Tag: Compassion

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Advent Reflections for Single Parents & Other Rare Species 7

December 7

Learning from ‘Failure’

 

Learning from failure – yesterday I fell down. I’m choosing not to call it failure. At some late stage of the evening, I realised I had not kept to my commitment to do a daily blog. You may imagine the ensuing internal dialogue.

“Hmm, you can’t even manage 6 consecutive days!” Are you really going to fail to keep to your commitment?

“Well, I’m not sure I have anything of value to say today.”

”I’m sure you could think of something if you could be bothered to put your mind to it.”

” Well I’m not sure anyone would even notice! It’s not as though anyone seems to be reading it, or commenting, or re-posting or sharing it. Maybe I can just skip a day and nobody will notice.” (They did!)

”That’s not the point. You made a commitment to yourself. And you know that a large part of the point of writing a blog like this is to help keep yourself on track at what has historically been a difficult time of year for you. So what does it mean to give up on yourself so soon? Don’t you have any staying power?”

”You know what? I used to think that was true, but I have proved myself wrong! You know the weekly meditation I started running to make sure I started my week on a positive footing? 7 years!!! 7 years, without fail, other than a couple of Mondays when I was sick or travelling. I’ve run that meditation from England, France, Italy, South Africa and Australia! So there! 

And what about my Italian learning? I’ve got a 455 day streak on Duolingo, and it would have been almost double that if they hadn’t changed the cutoff time and I hadn’t gone walking in the bush for 5 days!”

“I agree about the meditation – that’s really something – well done! The duolingo I think is more about your being so competitive.”

”You are right in a way, but hey, I am actually teaching in Italian, now, so it can’t be all down to competitiveness! And anyway, I’m going to follow the advice of @James Cleer in #Atomic Habits – never miss twice.”

” Ok. Go to bed then – it’s late.”

Interesting that if I had committed to someone else to do something on a daily basis, I would have knuckled down and done it. Because I didn’t think anyone was reading my blog regularly, I thought it didn’t matter so much if I ‘only’ let myself down. And yet, a large part of me knows that self-respect, self-compassion and self-care are really pre-requisites for applying any of those to others on a consistent basis. And if I want anyone to treat me respect, compassion and care, the best way to achieve that is to model that behaviour for myself …and others.

Not many people really achieve this, I don’t think. Not many people achieve self forgiveness, or forgiveness of others. Not many have walked the Long Walk to Freedom. One person who did – though it was a very long and painful walk – 27 years, to be precise – was Nelson Mandela. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela

Here are some of his thoughts on learning from failure, and of what it means to truly forgive.

 

I think I will further explore this theme of forgiveness tomorrow. Meantime, if you would like to read my earlier blogs (other than Dec 6!), you can find them here.https://www.creativetransformation.org.uk/category/blog/

I would have been grateful for some daily inspiration in earlier Advents. Please can you help make up for my technical inadequacies by sharing this post in a way that the people who might also consider it helpful, will be able to find it! Thanks, and never mind the dark and the rain, tomorrow is another new beginning, another day to rise, to get back up again, even if you have fallen.

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Advent Reflections for Single Parents & Other Rare Species 3

December 3rd

 

The Advent of the Festive Season is both a time for reflection, and often a time for old triggers to resurface, unwanted.

Yesterday I reflected that making decisions required intention, will and commitment. In the past, my habitual response to difficult circumstances, was to either grit my teeth and power through with grim determination, or to collapse. I have slowly been learning the power of gentleness. (And for those of you who know me well, I did mention the words slowly, and learning). My default position when I am frightened has definitely been ‘the best form of defence is attack’. And when I am triggered, it is still one of those unwanted reactions that I deal with sometimes better than others. 

Sometimes we find it easier to be gentle with others than ourselves. Today I would invite you to be gentle with yourself, as you keep your own candle lit and your flame alive in this time of darkness. And also that gentleness shares much with compassion

With thanks to my lovely friend Natacha Dauphin for the image and words from her books. Find her, and them at https://www.natachadauphin.com/

For over 6 years I have been leading a Monday morning meditation – until lockdown, in person, and thereafter, online. Here is a recording of an in-person meditation from Winter 2019 on the theme of Gentleness.

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On getting ill, Vulnerability and Taking Stock

  There is nothing like getting ill for raising the feeling of Vulnerability when you’re self employed! Especially when it comes out of nowhere and you think your immune system is rock solid.

The interesting thing about this week of not working and not feeling up to much though, is that it has made me think about one of my favourite enemies – SHOULD.

It’s a word I ban in my teaching room, yet being solitary and incapable made me realise just how much space I still allow it in my own life, and particularly since my daughter left for University.

I think any big change in life circumstances calls us to take stock, and with good reason, but here is (some of) my list of ‘shoulds’ that have been sharing my bed and head since she left and I have reviewed the 7 years since we came to York:

I SHOULD HAVE …..

  • worked harder
  • studied more
  • made more money
  • been more successful
  • recycled more
  • cooked better food
  • taken more care of the planet
  • kept the house tidier
  • been a better role model to my daughter
  • dared to try and have another relationship
  • practised the piano more
  • helped her practise her music
  • encouraged her to play more sport
  • encouraged her to act
  • helped the needy
  • volunteered more
  • complained less about poor service in restaurants (🙄 really??)

OMG no wonder my immune system was under attack with all that lot going on.  And what a relief to have to let go of it all and just sleep, and almost feed myself and definitely not tidy the house! Talk about physician heal thyself! Because of course it became blindingly obvious to me that I much preferred being with this gentler, more tolerant me than the me with the big stick and long list, and for sure the big stick didn’t make me achieve very much more, just made me and I bet my poor daughter, fearful and miserable and bowed down and unwilling to try, to take risks, or as my wise Safari guide friend says, to Dance with Life.

One of my other wise friends asked how I was doing with vulnerability because he didn’t think I was going to make much progress until I was willing to embrace it a bit more.  Interestingly I couldn’t really answer the question, because I have been so busy hiding from it that it hadn’t really come up!

Of course I have had the excuse of having to make a living in a small place where everyone knows pretty much everything and I couldn’t afford to make mistakes because it could cost my reputation and my job, etc etc. Doesn’t mean I have managed to avoid making mistakes anyway, interestingly- just haven’t deliberately put myself in their way.

So now I find myself looking back on 7 years where I started out enthusiastically with high hopes thinking I could crack this and make a wonderful new life for me and my daughter, and realising that 7 years have gone by, and I have done some stuff, and we’re still afloat, which is something, considering, but in the major life choices department, I have not danced with my life, more like hobbled on crutches, and then I have got angry with myself for hobbling, and knocked the crutches out of my hands….

Hmmmmm. …..Old habits die hard, and as I regain my strength, I can see that the voice of SHOULD is waiting for air time and the slightest opportunity.

So this next little while is going to be interesting as I see if I can find a different way of being with myself, talking to myself, and flexing the muscles of compassion  instead of self judgment….

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On Demons, Compassion, Choice and the Interconnectedness of Life

Yesterday I was blessed and privileged to have a long  Facetime conversation with Lindsay Kyte – she just waking in Halifax Canada, and I just returning from a day out in nature in Yorkshire, UK.

Lindsay was one of my MA students about 8 years ago at LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts). She is now an award winning play-write, TEDx speaker, and editor of The Lion’s Roar – the premier Buddhist magazine in N America.

When Lindsay first returned to Canada, she turned to me for some long distance life coaching and now I have been able to turn to her for for help with the re-writing of my website.

But yesterday we were reflecting deeply on our shared demons, and the need for compassion – in particular self compassion.

For the last couple of years, this month of August, when clients and daughter are away, has seen the rearing heads of my ‘not enough’ demons: ‘Not good enough, not hardworking enough, not published enough, not known enough, not rich enough, not spiritual enough, not kind enough…..’ My ‘not enough’ demons are legion.

This year, I am facing those demons down by deliberate choices based on compassion and recognition of the interconnectedness of life.

I love this image of the impact of single droplets into water – how individually they create expanding concentric circles, and how each of those interact with others to create differing patterns, impacts, stories and lives.

And it gave me great joy in talking to Lindsay, in hearing her talk of strategies that I had offered her all those years ago, and how they impacted on the choices she has made in her life, and how those choices impact on so many others with whom she comes into contact, both through her life and through her work. It helps me to reconnect to choices I often find hard to make. It helps me to give value to each individual interaction I have and gives me a sense of meaning and purpose.

We spoke too, of how often we each give energy to things that are not essential, and neglect the things we know will deeply nourish us. While we often give much thought and energy to finding compassion for others, the practice of self compassion is a more elusive one – especially for someone like me, brought up on the tenet of ‘think of others before yourself’.

Lindsay sent this link to Tara Brach’s 10 minute process she calls the RAIN of Compassion:

R -Recognise

A – Accept

I – Investigate

N – Nourish

Tara’s voice is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I have found her Mindfulness exercises valuable at times when I have felt unable to quiet my own anxieties.

Here is the link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

If you are interested in reading more about Lindsay and Lion’s Roar, here are the links to the magazine, and also Lindsay’s website

http://www.lindsaykyte.com/

https://www.lionsroar.com/

 

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Meeting Myself with Compassion and Kindness vs Running Away

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It is said that we teach best what we most need to learn. I am a pretty good teacher on a number of things, but particularly on self acceptance!

I am embarking tomorrow on a 7 week online mindfulness course. I am doing this for a number of reasons.

  • I realise that more often than I would wish, I run away from being kindly present with myself and I wish to change that.
  • I am a single parent with an only child and parents who live on the other side of the world. As such, I find this run up to the ‘Festive Season of Love and Light’ challenging.
  • It is also said that ‘We are what we habitually do.’ I know that I often have great intuition, insight and sensitivity, and I also know that I find it difficult to maintain those qualities on a habitual day to day basis and I need help with achieving a daily nourishing reminder.

Compassionate Presence vs Running Away

I have worked long enough with people to know that I am not alone in this. What I know is that when I scratch below the surface, almost everyone has a place where they face the challenge of themselves, more or less successfully. And I think it might help me and others for me to articulate some of the challenges I face in myself and seek to overcome.

In many ways, I love my life. I row, play tennis, sing, hike, camp, body surf when I get the chance, and much too little dance and play music. I have a job I love and a wonderful daughter and good friends.

How is it, that with all that, I can run away from myself? Well, I do. I notice that when left to myself, if I am not careful, and certainly if I am not thriving for any reason, I run away from myself, tune out, self numb or whatever you like to call it. Occasionally I tell myself I am not so bad, because the activities I choose are relatively innocuous – I watch other people live life on film instead of living it myself (under the heading of chilling out), I play rather a frightening amount of sudoku and free cell (under the heading of keeping my brain active), and rather less innocuously, from time to time,  I smoke (under the heading of, well, it only harms me, and I don’t have vices like getting drunk or having loads of sex with random people, and I need some form of sensual outlet).

One of my favourite authors, Salley Vickers, talks in her book, ‘The Other Side of You’, about what passes for love often being a decidedly mixed bag: lust, anxiety, lack of self-worth, sadism, masochism, cowardice, fear, recklessness, self-glory, simple brutality, the need to control, the urge to be looked after; most dangerous of all, the desire to save. There are other, happier, ingredients: kindness, compassion, honour, friendship, sympathy, the wish to help, the attendant wish to be good, though these finer impulses can often wreak more havoc then the more blackguardly ones.

I cite this, because I think it is worth looking at in terms of relationship to others, but also because I think that ‘innocuous’ ways of running away from ourselves can also wreak more havoc than more blackguardly ones. We can convince ourselves that we are doing really important work that needs our time and attention, we can do charitable works or do sport, music or other things that are good in themselves, but can equally masquerade as ways of avoiding being quietly and compassionately present with ourselves.

‘Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.’
—Carl Gustav Jung

As a parent, I am painfully aware of the truth of this statement. If for no other reason than to enable my daughter to live a full and happy life, I would like to truly live my life. And I have done enough work on self awareness to know that those ways I have of trying to escape myself, whether seemingly innocuous or not, will have, and have had, an impact on her. So I am doing my best to find strategies for facing myself, acknowledging my vulnerabilities and giving myself the love and compassion that I need to thrive.

We are what we habitually do

I also know from my work, that it takes 300 repetitions to create a new neural pathway, and 3000 to repetitions to break an old one! 

I see it as no accident that all the major religions have about 5 calls a day to prayer. It seems that we all need help and reminding to come back to ourselves, to loving presence, and the means to live fully.

In my work I have developed a great sensitivity which enables me to tune into the pain of others, be that physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or energetic. But as Brene Brown says, we cannot selectively numb. I have told many of my clients who are deeply sensitive that sensitivity brings many riches, but if we don’t pay it attention, care for it and manage it well, it can wreak havoc.

I am a person who feels the highs and lows of life, and do not naturally flow along on an even keel, so I need to take care, and to develop the daily management of my sensitivity.

I am going to pay it attention in the next 7 weeks, and will report back on my progress!