Have you been held hostage by a planner? You know… one of those hardcover diaries that you slip into your handbag and cart around like a proper adult. The kind of planner where you jot down your to-do list, appointments and all manner of important information. Have you ever been held to ransom by one? Okay, maybe it’s just me?! I’d seen people using bullet journals, and seemingly magical High Performance planners to sort their lives and get shit done! I wanted to be one of those organised, on-top of shit people, with a healthy balanced lifestyle, ticking things off and getting shit done. So I searched for something that would work for me. ** In steps the Full Focus Planner** I can’t even tell you where I first saw the planner, but I ordered via the Full Focus website and a new one was going to show up every quarter (no pressure). In hindsight that should’ve been the moment that I realised that this was no ordinary Warehouse Stationery jobbie – a 3 month planner with a multiple goal and planning pages, tick boxes, weekly previews and weekend optimising pages was more than a slight step up from dated […]
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I live with anxiety and depression. It’s not all consuming but it’s there, and it’s something I’m forever refining my coping strategies for. I deliberately say ‘live with‘ rather than ‘suffer from‘ because some how using the term ‘suffer‘ in reference to my own life… feels like a frightening self full-filling prophecy. Anxiety vs Nervousness or Stress It’s hard to explain anxiety to someone who doesn’t live with it. People often believe it’s the same as being nervous, or stressed and don’t understand the crippling, strangling feeling that unexplainable panic can bring. Yes, in some situations feeling a little anxious is totally normal, things like public speaking or sitting an exam tend to make most people feel nervous. However, what separates my anxiety from stress or bog-standard worry, is that the intensity is considerably out of whack to the actual likelihood or even possible impact of the event or events. Yes, a certain amount of anxiety is normal or even helpful… it helps you get shit done, and to react accordingly to external stresses or potential threats (think bears, bullies and boogie monsters), but where normal worry or nervousness usually calms once the moment has passed, anxiety tends to fester […]
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I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog post front, forgetting that writing was my ‘soul medicine‘, I let it slip by the wayside. I gave up setting aside time to write and any attempts became well and truly half-arsed. The perfectionist in me felt it was only worth doing and worth sharing if it was 100% awesome all the time and bang on brilliant content! So half written articles piled up, and constantly looming on my to do list was “WRITE” or “BLOG“… in bold and underlined (because underlining helps) I forgot why I started writing. I forgot what I enjoyed about it and I let myself be derailed by others people’s writing success… Although it wasn’t just writing that fell by the wayside, I somehow dropped a lot of what I enjoyed. I became focused on what other people were doing, what I wasn’t invited to and eventually the things I was missing out because of COVID19. My own self-doubt and self-loathing was beginning to undo me. I’ve known for a while that I’ve needed to take action, perhaps see a counsellor or maybe go on some kind of magically rain forest retreat. The current solution of anti-depressants and […]
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Loneliness is a strange thing, in a crowded room or a busy neighbourhood you can still feel like you’re standing alone, like nobody hears you and nobody can be bothered with you. You can feel completely isolated from your community, colleagues and peers without actually being all alone. You can’t measure loneliness, it’s an immeasurable feeling, rather an a quantifiable situation, meaning you can feel lonely without actually being alone. Someone else can’t measure your loneliness, and you can’t measure theirs. In fact loneliness and being alone aren’t even the same thing, time alone or solitude is something you choose, loneliness is imposed on you by others. Loneliness feels draining, distracting, and upsetting; while being alone is often a desired solitude that feels peaceful, creative and somewhat restorative. Solitude restores body and mind. Loneliness depletes them. In 2018 experts believe that loneliness is serious issue, and that we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. There is no magic number or mathematical formula for loneliness, it doesn’t matter how many friends you’ve got, or whether your single, dating or married, loneliness is based more on whether you feel disconnected from those around you either emotionally or socially … or both. […]
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It always seems like a good book is hard to find when you need it most… so below are two recommended reads. Buddhist Boot Camp By Timber Hawkeye Given to me by a friends on a similar journey this book is now my handbook. Open any page on any given day and read for just a few minutes for non-sectarian approach to being at peace with the world. Timber Hawkeye is a real person who once upon a time was also on a journey, in this book he shares his experiences without preaching. I guess the beauty of this book is that it is easy to read, easy to understand, the chapters are small and you can read them in absolutely any order and it’s all highly relatable. You don’t need to be a buddhist to find the teachings motivational, it’s all about training your mind and boot camp is the ideal method for those of us who are time poor or with limited attention spans As the Dalai Lama says, “Don’t try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are.” Buddhism isn’t just about meditating, it’s about being […]
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Knowing what to do, or how to handle things when someone you know has depression or anxiety can be tricky. You can feel like there’s a constant elephant in the room, or that your treading on egg shells. Everyone’s journey is different and even if you’ve battled through depression or anxiety, your journey will be different to anyone else’s. There are hundreds of different blogs, articles and books aimed at explaining and simplifying what you can do to help someone going through depression, anxiety or any other mental health issue, but in all honesty there is no straight forward answer. I’ve heard some stupid advice over the years ” …you have nothing to be depressed about, there are plenty of people who have things worse.” If that was how being depressed was determined, then by the same token, why bother being happy as there is always someone who has it better. I know for me personally my biggest problem has always been, and will probably always continue to be my self confidence. There is nothing I doubt more than my place in the world, my own abilities and how other people see me. Depression and anxiety aren’t things based purely on have vs […]
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Sometimes in life you get a little stuck, almost glued to the spot and unable to move forward. Sometimes it’s because of a major life event, other times it’s just a shitty mood, the kind you just can’t shake. “You put too much pressure on yourself” “ You’re too hard on yourself” “You need to have more confidence in your decisions” Lately I’ve heard these statements a lot, but nobody ever offers me any magical fixes, amazing cures or helpful advice. It’s not their fault that I can’t snap of it, I know I should but knowing and doing are always closely aligned. Sometimes it feels like I’m doomed to be eternally unhappy with myself… I achieve something and immediately find fault and point out my own short comings. I’ve been stuck here before, and know what I need to do in order to reboot and reset. I don’t expect perfection from others people, so why am I so hard on myself? When you reboot or restart your computer, you’re fixing how it is functioning currently, rather than changing the whole computer. You’re bring your computer back to where it was before or where it needs to be, rather than slow and sluggish. […]
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Years ago the only ones waffling on about the benefits of being grateful or showing gratitude were religious folk, you know… priests, ministers, and religious eduction teachers. Nowadays though, gratitude is basically a scientific field with countless studies showing the many benefits of establishing an attitude of gratitude. People talk about the numerous and far reach benefits of adopting a grateful philosophy, going so far to even attribute positive changes in career, health, personality, emotional health and social presence to a simple change in attitude. The flow on, and key effect being “happiness”… all these articles, motivational talks, memes, and self help books boil down to one thing… In an interview with Gretchen Rubin, author and University of Houtson research professor Brené Brown said “I think the change [in her happiness levels] is the result of letting go of perfectionism, embracing vulnerability, and practicing gratitude.” Brother David Steindl-Rast, a monk and interfaith scholar, suggests happiness is born from gratitude. Fuck it! I thought, I do want to be happy and this sounds too easy. So I challenged myself to take a moment at the end of each day to mentally list 3 things I was grateful for that day, the point, […]
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It probably seems a little crass to boil meditation down to a how to list… but it seems in this day and age a good how-to is worth it’s weight in gold. I’m investigating meditation for myself, but before throwing money into books and courses I wanted to just give it a low-key whirl at home.
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I’m unsure exactly what I’ve spent the greater part of the last 7 years chasing. Other than a certain number – a specific weight, a label, or waist measurement. What exactly did I think was going to happen once I reached ‘perfection’? Would I wake up one morning and suddenly be happy? Would my financial woes, flat chest and the stress of chairing meetings and impending project deadlines just melt into the ether and no longer matter? Would I be more successful and more loved? Would my incredibly short span of patience transform, and turn me into a vision of grace and loveliness? Would I have it ‘all’? Surely the only way to attain this perfection; to have that soft lightroom-preset, overlay not only on my instagram, but also my life. Surely in order to rid myself from the cause of all of my day to day detriment… my body fat, I had to behave in a certain way. I had to be perfect. Every time I entered the gym, I had to give it my absolute all. I had to sweat, I had to shake, I had to hurt. I had to push and pull until my […]
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