A Path Not Travelled

I sat in the meeting unaware that my head had attached itself to my hands and that they were both slowly sinking into the table. “Are you OK there you look bored or tired?” came my Manager’s voice, which prompted my head and hands to rearrange themselves. “Sorry, no I am with you”, I responded hoping we could see the funny side of my demeanour. I was not bored, but I was absent from the conversation due to a characteristic I am coming to frequently notice in myself: my introvertistic short attention span. I know, what a great made up word. In short, there is only so much social interaction I can handle before I zone out. I realised my occasional lack of social energy, which in an office of 3 can be hard to mask, came across as boredom to my socially extroverted manager.

The lady to my left  delicately teased tea from her straw and crumbling her way through a well crushed cereal bar she sipped, nibbled  and spoke a few words about the ways we could make our event more disability friendly. She said with a powerful yet softly spoken certainty “you need to make sure disabled people are involved in the process, to hear their perspective too”. So like an extroverts inability to fully understand the actions of an introvert, a non disabled person would not be able to offer an in depth perspective for that of the disabled person.

I disagreed with someone in my circle today, in a conversation that became cyclical and negative for both parties. Is this because, like an extroverts inability to fully understand the actions of an introvert, and a non disabled persons inability to offer  a perspective of the disabled person, we can never truly understand each other when we have all walked such different paths? I don’t think so. I think we all continually learn from each other’s trials and errors, and scientific knowledge was built in such a way, but our own roads travelled will guide our degree of understanding. In a sense we all create our own ”knowledge”, our own ‘trues and falses’, our own rules of the world. We wont all agree, but we have to listen.  I listened to my straw sipping colleague, who spewed many useful ideas and insights during the hour long meeting, intermittently dropping large cereal bar crumbs on the floor. To listen is to give your attention to a sound, to hear is to perceive a sound through your ear. But what if you give your attention and you just don’t agree with a perspective? What if there is no common ground? Maybe then we just listen to this path not travelled, appreciating and accepting that it may never meet your own.

Lady with the red straw

The bar was filling up, whilst a few red straws bobbed anxiously in caramel coloured drinks. I caught eyes with a sweet looking lady and hoped I hadn’t contributed to her evident self consciousness. She moved her wiry permed hair behind her ear, hunching over apologetic in her stance. She looked to me, then quickly to the ground and then towards who I imagined to be her daughter. The daughter had long glowing hair which danced as she wowed the little table with her words and giggles.

Deciding to return to my own table and check on her later, I took a few sips of my gin and tonic realising it is that very image of longing discomfort that makes singledom so scary for some. The woman to me looked like she was somewhere she didn’t want to be, wearing clothes she didn’t want to wear, longing for a Prince Charming she was far to wise to believe in anymore, to scoop her up and make this all worth while.

For others the concept seemed far less painful, and much more fun. It removed the barriers of knowing who’s available and who’s not – for in this bar you put a red straw in your drink if single, making it clear who was potentially interested. A few red straw sippers circulated the room with a confidence and unity that came with possession of that piece of plastic. At one point my eye line was blocked by a red straw holder who was moving around the bar at a snails pace, scanning everyone’s drinks meticulously for straws as he did so. Once scanner had left the scene the floor was open, and I felt happy when I checked on the lady again and found her smiling. I imagined that she had been badly treated and given up on love, but that her daughter and friends wanted her to have another chance to share the gems of care of which her eyes told me she had many. She was pretty too, but you could tell she didn’t know it.

As I continued my night chatting and laughing with my friends, I silently wished for her comfort to rise, but the only thing going up was the volume of the bar chatter. I really felt for her, and wondered if she was in “panic mode” – the fight, flight, or freeze danger response I mentioned before. I wondered what the dialogue in her mind consisted of, and if she was berating or congratulating herself for being there. Earlier that day I had some help with a video from a guy who has a few mental health issues and was reminded of how mean we can all be to ourselves. He probably said the things many of us think, the only difference was he said them out loud: “I totally messed that up”, “that was silly of me” etc. When I gently reminded him of the great and helpful parts of his work, his humbly pleased “oh” reminded me that praise is something we should give ourselves and others more often. When I left that bar to head home for my leftover hummus and falafel, I glanced over to the lady one last time, proud of her for seeing it through, hoping she was proud of herself too.

My Biggest Shark

I venture off to bed hours too early, in an attempt to reset the day not liking the unhappy thoughts that have begun to circle like sharks around a well fed me, lost at sea. The sharks of sadness sometimes feel in the distant horizon, unable to get within my radar. At other times I don’t notice them until a minor negative occurrence or comment suddenly jolts me down and I’m within the sharks den surrounded by swarms of them. How can such a small thing cause that? Does this mean the sharks are always lurking below, never too far away?

To try and make sense of the sharky waters, I ask some close friends of mine “do you ever get sadness for no real reason? Do you think tears over small things are usually really because of something larger?” Their answers reassure me that we all have tearful moments, and point towards us all expressing a range of things in different ways but indicate they would usually know the cause. It also occurred to me that some people are better at expressing themselves than others, so it may not need get to the point where the sharks circle, for they will have already recognised the things that they need and got themselves on a lifeboat far sooner.

 

Being sad feels like a waste of time. It’s all quite victimy and self centred. Though I understand that sadness is a part of life and if I return to my last post I am aware that to practice self compassion is to not berate oneself for feeling these feelings, but to acknowledge them, soothe oneself and heal. I want to return to using this blog for writing stories, observations, witty little moments of which there are plenty in life. But first I think I’ll write this down.. for me. The biggest shark of all. Perhaps the route of all the sadness is holding it in? Maybe knowing that I’ve written this is in a public domain will make the currents in those dark waters less strong. They’ll have less hold on me, it won’t be a big secret anymore it’s the past and it’s something I’m not going to be ashamed of any more. My biggest secret is I was bulimic for ten years. And anorexic for a couple of years before that. Labels really.. to me they are both a continuum of the same thing.. but whatever the label this is something I’ve struggled with a lot. I have seen this referenced the other day in a princess Diana documentary, and previously on one about Amy Winehouse. It shocked me how they spent about a minute of air time on bulimia- talking for longer about Diana’s dress style and Amy Winehouse’s hair, when I know this would have been something that was all consuming of their life’s when at its worst, underpinning ones self esteem, dictating their daily actions, stabbing holes into their relationships.    I end my recovery sessions this month which I’ve attended for a full year. And I am proud of how far I have come and how much my life has moved on from the obsessions that were. But I do struggle. Some days are easy. Some days I amazingly don’t even think about it anymore. I love those days. But other days are not so easy. Subtle occurrences happen in thoughts and behaviours that if not watched and altered carefully, can soon escalate and dominate my life all over again. So I’m putting myself out there on here. If I need to go there in this blog, now I can. Will I cringe for having written this? Probably. But some part of me felt like it was the way to say goodbye once and for all to a disorder that if counted really has stolen years and years of my life. Maybe I’ll share some of those years here or maybe it will end at this short post. I never was quite sure where I would take this blog. But I’ve gone there now.

Don’t Scald Me, Love Me

 

I lay awake in the early hours of this morning, awoken quite literally by things that go bump in the night (one for another post), and I thought about how I  use this blog to share stories and realisations, but often not the work I do to reach them. So on this one I will, this might feel a bit like a worksheet but who knows it may be useful.

 

What do you do when you make mistakes? Or things don’t live up to the expectations set by yourselves or others? Or when you just wish something went a little differently, whether it was in your control or not? Some people have a ‘tough love’ approach; they tell themselves off for the things they did wrong in order to motivate themselves  to do them better next time. Others self soothe, they have more of a vibe that ‘it is OK, you are  wonderful human being who makes mistakes like the rest, we can move on from this, the world hasn’t ended’. You might wonder if telling yourself it is OK is a cop out, and that it will only serve to demotivate you. How could I possibly tell myself it’s OK to have done something stupid, reckless or hurtful? How would that possibly motivate me to not do it again? How would I learn and grow? Doesn’t the parent who always cuddles the child and tells them its OK end up with the spoilt brat who never learns right from wrong?

 

I put some focus on this topic as I was sick and tired of the ‘tough love’ feedback I was internally receiving. And it was more of the tough, less of the love. Everything  I did I would dwell on. Anything good I heard about me I would not believe. At times when people were unhappy with me I would ruminate. I felt pretty anxious and low in myself, wondering how I would even leave the house some days.  I learnt more about the mechanisms behind this negative self talk – here comes the science bit! I learnt that when our brain detects a trigger which could be a negative thought, feeling, memory, event etc, that our body actually moves into a different mode completely. In this mode our sympathetic nervous system is activated so have the flight, fight or freeze response that we developed evolutionary to respond to danger. We also feel anxious or depressed, and either arousal or de-arousal with tiredness and low energy. I am going to call this state  ‘PANIC MODE!’

 

Learning the above for me was a serious ah-hah moment as it is something I have experienced a lot. One situation where I would enter this mode was on dates. I would arrive to the date having already built myself up – often because I was meeting up with someone I knew I did not really like but I would tell myself it must be something wrong with me if I don’t like anyone so I would still go. Other times it could be that I did like the person but I would build things up, get nervous, maybe think about things that happened in the past, worry about what could happen, worry about rejection, worry about if I was going to be fun enough or look good enough – you get the idea – a lot of worry. So all of this then activated PANIC MODE – not a good state to turn up in. The anxiety would escalate, and for me it was the ‘freeze’ element that would get activated: I would sit there stroking my hair, looking around the room, my system shut down the higher brain areas for deeper thought so conversation was far harder. I knew I was awful company. What did I do with all those things I was experiencing? Criticise myself more for feeling them, saying ‘what is wrong with you? You ruin everything’ etc etc. These thoughts only served to make the freezing and anxiety worse and the cycle continued – annoyed at myself for being that way yet ironically keeping myself that way.

 

The point is self criticism does not help. There are some great tasks you can do if you still think self criticism is helpful – such as go through a whole day and only allow yourself to criticise yourself – when you record how you feel you will realise how low and demotivated this actually makes you (I stopped half way through a day of this as I felt so sad). The key thing I took away from this is also – do not blame yourself when you get in the panic mode – you are doing something your body is designed to do when it senses threat, its science dah! What you should do is soothe yourself to bring yourself out of it. More on this in another post.

 

A great task I did was to take a problem you criticise yourself over (I will use the one above), and do the following:

1. Write what you would say to yourself about it. So I would leave the date and say; ‘you are so stupid, boring, worthless, weird, awkward…there is something wrong with you, what is the point of you etc.’ – horrible stuff.
2. Write what you would say to your friend about it: ‘you were obviously uncomfortable, it is great that you are still trying, it is OK, I love you, you’re safe, I am sorry to hear you felt that way etc.’
3. Write what you would say to a child about it (OK presume it is OK for a child to go on a date haha): ‘It is OK sweetheart, I love you, I am sorry you are in pain,please know you’ve done nothing wrong you are an amazing person, you felt uncomfortable feelings come and go, give me a hug.’

This really made me realise how the same issue can be framed in such different ways, and during my days now I often re frame my thoughts when I catch a mean one and say it back as I would to a child or friend.

 

To change the negative self talk and up the self compassion I have been writing down the positive feedback I get from people, or things I am proud of myself of in the day. It is surprising how uncomfortable it can feel to be self congratulatory, but again I think – what would I say to a friend for doing well in this? I have also been strengthening my attention by getting back into mediation. Strong attention means you can notice the thoughts and feelings you often have on autopilot. When I notice the negative self talk I can see how it makes me feel and each time I can both stop the thought escalation and remind myself the reason I do not want to entertain those thoughts. It is so much more beautiful to giggle through life and accept yourself than it is to fight yourself. It sounds so obvious but I am actually smiling (and not scalding!) at this beautiful new found realisation.

Dubai, Lions & Showers

What is it about “getting away” that enables us to better jump back into ourselves? Why do people travel to the other side of the planet to find themselves? Is this what is really necessary to clear our minds? Like many, Some of my best thoughts pop up whilst in the shower. A rare place where we can’t tap away on our smart phones (well maybe with the iPhone 15 we will be able to). So then it’s not really the getting away that makes for a clearer headspace is it? It’s the getting present. Letting the mind sit still, which isn’t something your average busy Londoner (or Surrey-er) does.

The last time I came to Dubai, I filled my time with socialising and fun, and for all the gaps in between I was on my phone or getting a bit of sleep. I had some dark thoughts in between all of this fun, but I pushed them away with not a glimmer of acknowledgement. On my plane ride home, the distractions were gone. I sat on a ‘not quite hard not quite soft’ aeroplane chair, and knew the movies on the flickering little screen in front of me were not going to be powerful enough to steer me away from the thoughts this time. So much like in the shower, I had to let my thoughts surface and acknowledge them. When I did this I could recognise and admit the pain I was feeling, and further I could actually do something about it. I wrote down all the recurring negative thoughts I had about myself – which instantly made it feel like they had tiptoed out of my headspace and into the room next door. I wrote down counter arguments to all of the thoughts, so “I hate myself” became “I am the only version of me that there is and there’s actually tons of awesome things about me, so even if I did hate parts of myself, I definitely don’t hate all of myself.” “Everyone hates me” became “this isn’t true as lots of people show and tell me that they love me”. I still have the list.

This moment of acknowledgment, then self compassion was followed with a warm accepting stillness. I sat with what felt like only the whirring of the plane, for all the other passengers felt absent. I felt a comfort in that sound, the continuity of it echoed my now slower paced breaths. I felt reconnected with myself, almost above the strong feelings of guilt, shame and self-hatred that had been rife, aware of their damaging and uncalled for presence. And then came the ah-hah moment. The moment that I knew things in my life were going to change. The details weren’t clear to me yet, at first I thought maybe I would move to Dubai, but what I did know is things had to change.

In the weeks that followed I quit my job. I started this blog. I rented out my flat. I quit drinking for a while too. My realisation here then, is that no matter how uncomfortable it can be – sitting with your thoughts and feelings, and looking them in their worrisome eyes is the only way to move forwards. You can then move on from them, and they’ll move on from you. Everything is fluid and changing. To try to suppress or control your thoughts and emotions is akin to putting an angry lion in a tiny cage in an attempt to contain his anger: he will only grow more angry, his roar more intense.

I wonder what world we will be in if we never have that time to just be still with our minds. It’s easier and more fun to watch something, message on the phone, read social media pages or whatever it might be. I’m glad my flight yesterday had no WiFi, for I know I wouldn’t have again used the time for stillness and reflection. I’m back in Dubai again, reminiscing on that significant plane ride home, but also wondering- what would have happened had I had a friend, or WiFi with me on that flight? What if I had never had that all important stop time? What if we all miss out on ah-hah moments, nourishing realisations and self soothing purely because we are too busy to listen to our own minds? We didn’t evolve with so many fun, intelligently designed attention thieves. Our minds must be overwhelmed by it all… So On that note, I’m off to meditate, and see what this moment of stillness brings.