just got into smoking, and drinking a bit earlier than some and into a pretty awful first relationship for a 15-year-old) – but I always felt conspicuous. I used to dread parties because I was so embarrassed to dance in case anybody thought I was weird. My defence mechanism at the time, was to develop a weird, random sense of humour that I keep to this day (that I wouldn’t change by the way). That’s partly because I can’t stand people who take themselves too seriously and partly, I guess, that classic thing of trying to laugh at myself and make myself so ridiculous as possible so that I got the joke in first before other people. One of my first thoughts that I think when I meet someone for the first time is something along the lines of, “that person thinks I’m odd”. I wasn’t confident with boys at all and always felt very much the ugly duckling. The only thing I felt I had going for me was my kindness and sense of humour. I had academic achievement, but looking back, I don’t think I ever really appreciated that for what it was at the time.

Finally, university came around, and I really struggled with getting the confidence to be myself in such a new environment. I’ve always been pretty ­­independent and didn’t struggle with the living on my own part (in fact I quite liked it given that I’d never really had any of my own space in our small house growing up, and I was used to doing my own cooking etc). But the thought of being thrust into Fresher’s Week, and having to make conversation with people not only in classes but 5 other strangers in what would be my home for the next year, filled me with dread. I hadn’t developed those “networking” skills yet and although I always did fine making small talk and introducing myself to people (I remember pacing round my room for ages before finally building the courage to knock on a few flatmates’ doors to say hello), I hadn’t learnt to be myself or be relaxed upon meeting someone so I just clammed up. While everyone else was forming groups with their flats to go out drinking, I tagged along with a couple of people I’d come across in my first few days but mostly sat by myself staring at everyone else, wondering why it all seemed so easy to them.

Probably by this point in the blog, you’d be forgiven for thinking that I had some kind of severe social skills issue. I didn’t. I got by just fine – people liked me and warmed to me. I just didn’t know how to push myself out of my comfort zone and I always felt like I was treading water.

In the end, the same things that made uni such an eye-opening experience for me and gave me my first exposure to true diversity, were also the things that made it hard in the beginning. I found that somewhat stereotypically for a university in Surrey, I was pretty much surrounded by people who came from a different walk of life to me, mostly in the financial sense. Everyone seemed to come from well-off backgrounds (or at least in comparison to me) and I sensed that keenly in the types of things they talked about, what they got up to in their spare time, and the kind of money they had to do things together that my budget didn’t stretch to. Social class is still very much alive and kicking I think. It’s just dressed up in different ways. I certainly felt more conscious than I’d ever been of not coming from a privileged background where certain things were taken for granted, like students whose parents paid them an allowance so they didn’t have to have a job while studying, or who went skiing in the holidays, or had never really been exposed to worrying about money. Let’s be clear here, I’m not trying to make out I was some kind of street urchin kid from the Bronx(!) but I definitely couldn’t relate to their lifestyles and carefree approach and it just created a bit of a wall in my head. I could never imagine bringing some of these friends home to my small, messy, terraced house back in Essex.

Gradually though over the 4 years I was at uni, I made a strong circle of friends and I credit uni to a large degree with helping me to come out of my social shell. I suppose being part of the drinking culture didn’t hurt this at the time, and once I broke the ice with a few people in my class and flat, things came a lot easier and I had some amazing times with memories I’ll always look back on with happiness. It was amazing to meet such a broad range of people and it really helped me form the world views I have now. By the time I graduated I had not just heightened social confidence, but a sense of academic pride that I was too modest to tap into before. By the same token, I also had crippling anxiety in social situations like being on my own with someone I didn’t know well while my friend was off with some guy, or at house parties with loud in your face types who intimidated me. And that has never completely gone away.

Fast forwarding to now, I do a job that is all about public speaking, building relationships, and engagement. I couldn’t do that if I didn’t have good social skills, or crucially, some degree of confidence. I think it’s fair to say I’ve become a lot more extroverted and confident as a result of practice, practice, practice of the old “fake it til you make it” principle. I act like I am confident when I deliver a training (and I now am reasonably so as it’s so normalised to me) but yet I would still emphasise – I am confident on the surface about certain things only. I feel confident now that I’ve absolutely mastered the art of being as authentic as I am ever going to be around people. We all know it’s not possible to be 100% yourself with anyone as so many factors influence it, but the thing that really changed my outlook on life was when I stopped trying to be the person I thought others wanted me to be and instead was just myself. This is a huge relief and something I’ve had to learn over time with patience. I know now that I do far better socially if I just return to the anchor of my core personality strengths – empathy and warmness. I know I am a kind person, and that I have a natural desire to put people at ease (perhaps as a result of my own insecurities in social situations) and that seems to serve me well these days. It also means that my mind doesn’t have to race at a million miles an hour. It’s one less thing to think about.

I think my confidence has also improved because of the assertiveness I have had to learn the hard way over time in both my job and my personal life. I used to be very avoidant of any conflict and did a lot of bending over backwards to just be the person the other party wanted me to be or say what they wanted to hear. But it never did me any good. People continued to walk over me. That in turn led me to feel feeble and undervalued, and in turn that was the vibe I gave off – and so that’s how people treated me. I also think that one positive trait that has really helped me build confidence is the fact that despite being a very anxious person, I do seem to have an ability to push myself through the anxiety to do whatever the uncomfortable thing might be; a difficult conversation for example. Each time I’ve felt sick with nerves about something, but still pushed myself anyhow, I’ve been rewarded with an ever so incremental increase in internal self-assurance.

Sometimes this pushing myself hasn’t helped matters as I can be guilty of pushing too far. I used to always force myself to turn up to parties that were all the things I find anxiety provoking – interactions with people I don’t know (or don’t particularly like sometimes!), lots of drinking (I’m not a big drinker and never will be – I just don’t see the appeal and it ends up putting me on edge being around loads of drunk people), and a loss of control about when I can go home. The latter may make me sound like an awful person but it isn’t about laziness. I really do find parties really stressful events unless I happen to know everyone really well in which case I really enjoy them, particularly hosting (to the extent that I’ve even thought about going into event planning - how’s that for a contradiction?!) and it makes me feel more socially claustrophobic if it’s for hours on end. A few years ago, I decided to get more honest with people about that. A lot had gone on with my life in terms of my diagnosis and I just couldn’t be the same person any more. I couldn’t keep up the act that I was this “normal” woman in my 20s who wanted to go out and do “normal” things when I felt anything but. What was great is when I started being honest, people understood. Now I always go to events if I physically can, but I take assertive control over when I leave. This leaves to me feeling more relaxed and I can genuinely enjoy my time at the party and conversely, be more sociable.

My diagnosis was a seismic shift in my life, and with it had to come change. I was so refreshed when so many of my friends were supportive about me being honest about how my anxiety was affecting me, particularly in social situations, and how they didn’t put pressure on me but instead accepted me as I am as I’m a friend who makes a lot of effort on a one to one basis that perhaps they don’t get from their more extroverted friends. I’m the one who will typically instigate messages to see how my friends are, and travel long distances to see them, and I’m happy to. But I just decided life was too short to keep putting myself through all the turbulence to do other things I just was never going to feel confident in. Some people I got the distinct impression didn’t really “get it”. I think it was a bit alien to some of my friends in their 20s that I just wasn’t into that stuff and I don’t think (perhaps understandably) everyone really knew the depth of a confidence crisis I was facing. But that’s okay. I came to realise it wasn’t about learning to get back to drinking when socialising because it’s normal – it was actually the case that despite all the add on neuroses with my diagnosis, it actually just wasn’t ever my natural personality to enjoy that. And that’s fine.

I’m not long from turning 30 now and they say that this is the decade women report feeling most confident in. I can see that, I think. I used to have terrible body insecurity and still do to some extent. I believe your sense of confidence comes from the areas you receive external validation about and I have never really received that validation at least knowingly as being a “good looking”/”attractive” person. I’m lucky that now I have enough life experience to know that the concept of attractiveness is all subjective and very culturally biased blah blah blah. I get that really it’s all a bit meaningless to think that way and beauty is in the eye of the beholder! I’ve felt more confident in my skin since I’ve come to take this more mature outlook and stopped measuring myself by standards of attractiveness as that’s not my bag. I have lots and lots of body hang ups that stem from not feeling particularly feminine any more due to taking synthetic hormones and not being able to relate to a lot of the things other girls my age talk about like contraception, periods, fertility – to a certain extent, sex. It’s all a world away to me now as a lot of it has been either eradicated as part of my life or made more difficult and so I often feel a huge sense of loss, embarrassment and “lesser than” feelings about that. Which is why it’s been important to build up my confidence from other places. I am proud of what I have achieved academically and in my career so far, and one of the things I draw self-confidence from is a strong sense of personal integrity and kindness. I’ve found that’s carried me through a lot of situations I’ve needed to tolerate.

I don’t think there is any great lightbulb of self-awareness or confidence that comes on because you turn a certain age. I think though that gradually through life’s ups and down, personal confidence finds a nook to fill and that nook becomes a wider, more cherished part of your personality once recognised. I don’t think there’s any magic cure for this stuff. But one of the things I do feel passionately about is people being more open about their insecurities, however trivial, in the hopes that it helps someone else feel less alone with their irrationality.

So, on that note, I’m going to leave you with 5 of my completely irrational social anxieties that make NO sense but I can’t shake (if this is you too, I relate!):

-        I HATE being overheard making phone calls in front of other people in the office

-        I DREAD having to walk across the office to start a conversation with someone I don’t know very well, especially if it’s to ask them about a work project

-        I feel so SELF CONSCIOUS when people watch me eat

-        Whenever I go to meet friends, I feel the need to APOLOGISE if I’m not wearing make up

-        When someone makes EYE CONTACT with me for too long, I assume they’re judging me about something…

There you have it.

#kindness #blog #confidence #insecurity #social anxiety

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

what dreams may come

For most people I know, the New Year represents a fresh start; a kind of blank page where regrets from the previous year can be laid to rest, grudges can be forgotten, and new promises made.

I must admit that I am one of those awkward people (and I do know some others like me) who has historically seen New Year as a depressing event. Which I know can feel sound frustratingly humbuggish (I think I may have invented a new adjective there). You see, for me (a lifelong pessimist) New Year’s has represented quite a few things I dread, or at least like to avoid thinking about. Firstly, on a more basic note, it represents the end of Christmas. A lot is said about the commercialisation of Christmas and with good merit, I expect. But for me, Christmas has always been a rejuvenating time where I get to spend quality time with family, have a much-needed break from whatever job it is I inevitably hate at the time (it’s an annual theme), and have an excuse to fling myself into the craft hobbies that usually get neglected because most of the year, I’m either too tired from work, or feeling too guilty about being “lazy” to get stuck into them. Christmas is about the act of giving, which is really important to me. Not necessarily in the traditional sense of buying presents, although that too, but giving my time, attention, and love to the people in my life who mean the most to me. It’s also a time of reflection where I really return to some of the values of kindness and charity that despite my best intentions, sometimes get forgotten in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It’s a time I consciously give, and give consideration to the people all around me who aren’t as lucky to have a warm home, or a loving family, or safety and security. So Christmas holds a place in my heart which the New Year tears me away from, with its return to the drudgery of the day to day slog into work, a grey, cold January with nothing in particular to look forward to, and the likelihood that I won’t be able to spend as much time with my family as I want to, as I’ll get busy again.

New Year’s is also a bit of a painful reminder of the people I don’t have around me to see the New Year in with. It’s one of the rare times now where I still get upset about being estranged from my Dad. I know my life is so much happier and healthier without him in it, but it still doesn’t stop me from feeling quite bitter about it all. I also think about the other family who through other circumstances I don’t see, and it all feels a bit like history repeating itself. I miss my Nan and my Uncles who I lost in recent years and wonder how they’d be seeing in the New Year if they were still with us.

I also tend to look back on New Year’s that the things that haven’t come to pass in the past year, and which I tend to assume won’t come in the next one either. The things I haven’t accomplished or the things outside of my reach. The particular regrets from the past 12 months, and the token two or three moments of conflict out of an otherwise peaceful year which bring back pangs of anxiety or sadness. The resolutions I didn’t manage to keep to, or the promises that got unwoven. Family and friends who are going through hard times and the reality that it won’t magically let up just because the clock has struck midnight. Sometimes it feels like a naivety to start January with the expected optimism when life experience and pragmatism have taught me that all those troubles don’t fade away with a few drinks and another year’s repetition of Auld Lang Syne.

I wonder how much of it is about expectation. For someone who can be equally imaginative, I am also somewhat of a pessimistic-leaning realist. Life has taught me that the times I have let myself expect too much, or get too carried away with hopes for the future, or got too excited about a possibility, it hasn’t tended to manifest, and then I’ve been left disappointed. And obviously seen through that lens, it becomes harder and harder to muster the energy to fight another year. It does sometimes feel a battle.

But then I’m reminded about one of my favourite films, What Dreams May Come. Robin Williams is literally searching through Heaven and Hell to find his wife, who has been committed to Hell for being a suicide. When he enters Hell, he is warned that the sheer gloom and suffering around him will drag him down if he is not careful to resist letting it into his heart. He will succumb to pessimism and sorrow, if he cannot find it within him to maintain the strength and resilience Heaven gave him to begin his journey with hope.

He learns that “What's true in our minds is true”.

I could sit here this year and think about all the things that have gone wrong, failed, dissipated, persisted despite my best fight. That’s what depression can do to you. It becomes that quick sand that muddies your mind and pulls you in to the treacle, despite every effort you’ve made to stay treading water. Depression will tell you that you weren’t good enough, that people don’t love or care about you, that the year has been wasted, that it’s better to give up and save your efforts now than spend another year wasting time on dreams that may not ever come true. Depression will suck you of your energy and tell you that you don’t deserve the blessings that you do have already, nor the ones you’re hoping for your future. It will sit and prod you when you least expect it. It will whisper to you “why bother?”.

There must be something strong enough to counter act that, that makes it all worth fighting for. Yes, there are things in all our lives we can’t change. There will be events in 2018 that we won’t be able to see coming. There will be further relationships that will change or fade, there will be stressors and triggers for everyone. We don’t have to ignore those feelings. We don’t have to plaster a smile on and say we know everything will be alright, when we really don’t. But this year was one of the first in a while that I was joined not just by my annual dose of New Year’s gloom, and back-to-work resignation, but by two other sacred things; hope and gratitude.

I had a bit more of a “slow burner” of a Christmas this year. Some of my family were unlucky enough to get ill over Christmas so I didn’t get to see them as much as I expected and I felt disappointed for them that they missed out on some of the festivities that are a really big deal in our family. It wasn’t the mad rush it usually is, with some plans cancelled. But I spend good, quality, time with my family when I did see them, got to spend a lot of time at home with my boyfriend just relaxing and whiling away a few days with nothing, and I managed to steal some selfish but restorative time to myself, which did me the world of good. I enjoyed actually getting out and doing something for New Year’s for once with family. I made a lot of happy memories to look back on fondly and to provide me with a bit of perspective if and when 2018 gets tough. I had a couple of really thoughtful gifts from friends who handmade me things they thought I would like, or with a bit of a self-care emphasis to them, which was lovely. One of my best friends bought me a gratitude journal, which was probably the most meaningful gift this year. Us pessimists aren’t very good at being grateful at times – we spend a lot of time thinking about what hasn’t come to pass, or worrying about projected fears for the future, that we don’t often “stand still”, look around and take stock. I am incredibly lucky to have the strong, robust support of a loving family, and to have a circle of close friends who are there for me through thick and thin. I’m lucky that I have someone who has loved me for 10 years and has had the strength to stay with me even when life has made that really hard, especially when it’s been hard. I’m fortunate to have a home of my own with lots of creature comforts, and a world of possibilities that other people don’t get to have. More than anything, I am grateful as a woman in 2018 to have options, which is more than can be said for a lot of other women out there in the world, not least some women in my own life who I love so much and want to see happy as they so deserve to be, but sadly, can’t be right now, because of their own personal “quicksand” right now. I’m entering this year happier than I think I have any other New Year for a while, and with more (cautious!) optimism than I’ve mustered in a long time. And that isn’t the result of blind New Year’s optimism, but of considered reflection on how much things have changed for the better this past year. Even if at times it hasn’t felt like it, a lot of progress has been made. I look back on 2017 as my “year of change” and the vehicle I had to move through to get to where I truly want to be in 2018 which is now more of a real possibility, having done the “ground work” so to speak last year. I’m hoping to be able to see the “fruits of my labour” soon enough, and that’s a happier place to be.

So, what am I grateful for today? I turned to the first page of my journal and wrote the first few things that came to mind:

I am grateful for ­­­____'s friendship, who gave me this journal

I am grateful for peace

I am grateful for small pleasures

I am grateful for the luxury of having choices other women don’t have

Whether I will still retain the same gratitude and optimism come the end of next week, who can honestly say. But I’m hoping that viewing happiness as a “slow burn”, rather than a “magic moment” will help me to see contentment in small corners and through doors left ajar, if I’ve got the patience, the mindset, and the nerve to seek it out.

“That which you believe becomes your world” ~ What Dreams May Come

#blog #lessonsinkindness #newyear #2018 #new years day #depression #hope #optimism #gratitude #family #love

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

Fences

“Cory: Hey Pa!

Troy: Hmm?

Cory: Can I ask you a question?

[pause]

Cory: How come you ain't never liked me?

Troy: Like you? What law is there sayin' I got to like you?

Cory: None.

Troy: All right then. Don't you eat every day? Answer me when I talk to you! Don't you eat every day?

Cory: Yeah...

Troy: As long as you're in my house you put a "Sir" on the end of it when you talk to me.

Cory: Yes, Sir.

Troy: You eat every day?

Cory: Yes, Sir.

Troy: You got a roof over you head?

Cory: Yes, Sir.

Troy: Got clothes on your back?

Cory: Yes, Sir.

Troy: Why you think that is?

Cory: 'Cause of you?

Troy: [chuckles] Hell, I know it's 'cause of me. But why do you think that is?

Cory: 'Cause you like me?

Troy: Like you? I go outta here every morning, I bust my butt 'cause I like you? You're about the biggest fool I ever saw. A man is supposed to take care of his family. You live in my house, feed your belly with my food, put your behind on my bed because you're my son. It's my duty to take care of you, I owe a responsibility to you, I ain't got to like you! Now, I gave everything I got to give you! I gave you your life! Me and your Mama worked out between us and liking your black ass wasn't part of the bargain! Now don't you go through life worrying about whether somebody like you or not! You best be makin' sure that they're doin' right by you! You understand what I'm sayin'?”

In Fences, an award-winning film about life for a struggling African-American family in 1950s Pittsburgh, Denzel Washington plays a man (Troy), who is consumed with resentments about the life he never got to have, due to the prejudice he has experienced for the colour of his skin, complex family history, and economic depression. Gabriel, his brother, has sustained a head injury during serving in World War II, which has left him mentally ill, and receives a $3000 government settlement that Troy uses to purchase a family home, to shelter his wife and children, as well as Gabriel. Gabriel subsequently moves out with time, but continues to experience episodes of psychosis that estrange him from the local community and bring a sense of embarrassment to the family, despite Troy’s obvious love and devotion to him.

Troy escaped an abusive father by committing acts of robbery in his youth, and ended up in prison for his crimes, where he discovered his talent for baseball. On leaving prison, he joins the Negro Leagues, but never makes it into the Major League, as this door is shut to African-Americans. Troy narrowly avoids death as a young man when suffering near-fatal pneumonia, and claims this is due to defeating the Grim Reaper in a fistfight, who told him he would return for a rematch. Troy spends his life watching over his shoulder, waiting for the Reaper at any junction.

Troy has 2 sons – Lyons, his estranged son from a previous marriage who dreams of becoming a musician, but who always comes cap in hand to borrow money from his father each pay day. Troy resents Lyons’ aversion to finding a steady job and financial independence. Troy is indignant in not visiting Lyons’ club to watch him play.

Troy’s other son Cory, a talented baseball player like his father, has been scouted for a college baseball team, having been destined for the NFL Major League, and his mother Rose pleads with Troy to sign the permission documents to allow him to play. Troy refuses, believing that widespread prejudice still exists within the league, and that his son had better find a steady job now, to avoid inevitable disappointment and failure. The undertone of these scenes is that Troy feels bubbling jealousy at his son’s talents, and the opportunities that eluded himself.

The story continues along this path for some while – drunken conversations and outbursts of grief about a life wasted, interspersed with jubilant optimism and hope when Troy believes he may stand a chance at being promoted to driver of the garbage trucks he has been working on for years. A dream of a better life for his family is always within tantalising reach, but evaporates like vapour whenever he gets close enough to taste it. Eventually, Troy makes promotion (the first African-American in Pittsburgh to drive a truck, even though he is unable to read and doesn’t hold a driver’s licence) and his life shifts unalterably.

It is revealed that for some time, Troy has been involved in an affair with a woman he met in a local bar, and his friend Bono warns him that repercussions will be knocking before too long. Troy is outwardly dismissive of this, but the film’s pace shows us a growing sense of anxiety and dread. Within this state of tension, Troy discovers Cory has quit his steady job to focus on his baseball, and in a fit of rage, Troy forces Cory’s coach to quit the team. Troy and Cory lash out at each other in a physical altercation, ruining their relationship forever. Further tragedies ensue when Troy unknowingly signs committal papers for Gabriel to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, because he can’t read. This leads to Gabriel living a sedated life in squalid conditions at a local asylum, an irreversible decision now his care is in the hands of the state.

The finale comes when Troy discovers that his mistress is pregnant and is forced to reveal his affair to his wife, who has supported him their entire adult life, and taken in his boy Lyons as her own. Rose is devastated, cheated by the one man she’d shown love and devotion despite his many flaws. Troy and Rose try for a while to sustain an estranged relationship with Troy visiting his mistress during the week, and returning to the family home at the weekends. We see Rose’s previous love for Troy die out, a faded, glazed look in her eyes. Finally, when Raynell, his illegitimate daughter is born, his mistress dies in childbirth. The epitome of female sacrifice, Rose eventually concedes to helping Troy look after the baby, and raises her as her own, just as with Lyons. Six years later, the Reaper returns for his rematch with Troy. Troy loses, and dies when he suffers a heart attack in his front yard, surrounded by the picket fences that Rose asked him to build around their home.

Earlier in the film, Bono, Troy’s lifelong friend had remarked, "Some people build fences to keep people out and other people build fences to keep people in. Rose wants to hold on to you all. She loves you." For Rose, their picket fence represented holding her family together – protecting them from the cruel bite from outside. For Troy, the fence comes to represent his resentment at a life contained to his front yard, wasted dreams, and having felt caged and overlooked for greatness in favour of mundanity and disadvantage his whole life.

I don’t think a film has resonated with me so much for a very, very long time. There were so many parallels and metaphors to draw from. It reminded me of all the petty resentments that snowball during our lives. The little things we think we can bear, until one day, we just can’t. What made Troy’s world fall apart? Why did he make choices that were his undoing? Why couldn’t he be satisfied with a life others would feel blessed with? I think we can analyse the dynamics a little closer…

One of the first emotional intensities referenced in the film is Troy’s guilt over spending his brother’s money for a sacrifice he himself did not make (serving in the war), when he himself has lived a life of crime, and his brother has remained handicapped by. Friends and family tell him he did the best he could to give Gabriel a secure life and keep him away from the asylums. As we see, Troy cannot reconcile this in his mind, and ultimately, in time, Gabriel becomes consigned to the unit through Troy’s impulsive actions and lack of humility in asking for help. 

Troy not just perceives, but knows, his colour to be a barrier to his prospects. No African-American man would be considered for the Major Leagues. No African-American man at the time would have been offered a driving position on the trucks. Troy is an intelligent man who is capable of greatness, but monumental barriers of prejudice, shame and social status stand in his way. 

 Troy’s ego is his undoing. This is threatened by the sense his two sons, one a creative, one a sportsman, are about to be recognised for their achievements in a way that was never going to happen for him within his generation. He allows his ego to scupper his son’s chances for success, his past experiences to convince him that their hopes should be dashed now lest they have a greater fall in the future, and his insecurities lead to an ego war in his home for head of the household, where his authority is being incrementally overshadowed by his sons’ greater moral compass in supporting his wife, their mother, in a way he cannot, given his emotional shortcomings. 

There is a sense of inevitability in Troy’s fight against his demons not to become his own father. We see him battle and sway between loyalty and tough love to his family, and bursts of rage and cruelty that alienate him from those who have loved him best. 

Troy is constantly watching over his shoulder for the Reaper. Convinced at any turn, the Reaper will catch up with him, he lives a life defined by the need to prove to himself his existence has been worthwhile. His affair encapsulates his insecurity about his masculinity as provider to his family, his morbid fear of death, and his need for escapism from the “fences” that “keep people in”. In smashing down those fences metaphorically, Troy destroys the protective fences Rose has known to keep her family safe and close. 

There is an unspoken sense that Troy and Rose “settled” for each other. They have come to have a strong love and bond given their time together, and there is evidence of genuine, deep affection. But we are led to believe Rose had her choices of better suitors, and could have been looked after by a more loyal man, but that she made a choice in youth to stand by Troy, and take her chances. Rose has to a degree “made her bed”, and it breaks the viewers heart to have to watch her “lie in it” when so wronged by Troy, because of her financial dependence on him, and unbreakable loyalty, despite her all-consuming grief at his betrayal. 

There are smaller resentments. Troy’s son Lyons continues to be financially dependent on him, despite being a man of his 30s. Troy is forced to begrudgingly subsidise 2 adults (Lyons and Gabriel) – Gabriel is forgiven because of his circumstances and Troy’s loyalty and love waver for him far less than for Lyons, perhaps given the guilt he is wracked with. We sense a coldness between Lyons and Troy – an atmosphere of no real love lost, but without the fury and vitriol that characterises his relationship with Cory.

And how about Rose? Rose’s life is characterised by female sacrifice and emotional labour. Rose is not naive in her loyalty; the viewer knows that she knows that Troy is flawed, and will disappoint her over and over again. At times, Rose has a silent complicity in Troy’s behaviour. We see her walk on eggshells around Troy by subduing Cory’s conversations about baseball. We see her turn the other way in bed, her tear stained face swollen in indignity at Troy returning to the marital bed after being with his mistress. Rose is the real head of the household and we learn that she has a better grip on the finances than Troy, who is always drunk, and spending money on beer. When Troy comes home with Raynell in his arms, he doesn’t know what to do. He has no idea how to physically look after a child, having never taken the time to learn, and he begs Rose to help him. Rose takes only a matter of hours to concede.

The aftertaste of the film is bitter. We would like to believe that Troy’s return home was about missing Rose, about repenting for his mistakes, and wanting to start all over again. Instead, the reality is that he loved his mistress equally, if not perhaps more so than Rose, and would have chosen to build a life with her if she had not died in childbirth. Rose is his second best, and she knows it. And somehow, she has the strength to carry on in her marriage to a man who doesn’t deserve her.

I don’t need to dot the dots for you here. My life at times, as I’m sure is yours, is characterised by a complexity of resentments that I find hard to admit. I can feel left behind, taken for granted, world-weary at times. I question my choices, and examine my part in the twists and turns I’ve experienced so far. I hold many regrets, and anger at my disappointments.

Of one thing I am determined; to build a life, not a fence, that keeps people close to me, without duress, or duty, but out of love, respect, and deserving.

#fencesfilm #fences #resentment #lessonsinkindness #lifelessons #regret

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

for what it’s worth, i’m sorry for the hurt.

The end of September marks a few reminders of some of the significant change I've been through in the last few years. Sometimes when I feel really fed up and like nothing is moving on, I remember how far I've come and how much water has passed under the bridge, and it reminds me to sit back and take stock from time to time. 

I only have to look back at Facebook flashbacks and old diaries, even from a few years ago, to see a stark contrast between the "me then" and the "me now". The constant is my broad belief system, the baggage I bring with me (good and bad) from my upbringing, my value system, my sense of core identity, my general personality...but even these have shape shifted along the way. I can look at old photos and remember the story behind the picture, and where I was at in my life - how I was feeling, what big event was happening at the time that felt it would never end, or how easy it felt to truly be myself. It's so obvious it feels slightly trite to say it this way, but when I get the chance to mull it all over, it the reassuring constant is that I made it through these things. Not all of them are anywhere near as significant to me now as I thought they would always be, and I don't have many regrets (I never believe anybody that says they have "no regrets" - a post for another time!). But some of them were bitter pills to swallow. 

So what have I learnt? Of course, when you are in the middle of a defining moment, it doesn't feel like that at the time. It just feels really hard. But a few months or years on, for what it's worth, these are the top lessons I've learnt in life from my experiences...

Given the right circumstances, "good people" will do "bad" things

Working for 8 years in the addictions field helped me to establish a core belief that we can't put people in to neat categories of "good" and "bad", or even "evil". We can't even make the assumption that if something is important enough to someone, they will prioritise it. This argument often gets confused with "excusing people" from taking responsibility for their actions, and once again that's something I will write about another time, but to summarise for now, these are different topics that get conflated. 

Sometimes, when people are severely depressed, in the grasp of addiction, or have such low self worth, they will self-sabotage their life, because they don't believe they deserve happiness. This manifests itself in all sorts of behaviour, that whilst not taking away any issues of accountability, can wrongly convey that they do not care about the loved ones in their life. 

This is something I have tried to remember at times when I have felt wronged by other people. I try to think about the "back story" that got someone to this point. That's not to say I absolve them of all accountability, but I have become hyper-aware of the mitigating factors that influence all of our behaviour and interactions with other people. Not least because I know I've been prone to them myself, and I am no angel. The truth is, even good people will make poor choices or mistakes, or lash out when the mix of conditions is right. This may come down to survivalism, self-hatred, selfishness...but very rarely is it as simple as we want it to be.

 I work on what the evidence to date tells me about this person. Do they have a pattern of behaving this way or is it out of character? On balance, have they let me down or helped me out more often than not? Is there a possibility their action was misguided but their intentions were good? Asking myself these questions helps me clarify my position. 

It won't always hurt like this (but it might "ache")

There are sharp stabs and pangs in life. The huge traumas, the massive disappointments, the big conflict Really significant stuff that just seems like it could never feel any less intense. You tend to get people on 2 sides of the spectrum here - those that tell everyone to "put things in perspective" and minimise everything before the other person has had a second to grieve, and those who almost revel in self-martyrdom all their lives. I've known both.

I think it's too simple to say that one day, all of these things will just not matter anymore. I'm always very sceptical of those "I've completely changed my life around!" magazine articles where because people have

discovered yoga and eating avocado on toast for breakfast, their life is sparkly and fresh all day, every day. But what I can say, is that it does get better. 

Those stabs become a "dull ache". There are some things in life that won't leave you. Grief, loss, bereavement, trauma. And by the way, don't let anyone tell you there's a timeline on these things (there's not and you are perfectly entitled to feel whatever you feel, for as long as you need to feel it). But what you may find is that with time, what used to be at the forefront of your mind, will start to take back stage a little more. 

Yesterday marked a year since I ended a 30 day challenge where I blogged on my experience of infertility and my diagnosis of Premature Ovarian Failure. By that stage I had been diagnosed over 2 years and had already processed a lot of my grief, but even looking back at my blogs one year on, I can see there's been more progress, and my take on some of the issues I wrote about wouldn't be the same if I'd have written them this year. The overwhelming emotion I know I felt at that time was anger. And that was justified. It also allowed me to use it as a driving force to speak out and raise money for a good cause. But now some of that anger has faded away and I am left with a subtle pang at the back of my mind, that occasionally comes out to play when things trigger it. But I can put my hand on my heart and honestly say the central role my diagnosis plays in my life has diminished. Some of that is stability of my medication, and some of it's just the fact I have well and truly processed how I feel about it all. I took the time to do that and now it doesn't define me in the way it once did. A place I thought I'd never get to. 

There is no monopoly on grief

At any given moment, someone else in the world is in unimaginable physical or mental pain. People are living in war torn countries, are homeless, are being abused, all sorts of horrific things. It is a fact of life that there will always be someone "worse off than you". I do get a little frustrated with this "pull your socks up" mentality though, as firstly, trauma and grief are culturally and socially relative to the context we find ourselves in, and secondly, empathy is not mutually exclusive. You can empathise with the big, Earth shaking issues, and you can choose to empathise with your neighbour, friend, or relative who is going through a life crisis that feels significant for them. 

There is still very much a "stiff upper lip" mentality in our society about mental health issues, despite some good progress made in recent years - we still have a very long way to go. Coupled with this, it is human nature that we may find it very hard to empathise with issues we have not experienced directly ourselves. This means that we can project our own priorities and perception of what is worth grieving about on to other people in our lives and this can affect our ability to be truly there for them.

The easiest way to get around this is to accept that people are experts in their own grief, and what matters to them. It's not our job to help people "put things into perspective" - it's our job to listen and be there. And if we can't be there, help them to reach out to something or someone else. One day, when life hits us with what it chooses to, we can then expect that helping hand ourselves.

Family is what we make it

I come from a large, complicated family, that is no stranger to conflict. It's fair to say not all conflict is justified and is just a result of historic dynamics that are just so entrenched now, they're not going to change any time soon. I feel disappointed and sad about some people in my family who I really wish I saw, but I don't, for reasons that don't make much sense. Then there are family members I've made a conscious decision not to see such as my Dad, where there are legitimate boundaries I've had to set, to protect myself and others in my life, and to stay true to my morals. 

My infertility has also made me view the concept of family very differently, in that I have had time to learn about all the different ways a family can be put together. I think my experiences in my own family have helped me on this journey, in that I don't have a natural pre-set towards biological ties, and so I'm able to be open to whatever "family" will look like for me in the future. 

I am able to understand that blood is not thicker than water, and that in fact, family is made up of the people that truly care about your wellbeing and prove themselves to be there for you. This outlook has helped me in my world view, in that I don't believe in giving people a free ticket to being close to me because of sharing my blood type, or genetics. Some of the worst things that can happen in life happen to people under the protection of the nuclear family being untouchable, and I think that's a dangerous place to be. 

So when I think of family, I think of who I can trust, who has been there for me through thick and thin, and who makes me feel good about myself. I think that's a pretty good basis for any family.

Integrity is everything

Being true to yourself is really hard sometimes. When I think of the times I've really disappointed myself, it's when I've contradicted principles that are really important to me, like honesty, kindness, empathy. I make the best effort I can to live a life to be proud of, but we all have situations when we let our need for immediate approval or satisfaction get in the way of our beliefs, and that's my "red flag" for knowing I've not acted with integrity. 

I suppose this comes down to that cliché of treating others as you wish to be treated yourself. A lot easier said than done, I know. But it's all we have. If we're not acting with integrity, we don't really have a sense of self. There needs to be some sort of "code" or commitment we hold ourselves accountable to. This will change based around our particular beliefs, but there needs to be some kind of consistency as to how we act, so people know they can trust us. 

This is a lesson I've learnt many times over, in lots of different situations. And it shows up on people's faces if you look hard enough. I still haven't figured out why some people struggle with this more than others, but I think a lot of it comes down to a need for approval, and a tendency towards individualism which is just how some people operate. 

Integrity is a goal to work towards - I don't think it's possible to act with 100% integrity. As humans our actions will always somewhat contradict our ethos (for example, think how easy it is to blank out inconvenient truths about the clothes we buy, the drugs we use, the privileges we have), but being conscious and mindful of these contradictions is, I suppose, the first step. 

It can, and it will, disappear

There's no originality in my revelation that I've learnt not to take situations or people for granted, but it's a cliché worth repeating. If there's one constant in life, it's loss, and to protect ourselves from this reality, it's often easier to pretend everything's going to stay exactly the same until the day we die.

 But in reality we all do it - we take our partners for granted, we don't appreciate the smaller things in life, we make assumptions about how things like homelessness and addiction don't happen to "people like us". Until they do. 

Everything is transient, and nothing lasts forever. And I know I coasted through a lot of moments in my life I wish I could go back to and savour more, because now they're gone forever. Complacency has taught me harsh lessons at times and kept me stuck. There are plenty of situations I wish I had appreciated someone, or something, more - and then it's too late. The damage has been done.

 So I'm working on being much more present in the moment (which is tough for someone who always races ahead with my anxious thoughts!) and appreciating what I have right here, right now. Because I now have the knowledge that one day, the things and people I love could be lost, and I want to have made the most of every minute with them. 

I could go on...but these are the thoughts that ruminate in my head when I think about change and loss, and what I've learnt along the way. I'd be curious to know your thoughts, and your own life lessons.

#blog #regrets #lifelessons #morals #trauma #lifeexperience #anxiety #family

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

I've just come back from a much needed weekend away with my brother. Getting out of town for 2 days was bliss. The scenery was beautiful, I got to spend quality time with my brother and boyfriend, and for the first time in a while, I could hear myself think. 

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I want out of life, or more specifically, what I want to feel different about my life. Unusually for me, I have fought against my natural urge to be impulsive and have had to keep reminding myself to do it properly and really think things through. Consider the practicalities - money, timeframe, resources. Mull over any possible implications. Scrutinise whether these changes are really going to deliver what I want them to, or whether I'll still be having these same conversations with myself this time next August. Getting my ducks in a row. 

Typically, when I feel as down as I have lately, or as anxious, I have a tendency to respond in a knee jerk, throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater type way, because of the immediacy of how unhappy I feel and how desperate I am to feel better quickly. The result of this tends to be an immediate rush of relief and excitement, followed by the dawning realisation that I've just created the same old conditions, just in a new, shiny context. I'm trying really hard not to put myself there again. 

But what this means is that at the moment, the level of tension I can feel between where I am in life, and where I want to be, can feel unbearable. It doesn't feel like a feeling I can sit with for months on end. It feels like something that's really going to drag me down if I let it. 

So I've been following some advice that I used to give to people struggling with addiction. The advice was - instead of focusing on what has gone wrong for you at a time when you relapsed, think about what went so right that you managed to - in their case - stay clean for those few months, or stay out of trouble. So transferred to me, this would be - instead of thinking about what has made you feel depressed or trapped in the last few months, what is it that has seen you through, got you up in the morning, despite those feelings? 

I don't know how helpful this will be, but for anyone struggling, these are the ways I try to keep my head above water. I'm not saying they'll work for everybody, and you may read them and find them trivial or cheesy, but all I know is, these are things that help me. 

Small Rewards

Some days just feel like walking through quicksand, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. Sometimes I don't even feel like this on the days that make sense. I may wake up in a highly motivated mood on a day which is going to be really challenging or busy, but then on a day I should be relieved for some quiet, wake up and feel like I'm wading through treacle. But as we all know, depression doesn't really care for logic! One thing I try to do is give myself something, however small, to look forward to. Because there's usually a reason I'm having to be careful with money it can't be anything too crazy, but it might be as simple as buying myself a glossy magazine on the way home to read on the train (something I can escape with, with no serious connection to the "real world"!). I really enjoy taking long baths (I think it's something about the solitude and getting rid of aches and pains) and watching my favourite programme on my phone while I'm washing my hair. Or sometimes it might be a nice walk on the way home instead of getting the bus. I realise these suggestions might seem a bit trite, and no amount of reading Vogue is going to make your problems vanish away, but I think the sentiment I'm trying to get at here is choosing something that a) is positively selfish (something that is all about something you enjoy doing that doesn't benefit anybody else), b) allows you to get out of your mind and focus on happiness, or if not happiness, calm, for a little while and c) gives you a sense of reward for a tough day. 

Recognising the bubble

The best advice I think anyone ever gave me is to see certain compartments of life as a bubble. This doesn't work so well for really serious, entrenched issues in your life, but can work well for things like dealing with difficult people, work problems, or feelings of self-consciousness in a social situation. I guess it's a form of mindfulness. Recognise what is unfolding before your eyes as what it is - a social vacuum in which these things matter to these people, because of the strange, often bizarre social constructs that define this particular nook of the planet. But try to see the meaninglessness outside of this environment. For example, in a work setting, it might be the end of the world to your boss that you didn't finish that report for that Director by 5pm. That can truly be their day's biggest priority and the most important thing for them in that office. Okay, yes, we shouldn't go out of our way not to do our jobs just because our boss's priority isn't our priority, but think about it: outside of this company, and this week (or even day), does this have independent meaning? Will it impact on yours or others' lives to a significant degree? Will anybody genuinely suffer as a result of you not meeting your deadline? Think about the relationship you have within that bubble, and think about how that relationship changes outside of it. Inside the bubble, there is a power dynamic between you and your boss. Outside of it, you are both just humans. And nothing more or less to each other than that. Sometimes adding a little humour makes me realise how ridiculous some of the things I beat myself up for are. 

Recognising the bubble doesn't have to mean finding humour or trivialism in the other person or situation, but it can mean understanding that people's negative behaviour or responses towards you (perceived or real) are often a product of their other "bubbles" in their life. So for example, I really hate when people snap at me, particularly if I'm being polite to them, because I feel it's unfair and a misuse of power because they know I am a more passive person. However, I have learnt to start seeing that there is such a back story behind what drives people's moods (they could have had an awful row with their partner before they came to work, they could have a particular insecurity which manifests itself in how they speak to people, they may be worried or anxious about something that ends up coming off as irritability), that actually, taking a step back and pretending to watch them from "the outside" can put things into perspective. It sounds weird, but I often imagine myself watching someone from behind a fence or pane of glass, as an exhibit. If I wasn't so emotionally invested in this situation, what more objective conclusions might I come to? 

Anchoring

The word anchoring is used for various mindfulness and CBT techniques but the way I use it is a word that reminds me to connect to my life outside of a situation when I am finding it stressful. This helps me remember that whatever discomfort I'm going through, there will be an end to it, and there is an "outside" to it. So if I'm upset at work, I make a point of calling my Mum or texting my boyfriend in my lunch break, because they remind me that when I pack up and leave the office, they're waiting for me. Hearing their actual voice helps. Or if I know I'm going to struggle in a social situation, sometimes I'll wear something that reminds me of something positive. Which I know might sound naff, but it does help just a little for me. Or if I'm able to, I'll make conversation with someone about a mutual interest we have, so even if I'm not comfortable in the actual scenario, I'm recalling something that makes me feel safe, for want of a better word.

Staycations

People often say they "live for the weekends" and I think I've become more like that over time, as I've started to lift some of the significance (and pressure!) that I attach to my career. My version of that isn't necessarily going out to a club or whatever because I'm not a big drinker, but I have started to plan out my weekends more. My natural preset when I'm feeling a bit down is to not want to do anything at all on my weekends, and just slob. Sometimes, this is genuinely what I need (so for example, I literally have every day of every weekend booked up with something or other until October, so come October, I will relish in a slobfest) but I've recognised recently that kind of feeds a vicious loop. The more I sit around, the more I ruminate about things I don't want to think about, and the less in control I feel of any of it. Then I beat myself up for "wasting" the day, and before I know it, Sunday night's come around, and I've got nothing to show for it. So every few weeks, I plan an actual itinerary, either for myself, or to do things with my boyfriend. Naturally as I have a partner, we spend a lot of our weekend together, but equally, if you're single, you can think about things you enjoy doing by yourself or family. This makes even a rainy, skint Saturday feel more exciting. It doesn't have to be things that cost much or any money, but it should just feel as though you have activities planned out a bit like a holiday from home. Staycation activities should be things that feel a bit out of the norm, maybe things you don't often have time, or give yourself permission, to do. So for example, me and my boyfriend have had weekends where we find a big country park or forest, and plan out a really long walk that takes most of the day, maybe with a stop for lunch (packed sarnies like at school if on a budget, or a local pub if you can stretch to it), and by the end of the day, it feels like an achievement, we've got out and done something active and memorable, and it stops us from staring at the walls. Or we might cook a really nice meal together and make the table nice like we're at a restaurant (I know this sounds cringey but trust me we're NOT the romantic types yet still this feels special not icky). We might end the day with a movie and some snacks. Simple things that don't have to be expensive or too quirky but I might turn my phone off for the day so I can disconnect a bit.

Escapism

After everything I've said about not slobbing out, this is going to sound a contradiction but there are times when it's absolutely fine to just veg out and do nothing. When we're dealing with stressful or demoralising things like being depressed, worrying about work, getting anxious about things, we're using a lot of brain energy. I don't know about you, but sometimes my mind just feels tired. I'm the kind of person who likes to learn, but sometimes that means cramming my head full of quite frankly, ill-advised grit and gloom, that can exacerbate my mood or feeling of fatigue. Sometimes I don't want to have to put loads of thought into anything. So as much as I love documentaries, and debating politics, and reading books about crime (and so on and so on!), sometimes all I want to do is watch something completely mind numbing, upbeat, uplifting, like a reality TV show or kid's film. Or shock horror...read Heat magazine. There's a lot of elitism that goes on when people discuss what they do in their spare time, where they go on holiday, what food they eat. I think when you couple that with constant Facebook updates about every minutiae of people's lifestyles, we can feel under some kind of silent pressure to out do each other with our leisure pursuits, likes and dislikes, or interests. If our Saturday consists more of climbing through series of the Kardashians than Mount Kilimanjaro, does that mean we're a failure? No, it just means we're human, and our minds, as well as our bodies, need a break. And often, we're comparing ourselves to others with no good reason.

Permission to worry

I once read an anxiety tip that at first I dismissed for being a load of nonsense. I don't believe that you can "tell" someone not to worry, in the same way I don't believe you can tell someone not to be shy, or tell someone not to be depressed. I also don't think it's healthy to suppress feelings, at least for any significant length of time. But I've tried this tip and it does actually work, but takes some practice. The tip is that you allow yourself 10-20 minutes of the day when you can worry for as long as you like about anything you like, however ridiculous it is. During this time slot, you can give yourself permission to really focus on your worries and not even try to be rational about them. Run the worst case scenario through your head ("I can't get this task finished in time, so my boss is going to be angry, then they're going to put me on a performance plan, then I'm going to fail that and be fired, then I'll be homeless" etc etc) and allow yourself to really think about that possibility. But the rule is any other worry that comes up in your head outside of those times you "defer" to that time zone rather than dealing with it right there and then. You're not dismissing it because you're acknowledging it (you can even write the worry down on a notepad so you don't forget), but you are simply promising yourself you will give yourself "proper" time to worry about it at that time (rather than now, when say, you need to be present on the task at hand). It does as I say, take practice, but over time, I've found it a little easier to compartmentalise in this way. The point is supposed to be that rather than simply using the "snap out of it" mode of thinking, that we know doesn't work, you are allowing yourself dedicated time to really focus on what it is that's worrying you, and releasing the tension that comes with that. What it does reduce though, by giving yourself an allocated time, is the disruption of those constant "whirring" anxieties to day to day things that you need to be able to get on with (like writing the essay you need to finish, or getting things done around the house etc). The premise is that when we worry all through the day our mind is actually "flitting" between subjects, and doesn't actually resolve anything because it never actually follows through on the thoughts, so they just stay there in a state of "limbo". By allowing yourself time to follow them through to their dramatic conclusion, it often enables you to recognise how unlikely or unrealistic the worst case scenario is, in a way that doesn't feel flippant. Also, sometimes by the time you get around to your "worry slot" you might find the worry may not seem so significant any more after all.

I don't know if I explained that one very well...but I hope you get the jist!

 So I guess my point is, none of these things are going to make a drastic difference to how life with depression or anxiety feels. But they can add up to make things more endurable on days where you need a little extra TLC. They don't have to cost money, and they can at least help you be kinder to yourself.

 "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum"

 Or, "don't let the bastards grind you down".

#blog #kindness #mindfulness #anxiety #depression #coping mechanisms #worry

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

valley of the empaths.

I know, or at least hope, I will not be alone in confessing that my propensity for empathy has  at times, come at significant cost to my own happiness, and left me with a misplaced guilt complex. 

I wouldn't change being an empath for anything, and have historically viewed its consequences as worthwhile "occupational hazards", but sometimes I have to ask myself how different my life might have been by now if I had dared to take a few more risks, and listened to my instincts sooner. 

I look at all the years that have been wasted on trying to make square pegs fit round holes, and punishing myself for what were actually quite sound decisions, and can't help wondering how much further down the road I'd be. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and after it all, I can say that I really tried with many people and many situations before finally giving up, but sometimes I wince at the time it's taken me to move from A to B.

I've always hated conflict and confrontation. In fact, I'll do almost anything to avoid it most of the time. I'll keep giving out second chances, I'll make excuses and justifications for behaviour for way too long, and I'll always try to see the situation from the other person's point of view. Because my natural default is to excuse poor behaviour by finding some mitigating circumstance  to reason it away, it takes me a really long time to throw in the towel. Most people's experience of me won't be one of someone who is argumentative or unforgiving, and that's set a precedent, like it does for all of us, as to what people expect from me day to day. 

So it comes as no surprise that on the rare occasions I have chosen to cut someone out of my life, or confront them about unacceptable behaviour, that it has been met with shock and indignation. I think if people were honest, this is because they perceive me as quite a passive or weak-minded person, and assume that I don't have it in me. Quite often I find myself in situations where people are obviously not expecting me to call them out, and quite often, they would be correct in this assumption. So when I do take a stand, the backlash I receive for it tends to be greater. If I am angry enough, and have had enough time to prove beyond any reasonable doubt to myself, and any second chances I may have bestowed, that this person needs to be challenged, I will do so, when the time is right. I always hope in these situations that people would reflect on the fact that a) I am not normally a confrontational person, b) I am a recognised empath by almost everyone in my life and c) I generally have no issues being able to get on with people, and therefore conclude that perhaps in this situation, there may be some merit to my point of view. But denial is a powerful thing, and as my brother will often say, people have an underlying instinct to be the "hero of their own stories". And some truths are bitter pills to swallow. 

The knock-on effect of this is that it plays into a sense of guilt in me which is already in overdrive. By the point I have actively entered into conflict, I will already have had to override huge waves of anxiety to stick my neck out, and it doesn't take much of a leap for me to start convincing myself I've made a terrible mistake. 

I'm no longer ashamed or embarrassed to admit that I have had a lot of counselling throughout my life, from the age of about 15. This has been for various reasons that I will go into separately in other blogs, but what I will say is that it's taken me a long time, and lots of therapy, for me to even begin to recognise that not all negative implications of conflicts in my life are my fault. Nor am I the driver of any of them. I have gradually, over time, gained clarity enough to trust myself that some of the most difficult decisions I've made in life have been some of the best, and were frankly, entirely justified. 

Making these kinds of decisions is even harder when society tells you they don't make sense, that "blood is thicker than water". That mentality can get under your skin so much, that it's the easiest thing in the world to wake up one day, and think, "what have I done?", "was I too harsh?", "am I going to regret this when I/they are grey and old and on my/their deathbed?". 

But what is regret?

 Regret is "a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over an occurrence or something that one has done or failed to do".

 Whose failing is it? Who has done to?

 I may have cut the threads, but the failings were not mine, and I am not guilty of "doing to". 

I had a defining moment some time ago, and at the risk of this blog being longer than intended, I'd like to explain the resonance it's had on me since. If it seems a little disjointed, this is because this is an edited segment from a chapter I've been writing for my book. I didn't want to share it all, but I thought the below would offer an insight into what I'm getting at here. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I used to believe, perhaps naively, that  whatever stories people manage to spin to others in their life to justify their unkind, cruel, or abusive behaviour, and whatever distraction tactics they employ to keep the white noise of life preventing them from seeing evidence of the truth: that when they are in a room, by themselves, with nothing but their own thoughts for company, people recognise on some level that they have been bad, unkind, cruel to another human being – even if they never admit that outside of those four walls. 

Through time, I’ve realised that those same people are also very good at buying into, and convincing themselves, of their external lies. And that more often than not, that conversation with themselves never happens. For me, this is the cruellest lesson in life – that someone can treat someone else so badly, and never really pay any significant price for it.  

 When we’re wronged in some way, we like to imagine all sorts of scenarios in our head. That the other person will feel guilty later, that they will suffer in some way as karma dishes out “punishment”, that they will have regrets later in life.

What about if that never happens? What about if that person just doesn’t care enough about you to spend much of their time thinking about it? What about if your life is an imprint of the devastation they’ve left behind…and they’re sitting in some other corner of the world, your town, the same street…perfectly happy? What then?

 I’ll always remember a poignant moment in my life that cemented this realisation for me.

I haven’t seen my Dad since 2014. Throughout my childhood, my Dad was a tyrant. Those that know me well know a little of what he was like, but until now I've never really said much about him. I may choose to write about him in other blogs in a little more detail if it feels right, but for now, suffice to say that if it wasn’t for my Mum, I think things could have turned out very differently for my brother and I. My Dad is a deeply insecure, angry, and bitter man, who has made it his life’s work to abuse anybody in a close relationship with him. I hold him accountable for the sheer misery he has inflicted on so many lives around him. And I have never once known him to apologise to any of us for a single incidence of the bile he has spewed in our direction for years. After a period of reconciliation where I tried desperately to give him a chance to prove himself capable of being a decent, honest person, yet again I found myself back at square one – my Dad is not capable of loving anybody, and I truly believe he is devoid of the capacity for genuine emotion. 

In the Summer of 2016, I met a friend for dinner. We were chatting and laughing away, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw that my Dad was having dinner by himself at the next restaurant, on the other side of the glass pane, outside. Luckily, my Dad was facing away from us, and didn’t appear to have seen me.  Nevertheless, I felt a wave of anxiety wash over me, and I immediately felt too sick to eat the rest of my dinner. My friend is a good one who knows quite a bit about my family history, and I was able to tell her what was happening. We decided to order the bill and as soon as we’d paid up, we’d leave.

While I was waiting for the bill, and my friend visited the bathroom, my eyes flitted over to where he sat. And there it was. The absolute reality check I needed. The final blow that snuffed out the tiny flame of “but I still miss him sometimes” once and for all. There he was, in the sunshine, drinking a glass of wine, having a nice steak dinner, and laughing – I mean that kind of laughing when you’re in public, and you’re trying to control yourself but you can’t help it – at his mobile phone. It hit me: he’s happy.

 The moment I realised this, my focus and perspective on him changed. My Dad was not living a lonely, miserable existence. He was not sitting there fretting about what he had lost. He wasn’t distracted by anxiety or depression over what his life had become. 

He was happy. He wasn’t losing time thinking about any of us. 

Is my interpretation of this event subjective? Of course. Can I actually get inside my Dad’s head and have unequivocal knowledge of his thoughts? No. Was I making an assumption based on that snapshot of time? Perhaps. Who knows. I will never know. But – it mattered enough that he was still able to have one of those moments to me. He didn’t deserve it. Somehow he’d landed on his feet again and I could almost guarantee he was still parading around in his smug, narcissistic bubble. He undoubtedly would have found some new, vulnerable woman (perhaps a timid divorcee with young children or a younger secretary at his latest law firm). He was probably working, and earning a decent wage, despite the fact he had a criminal record. He’d probably wormed his way into her house and her family. 

And he probably didn’t think about me all that much. Just another blip on the radar.

 The Empath's arch nemesis: The Narcissist.

 So what justice is there? How do those people sleep at night? Why is it that people like us end up living an examined life, while they coast along, unflinchingly sailing through?

 I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

So when I'm talking about regret, about misplaced guilt, about the internal conflict it provokes in us to cut someone out of our lives, I feel an awareness that there is a prism certain relationships in our lives are viewed through. A friend who treats you like shit? Move on.

 On the other hand, society tells me that if this person is my parent, I am supposed to forgive them all sins and pop my rose-tinted glasses on. Nurse them into old age. Be there for them and be the better person, despite their flaws and transgressions. Because "at the end of the day, they're flesh and blood". 

These are the messages we receive in our day to day lives. It's no wonder us empaths are left choked by hesitation and regret. We lose years and years of our lives to absorbing dysfunctional transmissions about the people we have a duty to be, when everyone else is enabled to fall short. 

To make empaths feel better, there are often narratives of “killing people with kindness”, "being the bigger person", or “the best revenge is success”. Guilt is a powerful glue in disempowering us from taking back control of our lives and dictating who is allowed in on our own terms, according to our belief systems. 

Sometimes that pressure comes from ourselves. We can buy into our moral sanctity by sticking to the plot line of "empath forgives and sets an example". I wrote about the guru complex. The guru complex befits our friend the Narcissist. The Empath's equivalent is martyrdom. 

It makes us feel smug to think that we are sticking the knife in by living a fabulous life full of sunshine and rainbows while these people are caked in secret misery. Or that we have proven ourselves worthy by being unconditional in our love. That feeds into a need we have to cast ourselves as the hero. 

The hard truth is, this is as much a fairy story as the tales Narcissists tell themselves about what went on all those years ago. They don’t have a magic telescope. They don’t know (and in honesty, probably don’t care) about how happy we are, what we are doing with our lives, or what success we’ve found. Narcissists all have one thing in common – their self-interest. 

But what we can do is live our life, be happy, be successful, in the objective knowledge that the news may never reach them, that they will never provide the apology we so desperately crave, and they may not even live to regret it. But we can live on in spite of that. Because of it. Our audience can be ourselves. Our applause can be our own sense of pride and achievement. 

I've squandered too much time raking myself over the coals for decisions I had every right to take. And I want to stop that now. If we're talking about forgiveness, sometimes we have to forgive ourselves. Forgive ourselves for not being stronger, earlier. Forgive ourselves for moving on. Forgive ourselves for bidding guilt goodbye.

#blog #kindness #guilt #regret #empaths #empathy #narcissism #narcissist

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

the banality of evil.

10 years ago next Thursday, Sophie Lancaster died from sustained head injuries, and a coma that she never woke up from, following a gang of five teenage boys repeatedly jumping up and down on her head, kicking her face and stamping on her body. At the time, Sophie had been trying to protect her boyfriend, who had already been beaten to the point of unconsciousness.

When police eventually arrived at the scene, after the pair had been left for dead, both victims' faces were so swollen that it was impossible to tell which of the couple was the male and which the female.

Whilst Sophie's boyfriend Robert Maltby survived, Sophie was pronounced dead an agonising 13 days later, at the age of 20.

And the motive?

She was a "mosher". 

Sophie could have been anyone from the alternative scene back in the mid 2000s. That could have been me, my brother, or many of my friends who at the time dressed similarly to Sophie. 

And the perpetrators could be any teenage boys in any regular town. 

Only a few years prior to the attack against Sophie, there were many similarities between us. I was into the gothic/alternative scene. I had facial piercings. I listened to music that wasn't popular with the mainstream kids in my school or college. I was lucky enough not to experience a great deal of prejudice about this, aside from the few odd comments, but people I know spent almost their entire time at school being harassed for something as simple as what colour they chose to die their hair, or a piece of metal around their neck. It seems absolutely absurd to look back on it now, yet I know at the time it was no laughing matter. People I dearly loved were being maliciously bullied, threatened and goaded because of something as mundane as their dress sense. I saw an extremely close family member's entire childhood pulled apart by the mentality of conformity and the sheer determination people have to crush any individuality into submission. 

And the emphasis was always on the so-called misfits to find ways to "fit in" and not "draw attention" to themselves. To not be so "stubborn" in their outlook on life. To try to mold into the cookie cutter template. To not respond when being threatened. To be "the bigger person" even if that meant sacrificing their entire belief system, and physical safety. Never once in any of these instances was it suggested that the onus might be on the parents of the perpetrators to bring their kids up to be decent human beings. Never once did the school take any accountability for tackling its bullying culture, or for imposing repercussions. I never heard one person in authority reinforce my relative's right to be themselves, or promote the lesson of acceptance. The bottom line was: if you don't fit in with the rest of us, don't expect us to help when it all kicks off.

 When I was at university, I studied the Sociology of Terror, which  was a module on political conflicts and acts of terrorism across history. When studying about the persecution of Jews in the second world war, we were taught about Hannah Arendt's theory of the "banality of evil". Arendt was a political theorist who argued that evil acts and atrocities as horrific as the Holocaust happened, and will continue to happen, not as the result of radicalism in fringe populations of extremists, as might be assumed, but rather as:

 "simply a function of thoughtlessness, a tendency of ordinary people to obey orders and conform to mass opinion without a critical evaluation of the consequences of their actions and inaction" 

In other words, as a consequence of the incremental permissions we give ourselves to look the other way. 

Over time, I have come to strongly believe in this theory as the basis on which many supposedly "everyday" people allow themselves to do unspeakable things to others, seemingly without remorse, or recourse.

 When we do nothing, when we spread gossip, when we "go along with the joke", when we roll our eyes...

 ...when we say "kids will be kids", when we refuse to believe our little angels are capable of anything but bounty and light when there is evidence to the contrary, when we give weight to superficialities, when we congratulate conventionality, when we take the easy road... 

...when we conflate eccentricity with subhuman scum.

 I'm lucky I was brought up kind, loving Mum, who taught us to do the right thing, not the easy thing. And to judge people on their character, not their appearance. Because of this, despite my many failings and weaknesses, one strength I am grateful for is that I have never deferred or kowtowed to popularity. I have always been far more interested in the misfits and the geeks than I ever have been in the queen bees and the narcissists. I surround myself with people who are happy and proud to be who they are, rather than what society tells them they are supposed to be, and who are fundamentally kind people. I don't have time for the bullshit that comes along with arrogance and ignorance. It's one of the reasons why I will automatically feel myself glaze over in the presence of snobbery, conceitedness, or attention seeking. I just don't want those kind of people in my life, and I've had to learn that the hard way at times. 

My hair is no longer jet black. My piercings are now gone, replaced with tiny faint dimples which make me smile when I remember about the memories I associate with that time. These days I blend in a little more. There are times, even now, when I look away. And when I kick myself for not speaking out. I try hard every day not to be that person, but I know that even I have the propensity to succumb to convenient truths if I allow myself to. 

Let's not let deaths like Sophie's be in vain. Let's not be complacent.

#blog #kindness #ethics #politics #prejudice #hannah arendt #banalityofevil #bullying

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

i would like to leave this city

I remember the moment I fell in love with London. Up until then, I'd been a cynic. Why do people want to live in a dirty environment, full of concrete buildings, where everything is 10 times more expensive and there's not a bit of green in sight? I didn't see the appeal.

 But wandering around a bustling Covent Garden market, on a dark, snowy, December night after work -a cup of hot chocolate in my hand, and the smell of roasting chestnuts and glow of fairy lights all around - I got it. I understood what all the fuss was about. There's nowhere like London.

 People often talk of cities being ghost characters in their own right on sitcoms. What was Sex & the City without Manhattan? Or Frasier without Seattle? I can understand that. There's something about the micro culture of a small corner of your city that you can't help but come to love, and it's always there as a backdrop with the changing seasons. Since I've worked in London I've learnt so much about the rich mix of cultures in this country, witnessed a sense of community I honestly don't believe people realise exists in that setting, and sat on countless park benches on pensive lunch breaks, people watching.

 I have an annual tradition on the day before Christmas Eve - from Holborn, where I used to work, I would take the tube a few stops to Bond Street and visit Selfridge's. I peak at the famous window displays, and then I walk around the various floors, accepting a free spritz of expensive perfume here, a taste of chocolate there, just drinking in all the festivities on one of my favourite days of the year. I can never afford anything in that place, but I love just looking, and imagining what kind of Christmases all these privileged people are looking forward to.

 I guess it's no surprise that my love for Christmas and love for London combined!

 I'll always love London for those experiences. For the people, the atmosphere, the culture - the sense that there's always a new nook of the city to explore.

 So I feel sad that I've come to realise that London is that friend you can't quite let go of, but need to. It's been the backdrop of my anxiety these past few years, and more and more, I am thinking it's time to make a change.

 Of course, it's not London at all that makes me anxious. It's what it represents for me.

 I've realised that at the grand old age of 29, I'm not cut out for years and years of this constant hamster wheel of neuroses that comes with trying to hold down a "career" job in a highly competitive environment that is feeling increasingly individualistic.

 I've not done badly. I've put a lot of effort, particularly in the past 8 years, into creating a sense of purpose for myself and most importantly, security. I've kept pushing and pushing, all the while telling myself I'd step off the carousel at some point soon, that I just need to get to X, Y, or Z, and then I'll feel safe and able to take my foot off the pedal a little bit. Despite my myriad of anxieties, I'm constantly forcing myself out of my comfort zone, because we're always told that's so good for us. It has been, to a certain extent. Through that experience, I've learnt a great deal about how organisations and people operate, what inspiring leadership (and conversely, completely demotivating) leadership looks like. I feel like I've "earnt my stripes" and "learnt my craft" if I can say that about the kind of work I do. I've been lucky enough to work in places with a social purpose, and support vulnerable people. It's always been so important to my value system not to work merely to put coins in someone else's pocket, but to make a difference, and I'd like to think in my own small way I've achieved that. I've met such a vast range of people, many of whom I'm proud to call friends, because we just clicked and had so much in common, and because of my passion for what I do, some of my best friends I've met through work, because we share so many of the same principles, and that's infectious. Let's be clear, what I earn would be considered modest by some, but over the past year, I've felt I can breathe a little more financially. I don't have to worry about making ends meet, and earn enough that we can enjoy the odd holiday or treat without feeling too much of a dent.

 But...I'm tired. I mean absolutely exhausted. I'm so tired, if I'm honest some months just feel like Groundhog Day. Things that should meaningful to me feel just like going through the motions. I've lost my spark that used to wake me up in the morning and give me the push I need to get up, get on the bus, and see each day as a challenge.

 I look back on all the years I've spent having to worry about things that are frankly, just meaningless. Things that are just about being in a certain "bubble" at a certain time. The endless emails that just don't stop. Relentless dread for most of my adult life so far, trying to navigate my way through office politics. Power dynamics, egos, status...three things I don't care for, and don't want to be a part of.

 I realised the other day that for the past few years, I have spent the majority of my Mondays-Fridays feeling on edge. It starts with the alarm clock that goes off at 5am and the same first thought that's always been my first thought since working in London - "how am I going to get through today?". Then it's the buses and trains full of aggression and tension. The near-punch ups over seats. Not having a single cm of space to call your own. The sky high workload that never eases up. The dangling carrot of the next promotion and the stick of the imposter syndrome that keeps me up at night. Never being able to spend a minute of my day from the time I wake to the time I put my head on the pillow, alone.

 I just can't do it any more. These problems will always exist but in the noise of London, I can't hear myself think for long enough to understand what it really is I want out of life any more. And I want to find out. 2018 is the year it needs to change. I want space to have a life, rather than just making a living. I don't want to have to be burnt out at 50 to learn that. I don't need to - I've learnt it already. I just need to figure out what I am going to do.

 There's so many other things I want in life than the 9-5. I want to become a counsellor and study how to help people heal from trauma. I want to have more time to spend with my boyfriend, and I want him not to always have to be the one who does all the cooking and tidying up because I'm always late home and otherwise we won't get an evening. I want to make more space for things that nurture me, like my sewing, and phase out all of the things that make me feel panicky or depressed. I want to feel I have more choice over my life, rather than everything being a product of choices other people make for me. Other people decide how much my brain is worth to them, and how disposable I am. I would like to not give up on my dream to adopt and have time to commit to and enjoy that process without being pulled in a million directions. I want to experience a bit of risk in life, and stop playing it safe all the time to please other people, or myself. I want to enjoy London as a tourist, not as a frazzled, half-dead robot. I want to set up a dusty old book shop. I want to actually see where my writing takes me. And I can't do that living the life I live at the moment.

 I'm sitting here writing this with a roof over my head, snuggled in a warm bed with my creature comforts around me. Even if things change, and money gets tighter, I'll never have to struggle in the same way so many other people do in this world, and it really is a luxury to able to have the option to make these choices. That isn't lost on me. So why do I hold myself back so much from walking away? Same old, same old. Fear, embarrassment, conformity, people pleasing.

 As atheists, we believe there is no afterlife. This really is the one life we have and it's scary how quickly the clock is ticking.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I would like to leave this city This old town don't smell too pretty and I can feel the warning signs running around my mind And when I leave this island I'll book myself into a soul asylum 'Cause I can feel the warning signs running around my mind

So here I go, I'm still scratching around in the same old hole My body feels young but my mind is very old

So what do you say? You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway Half the world away, half the world away Half the world away I've been lost, I've been found but I don't feel down

And when I leave this planet You know I'd stay but I just can't stand it and I can feel the warning signs running around my mind And if I could leave this spirit I'll find me a hole and I will live in it and I can feel the warning signs running around my mind

Here I go, I'm still scratching around in the same old hole My body feels young but my mind is very old

So what do you say? You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway Half the world away, half the world away Half the world away I've been lost, I've been found but I don't feel down

No, I don't feel down

~ Half the World Away, Oasis

#blog #kindness #london #ratrace #career #dreams

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

sweating the small stuff.

More often that not, if I spend more than a couple of hours with one of my close family members, the conversation will eventually turn to our upbringing, and some kind of sense that other people aren't "quite like us". I imagine we are by no means alone in this, nor are we the first people to feel alienated at times by the distance between how we see the world and how those around us seem to.

 It's particularly prevalent for us, I think, because we are a very tight knit family - many of my family literally live around the corner from each other. I grew up being as close to my cousins as I am brothers and sisters, and there have always been an abundance of aunties and uncles on both sides who have had a great influence on the values I have been brought up to hold as important. I've learnt so much more from each and every one of my family members than I could ever articulate in one blog, but I guess something that really shines through it all, is a very high standard of expectation of others' behaviour, the counterweight to which at times has been varying degrees of disappointment when these are not met.

 I think it's very important, whatever your background, not to hold yourself up as some kind of beacon of virtue. As a sociology graduate, and someone who strongly believes in nurture over nature, I am really aware that the way we see the world is very much shaped by social influences such as familial and cultural context, class, gender, age, life experiences - and as such, there are very few things, even if they are things I ardently disagree with, that I would actually argue are objective "wrongs". I never intended this blog to become a way to preach about all of me and my family's virtues, and everyone else's shortcomings. My brother and I actually talk a lot about how sometimes the way we have been brought up - with high emotional intelligence, stronger than typical sensitivity, and conscientiousness - can at times really be a hindrance which has the danger to set the bar immeasurably high for those we interact with.

 That disclaimer out of the way, there are a few basic beliefs I have instilled in me that I find it very hard to compromise on. Probably the most central to my identity is the idea that unless and until someone does you intentional harm, you treat them with a baseline of respect. This might mean being honest and transparent, making an effort to maintain friendships, giving people the benefit of the doubt before assuming the worst, being mindful of how you interact with people, having self-awareness and understanding the impact your own actions could have on that person's wellbeing, placing value on authenticity and connection...any number of things.

 Lately, I find myself coming up against a bit of a brick wall, and I'm in danger of something I didn't want to happen. I'm in danger of becoming cynical. And I think that's to do with the level of reciprocity I am feeling. I don't consider myself a naive person - I've had a lot of life experience for my age, I've been exposed to quite a lot of diversity of lifestyles and value systems, and I make it a point to learn more about things that challenge my thinking (to avoid confirmation bias, always a step worth taking as a lefty liberal!). I haven't lived in a world of rose tinted glasses my whole life and I've seen enough of some really bad behaviour to know that some people just can't (read "won't") change. But for a pessimistic person, I have managed til now to hold up some kind of hope that people fundamentally try hard for the most part to be decent people. Even if their thinking is a little, how shall we say, "creative", even if they don't hold views I would find acceptable - I tend to assume that people are doing the best they can.

 I'm not so sure any more.

 In the last few months, something has changed in me, and although it's something I thought would never benefit my life, I am starting to realise it can be an advantage, if for nothing more than self-preservation. Slowly but surely, I am starting to distance myself from "sweating the small stuff".

 Richard Carlson tells us "it's all small stuff". Hmmmm. I don't know. I'm a great believer that a lot of that "small stuff" adds up to cumulative effect over time - and it's those things that eventually steamroll into the "big stuff" that causes the breakdown of relationships. I also believe that if people took a little more time and effort on the smaller things in life, we'd probably all get a long a bit better.

 But there is something I am starting to realise. You can't change everyone. Some people are just....crap.

You can waste so much energy trying to understand why some people act the way they do. You can make excuse after excuse for why effort isn't reciprocated. You can try to convince yourself they didn't mean to sound self-centred, they didn't mean that joke to sound so harsh, they didn't mean to make me feel that way when they did (or didn't) do X, Y or Z. Sometimes, enough just has to be enough.

 If I had a tally chart of all the hours in my life so far I have spent tying myself up in anxious knots about what this person or that person thinks of me, or what terrible thing will happen to me if I challenge behaviour I don't like, or what awful repercussions there will be if I walk away from one sided relationships, there wouldn't be enough paper in the world - trust me! I always thought I would care about that stuff. I always thought I would live this kind of dampened life squashed down by misplaced guilt about every choice I make. But I have to admit, it's getting a little easier.

 There's a kind of clarity that comes when shit things happen in life. Once you've had your world blown apart by something major, or experienced those minor tremors from other bumps along the way - every time that happens, the one good thing that happens is you lose a little bit of guilt. You start seeing self-care as a prerogative rather than an indulgence, and little by little, stop wasting time on worrying about the things you have little to no control over.

 It doesn't mean people aren't crap any more. It just means that the axis of your world doesn't spin around that fact any more. People will always be crap. So the question is, what do you do about that?

 You start re-balancing things. You don't have to become a hardened shell of the person you once were. You certainly don't have to stop doing all the kind hearted things that make you a good person. It would be such a shame to lose your enthusiasm for life, or belief in people. But maybe you re-direct those qualities to the people who are bouncing them back.

 3 years ago, if I'd have gone home from a day from work and someone spoke to me like a piece of shit on their shoe, I would have spent about an hour feeling angry, and about 10million hours after that fretting about what it is I'm doing (or not doing) to bring out that attitude in someone. Now, I won't lie: I stew on it. But the difference is, I allow myself to be angry, and then I move on quicker. I am also now able to take on a reasonable proportion of responsibility in a given situation - I take a slice, rather than the whole pie!! Yes, maybe I could have changed A or B to make that interaction a little more successful, but you know what? That person is a bit of an idiot, and they're known for speaking down to people. That's not my stuff.

 3 years ago, if someone didn't make an effort with me, I would have thought I'm a boring person, or that I needed to change something to be more likeable. Now I understand that you can be the nicest person in the world, and sometimes you're just not everyone's cup of tea. Situations in life change, and people grow apart. It's not the end of the world. And it doesn't have to be personal. Even if it really feels it sometimes.

 And 3 years ago, if I wasn't spending every waking minute going over 110%, I would have called myself lazy and self-pitying. These days, I recognise sometimes I just need to be nothing, to nobody, all day, and that's how I personally recharge. And it's okay once in a while to take my foot off the gas and just work at 75% capacity. Or even 10% if that's all I can manage. I just do the best I can. And when a guilty thought washes over me, I try to distract myself as quickly as possible with something that makes me feel positive.

 It's such a cliché, but I guess a cliché for a reason. The most valuable thing my counsellor ever taught me was being kind to myself. The question I ask myself (and I hear her gently encouraging voice every time I do this in my head!) is: "if this was a friend, would I say the same?". Would I tell a friend they were lazy if they'd spent all week commuting for 3 hours a day and wanted to spend a day vegging out on the sofa watching TV? Would I tell a friend they were being over sensitive if they were hurt by something someone had said to them? Would I chastise a friend if they made a mistake?

 Or would I tell them to take it easy, forgive themselves, and do what they needed to do to feel calmer?

 Life is full of the "small stuff". Some of it you can see - most of it is invisible, but very real. I don't believe in trivialising day to day frustrations because I know first hand how horrible the day to day grind can get at times. But I would say this. Life really is too short to waste it worrying about what everybody thinks. As long as you can say you have a clean conscience and treat people well, it's okay to let yourself off the hook occasionally. Anxious people are often said to overestimate the emphasis other people place on their actions. How many times have you walked into a party thinking everyone's going to make fun of what you're wearing or think your social skills are rubbish?

 Shall I let you in to a secret?

 They're too busy to notice.

 They're too busy sweating their small stuff.

#blog selfawareness anxiety forgiveness guilt kindness

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

the guru complex

“I've seen them kneel with baited breath for the ritual I've watched this experience raise them to pseudo higher levels I've watched them leave their families in pursuit of your nirvana I've seen them coming to line up from Switzerland and America

How long will this take Baba? How long have we been sleeping? Do you see me hanging on to every word you say? How soon will I be Holy? How much will this cost Guru? How much longer 'til you completely absolve me?

I've seen them give their drugs up in place of makeshift altars I've heard them chanting Kali Kali frantically I've heard them rotely repeating your teaching with elitism I've seen them boasting robes and foreign sandalwood beads I've seen them overlooking God in their own essence I've seen their upward glances in hopes of instant salvation I've seen their righteousness mixed without loving compassion I've watched you smile as the students bow to kiss your feet

How long will this take Baba? How long have we been sleeping? Do you see me hanging on to every word you say? How soon will I be Holy? How much will this cost Guru? How much longer 'til you completely absolve me?”

~ Baba, Alanis Morissette

                                          ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I'm a great believer in "what goes around comes around". I don't believe this because of any mystic belief in a form of spiritual karma, or indeed in an omniscient, omnipotent God. I believe that on a quite practical level, people who treat others unjustly, through their own obliviousness, and the aversion they create in others, left long enough, will eventually entrap themselves in a web of their own making. It makes sense that the more of a negative impact you make on others' lives, the less likely it will be once people start talking with each other, and the truth of shared experience is exposed, that people will afford unkind people the consideration that same person has been unwilling to bestow on them. I believe structures like power dynamics, status, and social conformity can mean this process takes a long time (sometimes years) to reach fruition, but leave it long enough, and that person will have grown enough rope to hang themselves. 

Unlike the movies, this moment tends to be somewhat more of a subtle shift, than a blinding light of realisation. And I think I received my moment of vindication the other day.

For the past few weeks, I have been the outlet of blame for someone else's insecurities. What started as a suspicion that this person was perhaps just being a little unintentionally insensitive, gradually slid across the spectrum to a hunch that there was a little more intent than I had previously ascribed, but that this was momentary, and regretted later. It took a while for me to realise the ball of anxiety that I'd been carrying in my stomach, and the lump in my throat that threatened to spill at any second, were the result of active malice, manipulation, and yes, a deliberate attempt to make my life unpleasant for a while. In short, someone didn't like me.

I realise this next sentence is going to sound egotistical, but here, I'll say it: I'm not someone people dislike. I recognise that I am someone people may not immediately "click" with or "get". I may also be someone who others find irritating. But I have never been actively disliked (at least not to my knowledge).

Why do I think this is? Well, I think there's a few reasons. Again, I reiterate my natural personality may not be everybody's cup of tea, but because I am generally consistent with the principles of at the very least being polite, considerate, and at a basic level, decent - even to people I don't particularly like - it's quite hard for anyone to have enough ammunition to genuinely believe I am a bad person.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've dealt with A LOT (and I mean a lot!) of difficult people in my life so far. I've struggled in situations where people appear to have been threatened by me (usually in a work context because I am conscientious, they are not, and it shows them up - to out it bluntly). I've had probably a handful of people feel slighted by me when I have cut them out of my life (with good reason, that perhaps they are not ready to see). I've had to bite my lip more than a few times around people with huge egos who have probably found my lack of fawning around them a frustration.

 But never this.

My moment of clarity came a few days ago, when 2 acquaintances confirmed that their experience of this person had been almost identical. The same manipulative chiding disguised as "constructive feedback". The same emotional coldness and public humiliation. The same hostility when challenged on their unacceptable behaviour. And there it was: the "click".

I call the moment when you get this corroboration of the version of events you've been convincing yourself is a manifestation of your own "sensitivity" - the "click". It's when you realise that the sinister feeling you get around that person is not a figment of your imagination, or the mark of an overemotional soul taking everything to heart. The absolute wave of silence that quiets your chattering mind and offers you an avalanche of clarity. I'm not going mad. It wasn't me. They really are a shitty person.

I struggled with knowing how to feel - is it a relief that I'm not alone after all? Or is it more sad that there was another victim here that was also going home at night wondering what the hell they had done to bring this on themselves?

And guess what? The perpetrator here was one of life's "nice guys". Reasonably likeable. Articulate, sociable, amenable. Framed as an expert of their field. Someone who writes about their heightened knowledge of emotional intelligence. Someone who claims to be a leader in helping people to coach the best out of others. Someone who holds themselves up as a beacon of transparency and a role model of lived values.

Except for one thing.

Enter stage left: the guru complex.

I've met a few people in life who are very good at believing their own hype. They have a moderate measure of success at a certain point in their life or careers, and for then on out, they'll feast on those scraps for decades. Gone is the need to self-reflect. No longer a compulsion for accountability or self-awareness. They start to act in a way that is at best, insensitive, and at worst, morally bankrupt. Except for now, they have been elevated into a social position that affords them the luxury of power. And power and humility aren't the best of friends.

It's in the detail. The first time someone casts their eyes away at a moment of public belittlement. The time nothing happens to that complaint. The behaviour that remains unchallenged day on day, week on week...year on year. And before long, you're left with a narcissist who puts themselves at the centre of their world, and placed on a high enough pedestal to castigate others for the very attributes that are so severely lacking in themselves.

My point is this. You can talk about emotional intelligence, inspiring leadership, challenging prejudice, equal rights, a classless society all you like. You can write about checking your privilege, accepting difference, showing respect til the cows come home. You can sit and theorise on the art of human kindness and its many manifestations and urge others to advocate for suffering minorities, and pat yourself on the head for your liberal, progressive values.

But if you don't walk the talk?

It's all bullshit.

#emotionalintelligence kindness blog gurucomplex #narcissism #ego

[lessonsinkindness-blog]

in earnest.

As you'll learn from this blog, if you don't know me well enough already by now, I am not someone you could describe as succinct. If you asked me to sum up pretty much anything in one word, I couldn't. But if you asked me for the one word that summaries the most important thing to me in the world, it would be this: kindness.

 To me, kindness is the single most underrated quality. And the older I get, the more important it is to me to surround myself with people who replicate that quality - not just in their talk, but in their actions. Life experience has taught me that kindness can be found in people whom you never expected to find it on first assumption. I've also been bitterly disappointed to find it severely lacking in places I thought I could reach out to it without hesitation. As someone brought up to believe that kindness is an absolute non-negotiable, I have found myself wondering at times whether this idealism has caused me to set the bar too high.

 And this is what led me to write. I was convinced of the power of the confessional style when I fell in love with the music of Alanis Morissette. Introduced to her "Jagged Little Pill" album at the age of 15, finally someone was speaking to me as a young woman about how I felt about the world around me, without patronising me into believing that "emotional" and "sensitive" had to equate to "weak". There was a silent strength in the way that Alanis sung about vulnerability; what it had cost her, but also, what had been gained. Since then, I've followed her musical career to date. Her songs are often written in a "stream of consciousness" style, that allows the listener to peer through to her reality, sometimes in quite literal terms, rather than the abstract ambiguity of other, conversely opaque, singers I admired, like Tori Amos, who had me attaching my own meaning to her nonsense rhymes. I also grew up feeling an affinity with the Young British Artist Tracey Emin, whose artistic style has been a catalogue of her insecurities. Above all, I felt these women, and others I admired were kind and authentic. I saw and heard evidence of them doing good in the world, and treating people who had treated them abominably, with compassion and forgiveness, using their talents as an outlet to express their "whirring cogs" so to speak. And propelling their anger into philanthropy. I saw them focus on the things I felt mattered. Helping people, but also...understanding people.

 I've dipped in and out of writing since I was younger. I used to be a complete bookworm (I still am, though nowadays it takes me months, rather than weeks, to finish anything), and I would jot diary entries and short stories down on paper - never actually completing anything of course. In my teen years, I did the whole tortured blog thing. More recently, I have used blogging on my Facebook to advocate about causes I feel passionate about. But one thing I've always felt is a sense of self-consciousness about my writing, and a sense I can't shake off, that perhaps my ramblings are irritations (forgetting, I suppose, that people can choose to read or not read as they see fit).

 But recently, something's changed. Since a few years ago, I have wanted to write a book about some of my life experiences. The trouble was this wasn't ever going to be very focused. I knew the central issue was this disappointment at the lack of kindness in the (my) world, but it took so many shapes and forms that I couldn't really fathom how I would ever produce anything coherent enough to turn into a book. So instead I've been keeping a list of observations, questions, musings and rants on my phone, hoping that one day I'll decide what the "theme" is and come up with a witty title that encapsulates all the strands in one. But that doesn't seem to be forthcoming, and after a stint of more regular blogging for a recent charity fundraiser, I decided maybe that was the way to go. I also realised I have some valuable things to say, even if it's taken a while for me to find my voice over the past few years.

 So who knows where this blog will end up? Let's see! Just a few of the things it could end up being about...

 - human behaviour and people watching

- armchair psychology

- politics

- craft

- thoughts, hopes, worries

- politics

- atheism

- feminism

- memories

- photos

- quotes

- rants

- happy times, not so happy times

- depression

- anxiety

- therapy

- work

- advice

 Another way of considering why I'm doing this blog is to think about some of the things I hope to achieve out of it (even if on a very small scale):

 - I want to be able to write honestly and transparently about life - I think there are far too many outlets online for people to pretend they and everything in their life is perfect. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a bit of credible soul-searching.

- Some clarity over some of my experiences in life; trying to make some sense of how the world works and why people behave the way they do, perhaps challenging myself in the process

- A bit of meaningful conversation. I'm one of life's introverts (on the whole) and I would choose deep conversation all day long (if I didn't have to do inconvenient things like eat, sleep and work!). I'm interested to see what you think of some of the day to day issues that I think about

- Self-awareness and reflection - maybe I'll learn something about my self through the process

- Encourage people I know who have doubts to come and join me in the blogging world - don't leave me hanging! We don't need to be polished - we still have something to say!

 That's not to say it's all doom and gloom! One word that often comes up when people meet me is "smiley". I always hope that isn't a euphemism for "guffawing village idiot" but overall, I feel glad this is people's experience of me. I'd like to think I am a warm person who gives other people the time of day, and I promise you, 9 days out of 10 there is a moment when I am laughing until my ribs ache (although usually at something inappropriate and odd). I enjoy making new friends and for an introvert, I am pretty sociable. I also love my craft and am looking forward to being able to post project progress and let you know my ideas and inspiration for the next "thing"!

 I'm interested to see how this project evolves, what your thoughts are on my posts, and who I might meet in the process. Until next time...

 PS - Another thing you'll learn about me...I'm bad at keeping to a regular pattern! I know that will mean I have committed the cardinal blogging sin against regular, consistent content, but I will try to post as often as I'm able (sometimes, as you know, life gets in the way of best laid plans). I also would rather post when I have something valuable and present to say. Don't give up on me though, keep coming back! x

#blog #self awareness #confessionalwriting peoplewatching introvert kindness