Powerful, priceless and rare.

I’ve been a bit quiet for 10 days partly because I’ve been immersing myself in Andrea Maurer’s wonderful 90-Day Revolution. I’ve blogged about it before. It’s a fantastic idea: my fellow 90-Dayers and I have signed up to be reminded that we’re all important, we’re all equal and we’re all connected. You know that already, though, don’t you? I mean, you don’t need to be reminded that everyone is uniquely significant, that prejudice is a BAD thing, and that being nice to everyone is so much more rewarding than being a crabby old bag? That’s what I thought. When I looked at the programme, and the sample worksheets, I thought to myself, ‘I already know all that!’. (Cringe.)

And… I’m a busy lady… We all know that. So I wasn’t sure I had any spare time – certainly not 90 days – to practice being nice when I’ve got a business to run, exams to do and a life to lead. I already think about other people a lot. I don’t need to be told to do that.

So when Andrea’s direct invitation came – ‘I’d love to have you along for the ride’ – I signed up to support a friend and client. Of course I did. That’s what nice people do. Don’t get me wrong, it is a great programme and a world-changing idea, it’s just that I didn’t really need it. I’m already quite nice. Aren’t I?

Funny how we can be so blind to our own dark side. (If you’re reading this thinking you don’t have a dark side, I’m talking to you.) No sooner had I enrolled on this inspirational course, which is all about connecting with others, not the least bit threatening, I started to notice some things about myself. Some old, tired, repeating patterns. Ways that I trip myself up. Things I hold onto and nurse grudgingly. Destructive emotional patterns that get in the way of life and love.

Not just me. All of us. Gently sharing and reflecting and uncovering and moving. All together on a secret Facebook page where it feels like anything can be said and anything might happen.

Things are moving in my life. Ties are coming loose. Habits are being changed. Beliefs are being turned around. 18 days into the 90 I can already feel my load lightening, my outlook lifting, my eyes brightening and my sense that all is well with the world returning.

That’s powerful. It’s priceless. And rare. Just like Andrea.

If enough of us started to experience that it might just change the world.

And, let’s not sully this post by talking about money but in case you’re interested, it only costs $90, of which $81 goes directly to charity.

There’s another one starting on 1st March. Of course, it’s not you who needs to change, it’s the rest of the world,  so why would you sign up?

But here’s the link, just in case you do: http://www.90-dayrevolution.com/

Tiredness kills

We have 2 ways of operating in our family: nice and horrid. The horrid happens when one, two or all three of us are more tired than we can handle. The definition of ‘more tired than we can handle’ differs for each person in our little team. It’s particularly obvious when I’m tired, because I’m the care-giver; the one who notices and fills the gaps and tries to lighten things up. So when I run out of juice it feels like Armageddon. You wouldn’t want to be there. Nor do I!

One of the most destructive and hard-wired habits of the Western world is to push ourselves beyond the point that feels like enough: by a long chalk. It’s ingrained – not only is it an evolutionary drive, it is also part of our Christian culture. The words of my childhood prayer drummed that in to me: Teach us, O Lord, this day… to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to labour and not to ask for any reward… That stoical approach was what was expected of me growing up. And possibly you too.

As an adult,  I consciously rejected the idea that punitive service is the road to spiritual abundance, but there is a brownie-point addicted part of me that just won’t let it go. So I still have a nasty habit of pushing myself too hard and expecting the world to reward me for it. Turns out that the Bonus Scheme of life doesn’t work like that.

We’re lucky in our family to have a very comfortable daily existence. Both my husband and I work from home and normally our working hours are very civilised. On purpose. Lately, for a variety of reasons, the balance has been disturbed and we are all being stretched too thin. At dinner the other night all 3 of use were crabby, scratchy, uncommunicative, unhelpful and just simply out of puff. It was uncomfortable and unpleasant (not to mention the adverse effects on digestion). And I thought to myself, ‘This is what some families go through every night.’

Tiredness is not just a lack of sleep, it’s a lack of energy, a lack of synapse activity, a lack of ATP in your cells. It can be caused by poor nutrition, too much stress, overwork, drugs and stimulants (legal or otherwise). It can be exacerbated by a lack of human interaction, a lack of hope, a lack of self-expression, and  a lack of respect for yourself and others. It interrupts your natural, survival-driven drive to get on with the people around you and be a valuable member of the pack. Its dampening effect on your life makes everything more difficult.

Far from being the inevitable result of a life well-lived, tiredness destroys the quality of your life. It takes its toll on your relationships, your decisions, your career, your holidays, your ideas, your future. It kills the life you are living today in order to propel you towards some imagined, brighter future.

Don’t fall for the hype. If there is something about your life that makes you permanently tired, give yourself a break. Let it go.

Getting some perspective

The last month has been pretty punishing for me as I have spent 4 weeks in a 300-year old cottage with no heating, decorating walls that have been coated in various substances at least 20 times before, and seem to be held together more by luck than plaster. It’s cold, hard work, my hands are very sore, and I’ve been grumbling a lot.

It came to a head on Saturday morning as my husband prepared to go off skiing for a week and I faced another week’s hard labour. It’s not fair. And I was quite vocal about that.

And then, suddenly, it all changed. It arrived first as a rebellious thought as I was sanding down yet another door. ‘I’m not doing this next week, I need a break too.’ And that mutinous idea blossomed into a more self-supportive glow that recognised just how much I did need a break. In fact, nothing was stopping me from taking a break except for my own stubbornly persistent and self-defeating habits.

Ping! A lightbulb moment.

Next time I’m hoping I can interrupt the cycle before I’ve thrown all my toys out of the pram. Just think how good life could feel! Meanwhile, I’m waiting for a decorator to arrive to give me 3 days’ help on painting the windows: the bit that I really don’t like. All I need now is a slave to wash my brushes for me. But he’s gone skiing! I miss him

Dealing with overwhelm. What’s your style?

I wish I could stop the world for a month to catch up with the things I want to do and the people I care about and lose the feeling of overwhelm that accompanies being a busy person in a busy world with a busy to do lost. Sadly, I haven’t worked out how to do that.

When I worked as a lecturer at a well-known college for budding – or perhaps I should say sprouting - Nutritional Therapists, it became clear that many people who work in the caring professions have boundary issues. Being a caring person and the words ‘Go away, I’m busy’ don’t usually go hand in hand; with the result that people who care deeply about the world and the people in it often struggle to complete things and end up feeling put upon and frustrated.

The text-book answer is to man up and put some boundaries down: a great idea in theory but it takes a significant ideological shift  to learn how to keep needy people at bay. And, it must be said, creating boundaries is an art in itself: I noticed that people with clean, crisp boundaries were usually viewed by the students as cool, detached and not very caring. A ‘people person’ could wither and die behind ‘correct’ boundaries: finally able to dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s, they would be deprived of the connection that gives them their reason for showing up.

So it seems the problem is not so much poor boundaries as misaligned goals and poor coping methods.

Let me explain…

Some students at college had problems turning in work on time. They were so busy looking after other people and being pillars of society that work deadlines slipped and they had to rush to catch up or ask for extensions. Frequently, these were the students who performed best in the clinical work, establishing instant empathy and rapport and providing thoughtful, tailored protocols for clients who left feeling as though they had been seen and understood, and with confidence that the plan would suit them.

There were other students whose work was always on time, who never needed to extend a deadline, and who managed the coursework and all the other issues in their lives with an efficient flourish. Frequently these students could be dazzling in their coursework and efficient in clinic, coming up with highly technical and impressive protocols for clients who left with an excellent understanding of their health problems. But perhaps not feeling so well understood themselves.

Asking either student type to copy the behaviour of other one would have been fruitless. Both were successful in their own way. They just needed to find the sort of work, and set the sort of goals, that played to their strengths. Especially when living through demanding times.

You can apply the same argument to yourself when you feel overwhelmed. What are the things that get done while other things pile up? Usually, it’s the things that aren’t getting done that play on our minds more than the things we’re busy doing.

Are you an open-all hours, caring friend and confidante whose home and office door is always open and for whom the tasks of daily life fall lower on the priority list than the feelings of daily life? If so, you need people-oriented work and a set of targets and goals that fall in line with your tendency to achieve through relationships and listening and connecting. Your goals – even your work goals – need to be framed around meeting people’s needs and seeing smiles on faces. For you, the worst kind of overwhelm will happen when you get stuck on a work project that requires you to be task-oriented and leaves you short of time to connect with people. You will feel frustrated and disconnected and probably guilty. Deal with this by telling your friends and family what’s happening and clearly letting them know when you’ll be back in circulation. It won’t ease your workload but it will ease your guilt and distraction.

If, on the other hand, your sense of responsibility means that you don’t go out to play or answer your phone until your in-tray is empty and the list is all ticked off, then your goals will obviously be better set around tasks and projects and achievements. While you’ll be quite happy handling periods of intense work, overwhelm for you will be getting stuck in a family crisis (or other people-heavy situation) and watching the work pile up to an uncontrollable level: deadlines slipping, budgets unmanaged, goals receding and targets not being met. Deal with the sense of panic by negotiating the time you need to keep on top of things while delegating as much as you can. Be brutal about what must be done vs what should be done and explain to your loved ones that, for you, the family crisis would be made much worse if you ended up with a full-scale business crisis as well.

As ever, the trick is to recognise and accept yourself as you are, acknowledge what’s most important for you, and allow other people to experience you that way too.

If you struggle to find the balance in your work/home/social life balance then Prepare to Care is one of the modules in the Vocation Location programme designed to help you identify your personal style and create a way of working that supports your own wellbeing as well as helping you to achieve your goals.

Shining like the sun!

OK, I know this story is nearly dead but I just wanted to share a New Year perspective.

Yes, another one.

Namely… if your New Year Resolutions are ‘all about you’ there may just be scope for a wider look at what’s going on in your life.

While we all seem to believe that showing up looking like a million dollars is the best way to be picked first in the queue you might just want to re-examine that idea for truth. Or depth. Or – dare I say it – you might even consider joining a different queue.

People who spend all their time worrying about their health, their wealth, and their self image are very unlikely to be dedicated to anyone’s welfare but their own. They  may be shiny on the outside but it’s not very likely that their glow is coming from the inside. It’s very easy to get drawn towards the mirage. To see ourselves in its reflection as somehow lacking. If you focus too closely  you may be left with a vague feeling of ‘what’s wrong with me’ and, yes, you’ll likely be turned inward to re-examine your life from the perspective of ‘must try harder’.

If that particular treadmill feels familiar you might be interested in something completely different. A more worthwhile formula for self-development. Something more outward looking. More about others and less about you.

Thomas Merton famously wrote, “As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Which was enough of a challenge for Andrea Maurer who has set up her 90 Day Revolution programme to do just that. To let everyone know that they are shining like the sun. Everyone. Shining. Like the Sun.

Of course it’s not (yet) the coolest brand so far this year, and it won’t earn you any money, and you probably won’t get much slimmer while you do it. But you will, I promise you, see the world from a completely different angle. And you’ll be all set up for making a great contribution to the world. And you won’t have to stand in any queue. And you’ll be shining. From the inside out.

Click over to Andrea’s blog to read more about her revolutionary idea.