Stressed? Give thanks!

So for some reason, the vast majority of my readers are from America. It's a bit odd 'cos I'm a New Zealander by birth and living (and writing about) in England but I really appreciate you guys!

Anyway, as you probably realise, we don't have Thanksgiving here. This is just an ordinary week in late Autumn.

For me, this has been a really tough week. Lots of angst at work, lots of people getting heated, lots of difficulties to negotiate and unmanageably huge amounts of work to do. So, as well as sweating it out at the gym every day (impressive, eh?), I thought it would be a good idea to practise gratitude.

What are the benefits of gratitude?
"More than any other personality trait, gratitude is strongly linked to mental health and life satisfaction...

Not only is gratitude a warm and uplifting way to feel, it benefits the body as well. People who experience gratitude cope better with stress, recover more quickly from illness, and enjoy more robust physical health, including lower blood pressure and better immune function." http://ei.yale.edu/what-is-gratitude/

Good enough for me! So, to get on with the gratitude, I am thankful for:

http://jaceksphotos.com/st-mary-redcliffe-church/

The beauty of Bristol, of England, of autumn, of the wildlife. 

I still appreciate walking through the park with the streetlights shining through the mist, large plane-tree leaves on the ground, golden leaves on the branches above, quaint cobbled streets and the amazingly beautiful St Mary Redcliffe church lit up to show off its sculptures.

We have adorable blue tits in the tree outside our kitchen window. I regularly see red kites, buzzards and other raptors on my way to work.





 My lovely husband
Not to get too soppy on you, but we've been married nearly 14 years and together for over half our lives. He is (to coin a cliche) my rock, my best friend and is generally a good person to have around.

How much I have managed to learn about doing my job
I did a short project management course this week and I found it rather affirming. It was really nice to see that I did actually know how to use all the tools and also some of the traps that you can fall into.

We've also had a bunch of new people at work and again, it has shown up how much I have actually managed to learn. I've still got the rest of my career to keep learning, but it's comforting to see that after about 15 years of work, I have managed to gain some skills.











Food and drink!
As much as I'd like not to be the size of a house, I do love my food. I'm grateful for good coffee in the morning (using our aeropress - it's delicious, try it!) and nice wine at night. I'm grateful for the cafe down the road from work which makes good quality food for reasonable prices. I nipped out for a very late lunch today and got a mix of Greek salad and pasta salad and a chocolate brownie for under £5.

So, happy Thanksgiving one and all and remember to regularly practise gratitude. You can start by telling me one thing you're grateful for, if you like.

Age cannot wither her?

A couple of comments on my last post got me thinking... First of the wonderful Duchesse  (go and see her blog, it's a delight) commented that,

"You may not be as pretty as in your 20s but I'll bet you are a more fascinating woman!" 

And a friend commented on Facebook: 

" I would agree that everyone gets more interesting as they age, as long as they take pains to keep their habits and activities fresh and out of a rut. I'd say you are accomplishing this nicely!"

Excellent words of wisdom! I'll be mulling over this 'facinating woman' idea for some time to come, I think. Trying it on, tweaking it about, seeing if it fits and how I can style it. 

I just tried searching the phrase 'facinating woman' and came up with a lot of traditional American homemaker stuff. Ick. Not my idea of fascinating. I'm more in tune with my friend's comment about becoming more interesting as we age by making sure we keep learning and growing. 

The Shakespeare quote alluded to in the title is "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety". My overriding philosophy since moving to England has been 'Try something new'. I wouldn't claim (or want) infinite variety but I have loved stepping out of the old ruts of who I think I am and what I think I do. My younger self wouldn't recognise me in some aspects these days. 

I do recommend a seismic change every so often. I transformed myself around age 15 when I found a group of friends who hadn't known me since I was a baby. Being a new context allowed me to work out who I really was, instead of being stuck with the old expectations and patterns. Now with this move I've been freer to do that again. 

So what? Well, I guess I'll keep working on this fascinating thing and see where that takes me. What do you think - do people get more interesting as they age?

Obvious symbolism with the snake!

Reassess your level of awesomeness

From  http://explodingdog.com/title/awesome2.html

The phrase 'reassess your level of awesomeness' popped up in a blog, article or comment somewhere in the last week and it's kind of stuck in my head.

I've always been ridiculously confident in my level of awesomeness in areas where I've chosen to engage. I do/ did have a trend of  not getting involved in something unless I thought I could easily succeed. My favourite ever school report comment was for Physical Education. It went something like "Eleanorjane needs to learn that cynicism is no substitute for effort". Teachers can't get away with writing stuff like that these days and the world is a poorer place for it!

I have (very sadly and slowly) realised that I'm probably never going to turn heads with my looks again. I was never a 10 in terms of looks, but I did enjoy dressing up and feeling pretty in my teens and 20s. I can still dress up, but I'll never be as pretty as I was...

Anyway, I've had a few experiences lately that I have caused me to reassess my level of awesomeness in a couple of other areas.

Firstly, singing. There's a local group that meets every couple of weeks to jam. We get a set list and I do a bit of practise to make sure that I have some idea of how the songs go. I was excited about last week because one of the songs was 'Rolling in the Deep' by Adele. I had a bit of a practise and even recorded myself to make sure I didn't sound too 'classical'. I thought I had it sorted. On the day though, I got flustered, started off wrong and it was just horrible. Something that should be been a showpiece was so painful that everyone quickly decided that the song was off the set-list for good. I did fine on the other songs, but this really knocked my confidence.

Next, work. We had a big meeting. I was there as one of a panel with a few other folks. When speaking to the whole group, I was interrupted and my comments clearly didn't go down well. In contrast, an amazing senior woman had them sitting in the palm of her hand. I was in awe of how diplomatically she phrased things, how she made small concessions seem like big concessions and managed the whole thing. I wasn't the only one who was impressed as the room went quiet whenever she opened her mouth. I know it's not fair to compare myself to someone with 20 years more experience than me, but still...

So, I'm a bit down tonight. Maybe this dose of humility will be good for me. Or maybe I'll bounce back to my normal optimistic self. We'll see.

What might surprise you about yoga - updated

Oh my goodness, I love yoga! Sorry to give the game away so early in the blog post, but really, I do! So I want to share the joy and bust a few myths (Scroll to the end for my caveat).

•  You don't need to be flexible or fit or young or skinny. A good teacher will encourage everyone to work to their own level and will give different options for the poses. You can even do yoga with longstanding injuries or disabilities.
•  Yoga is a real workout - with regular practice you gain balance, flexibility and strengthen muscles through you whole body.
• Yoga doesn't usually involve spiritual or religious practice (again, it depends on the version you do, but the types I've done don't involve anything more alarming than a few easily ignorable references to chakras.)

I did my first yoga class for over two years last night. I was really tense and stressed - I woke up with a headache due to the tension in my neck and jaw. I toddled along to my gym and met the tiny perky young blonde woman who took the class. We sat and breathed for a bit, we went through various poses and stretches - mostly downward facing dog, lots and lots of downward facing dog.

http://www.active.com/health/articles/pose-of-the-month-downward-facing-dog

 Supposedly some of the benefits of this particular pose are that it:

• Calms the brain and helps relieve stress and mild depression
• Energizes the body
• Stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, and hands
• Strengthens the arms and legs
• Improves digestion
• Relieves headache, insomnia, back pain, and fatigue

Downward facing dog and the rest of the poses certainly did a wonderful job of relaxing the tension in my neck, jaw, shoulders and hamstrings. To end the class we did a brief relaxation exercise lying flat on our backs on the floor - bliss! Then I floated out, feeling a million times better than when I entered the room.

So basically, I'm enthusiastically recommending that you give it go (if you haven't already). I did Hatha yoga for a couple of years in New Zealand. My class yesterday was Ashtanga yoga which is supposed to be a lot more physically demanding, but actually it was very similar to my Hatha yoga class, just a touch faster in moving from pose to pose. This is a helpful article about the different styles of yoga.

What do you think - are you already a fan? Have you tried it and thought it's not for you?

Update:
I did my first (and last) class with a new yoga teacher last night and now I see why people can be apprehensive about it. It was Ashtanga yoga similar to the first class I did at this gym but the atmosphere was competitive with only one option given for each pose. The (male) instructor adjusted people to help them get into the right position. That's okay but one of my adjustments involved full body contact which isn't my cup of tea with someone I've just met!

We were asked to do quite difficult balancing poses and ended the class with a couple of inversions that were completely beyond me. I sat there feeling like a fool while people attempted to balance their whole body weight on the arms while upside down. Not a great experience.

So my summary is, find out as much as you can about classes you're thinking of taking, the teaching style, the difficulty level etc. I've experienced four or five yoga teachers and this is the first one that I couldn't be doing with, so I'm sure you'll be able to find one who suits.

Saturday 6:43am or Crashing Cars and Getting Sick

So I'm pretty stressed right now. I've got big work projects due in a few weeks - my reputation is on the line and there are a lot of variables to juggle. And I've got a couple of other big life issues I'm dealing with at the same time. I'm holding it together, but I struggled to sleep until late last night then I was awake and switched on like a light bulb (ping! awake now!) at 6:43 this morning.

(Actually I had a really useful thought about work that I had to email to myself, but still...)

So how do we deal with this stress thing?

In my younger years I had some pretty colourful ways of dealing with stress - mostly getting sick and crashing cars. One year I did my Uni exams in a neck brace because I'd developed torticollis (the muscles in my shoulder and neck went into a serious spasm so I couldn't straighten my neck).

Just before my wedding (and exams and moving house), someone thought they could move their car into the lane that my car was in (nope, they couldn't!). Thankfully that one was judged to be their fault so insurance paid. I also got bronchitis two weeks before my wedding so I got married the first day I'd been out of my sick bed. AND I had a massive pimple! People seemed to think I looked good anyway...

These days I don't crash cars (God willing) and I seem to have managed to teach myself that getting sick doesn't help. But what can I do to cope with the strain? About the only thing I can find to do is comfort-eating. When things get tough, ice cream and donuts help a bit.

If I'm feeling sensible and/or virtuous I force myself to go to the gym. Classes like Pilates really help me remember I have a body and work on relaxing it a bit. A blat on the cardio machines to some pumping music also helps let off some steam. It's just tricky to actually get myself organised and in the door of the place.

Going to church helps to put things in perspective and to keep me focused on not being a bitch even though I'm stressed.

Um, what else? I try not to drink too much wine as it messes with my sleeping patterns and just generally makes me feel worse. Hmm... that's about all I got.

Ideas, anyone?

Pain and gain

 Is the pain worth the gain? 

This is a somewhat philosophical question inspired by the British weather. As we’ve moved into spring, the weather has suddenly changed, going from cold, grey drizzle to warm sunshine. The plants are taking the opportunity to burst out in leaves, buds and flowers and today I feel the same way. As I unfold myself and bask in the sunshine, I wonder if the months of dark, cold and rain are worth it for the euphoria that this first burst of sunshine brings?

On the balance, I’d say yes.

Now, let's widen that question out. There’s a concept developed by Pavlov called negative reinforcement. This means that people are more likely to do something that results in the pleasure they feel when something unpleasant stops happening, for example muting noisy TV ads.

Does this mean we should expose ourselves to unpleasant things for the relief when they stop? Generally not, though getting back to the weather, it can be nice to go out for a stomp around the countryside in cold rainy weather then come back inside to get warm and dry. But we can certainly work on keeping that heightened sense of joy and relief.

I find after a 'flu, on that first day when I’m actually feeling better I am  bursting with joy and optimism because it’s so nice not being sick any more. I have generally been feeling perky and bubbly for the last couple of years because my previous couple of years were pretty hideous. I guess difficult times can have the positive side effect of resetting our expectations and encouraging gratitude.

So, what do you think – is the pain worth the gain? Or would you prefer a more even keel with fewer highs and lows?

Secret smugness

Confession time - I like myself pretty well. However, a less savoury side of my character is that I have a few traits that I'm a bit smug about even though they're totally unearned.

I know, being smug is infuriating and usually I keep it to myself, but I thought I'd share in the hope that I'm not the only one being being unreasonably proud of things I did nothing to deserve.

Secret smugness no. 1 - Good eyesight
Even though I'm basically monocular, using both eyes together I can read small text from across the room and see animals in the distance as well as being able to do close up things like thread a needle. My party trick is closing my good eye and showing what a huge difference there is in what I can see (my right eye is extremely short sighted).

I haven't had an eye test in donkey's years and I'm thinking I probably should as I may be starting to struggle more with glare while driving at night. So maybe my source of smugness is on the decline?

Secret smugness no. 2 - Not being clumsy
It seems like everyone bemoans their clumsiness and complains about tripping over or dropping things all the time. Not me! It's not like I glide about with the grace of a swan, but I'm more likely to move a vase into a safe place than knock it over or step over a loose cobblestone instead of twisting my ankle. Don't ask me why I've got this tendency, but it's a handy one to have. 

Secret smugness no. 3 - Colour sense
Again, it seems like quite a few people struggle with colours, whether it's choosing colours that suit their skin tone, working out which colours go together or remembering colours to match with new stuff when shopping.  Somehow I seem to have a little switch in my head that clicks over to 'yes' when a colour suits me and flashes red for 'no' when it doesn't. I'm also pretty good at remembering colours to be able to match new clothes, accessories and home wares. And I'm quite confident mixing and matching colours in outfits or home decorating. This isn't something that I've earned in any way, it just is... but again, it's handy.

So, do you hate my smug self now? Do you have your own secret smugnesses? (Please tell me you do and make me feel better about mine!)