Slow Living

Pace

Michaela Murphy14 Comments

IMG_7747

As I write it is 11am the day before new year’s eve and I’m tucked up in bed next to the Little Chap, still in our PJ’s.  All three of us have succumbed to our regular winter lurgy, coughing in unison like a frog chorus.  Social plans have reluctantly been rain-checked and the hatches have been battened down.

We’re remaining pretty chipper as the enforced downtime has given us is an opportunity for reflection on the past year and to think about the year ahead.

Last new year’s eve I had an epic meltdown, a tidal wave of tears and realisation that I was living some kind of weird rehash of my childhood with Vince and I in the roles of my mum and dad.  It was overwhelming.  At the time it seemed like our worst New Year’s Eve ever (let’s just say the champagne did not get opened), but as a dear and wise friend recently quoted ‘if it’s hysterical, it’s historical’ and indeed it was.  The following day when the squall had calmed and we sat there examining the flotsam and jetsam from the night before, Vince concluded ‘we have to commit to not being in the same place this time next year’.  I remember in that moment I felt an upward shift in my body at the thought that we could live a different life, and that a year felt like the perfect timescale – long enough to make significant changes but short enough to light a little fire under us.

And so here we are, ‘this time next year’ and we are most certainly not in the same place.  We couldn’t have predicted what would unfold, but in hindsight that one sentence from Vince was definitely the ball-bearing ‘drop’ on our Screwball Scramble of 2018.

Last year tested us to our limits, our stress levels at times were through the roof,  but we’re definitely where we want to be, and we’re looking forward to shaping our new lives this coming year.

I love the new year for setting intentions and for the past three years my New Year’s mantra has been ‘simplify’, I suspect it will always be a key mantra for me and it was certainly the guiding light for all the changes we made this year, but today a new word presented itself: ‘pace’.  I’ve mentioned it here before but it’s come up again having had to cancel much-looked-forward-to social engagements in order to try to get better.

As a mantra ‘pace’ fits really nicely for me as I contemplate the year ahead.  We have some big projects in the pipe-line, a major remodel of our house and two businesses to launch, alongside continuing to settle into our school and village communities, forge new friendships and stay connected with our established nearest and dearest.  All very exciting, but it’s a lot.  Hopefully by keeping a mindful eye on how we pace ourselves we can enjoy all of these things and not become too stressed, stretched or rundown.

The Oxford Dictionary has a variety of definitions for the word ‘pace’ but the one I found most interesting is:

Pace: a unit of length representing the distance between two successive steps in walking

We often think of pace as being a measure of action, ‘he set a fast pace’, ‘she decided to pace herself’.   Fast or slow, in our mind’s eye we tend to see the momentum of pace, but in the definition above we are invited to look at it as a measure of the space between the action.  Debussy is quoted as saying, “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them”;  a favourite art college a tip was to look at the ‘negative space’ between two objects and draw that more abstract shape.  Slightly counter-intuitively this shift in attention allows the objects to emerge more accurately than if our sole focus were on observing only the objects themselves.  Considered (s)pacing creates a place where the vital interplay between action and quietude sits.  If music was all notes and no spaces it wouldn’t be beautiful, if running was a fast shuffle it would lack speed and grace, and if the artist neglects to attend to the space between objects she fails to fully convey the relationships within the painting.  One informs the other and when the balance is right art happens.

Culturally we fear being seen as lazy, productivity is king and thus all too often we get caught up saying ‘yes’ to everything and filling our diaries, writing lists of actions (and boy do I LOVE a to-do list!) and darting place to place in a flurry of ‘productivity’.  We feel guilty if we take time out.  These activities in and of themselves are fine and are the notes, the footfall, the brushstrokes of our lives, but this year I’d like to set an intentional pace to all that I take on this year, through the introduction of space.  Being more mindful about how full we allow our weeks and months to become, asking ourselves ‘do our commitments nourish or deplete us?’, ‘is there balance between the energy we offer and expend and the time we take to restore and replenish?’, ‘have we booked some space into our calendar?’  I’d like to see if it’s possible to have a productive, useful year and remain topped up and fresh.

I wonder what is your mantra for the coming year?  Are you hoping to introduce new things or looking to reduce commitments? Are there projects in the pipeline and how might you find balance?

Whatever your year looks like, I hope it’s all you truly want it to be.  Here’s to a joy-filled 2019!

 

 

Adjusting

Michaela Murphy8 Comments

IMG_7122

Following on from the adrenaline rush of the move, starting school and getting the house functional we’ve now moved into a new, slightly unexpected phase, I guess you could say we’re a little bit ‘post-partumy’ if one were to continue the labour analogy from one’s last post which one just might.

We always knew that whilst we actively wanted to downsize, this house as it stands is too small.  And dark. And overlooked by 8 sets of neighbours. And bathroom activities can be heard from 4 of the 5 other rooms, and possibly by all of the 8 sets of neighbours, who knows.  And Vince and I can’t get dressed / undressed in our bedroom at the same time because it’s tiny, and either way we have to close the blinds because…well…the neighbours.  And we miss people.  And the Little Chap misses having a bathtub, and hates the shower and howls like a wolf throughout each and every one.  And our soon-to-be 5 year old wanted a Ninja Minecraft birthday party but we don’t know enough small people locally to make that happen.  He also wants a sausage dog and, just like the party, that ain’t happening either.

Screen Shot 2018-10-08 at 19.28.24

Nope! Stop looking at me with those adorable eyes.

There’s an irony that the stress and disruption of a move like this means you want nothing more than to have your friends and family close by to help shore you up, but by moving we’ve geographically forfeited that particular comfort (although thank goodness for two very old friends who happen to live fairly close by).  All of this is totally of our making but that doesn’t stop us from feeling sad and a little isolated at times (there may have been a moment of me silently crydriving us to school this morning).

But apart from that…yay.

Sigh.

Today has just been a low one for me, but there are tons of positives that on most days shine through the negatives.  We LOVE the village and are making connections with the locals on our high street, people are unusually friendly here. I’ve started running again, motivated by the fact that there is a park outside our front door. Vince has joined a local running group which he loves, and he’s also started a training course to give him a professional qualification to help him set up a community-focused business.  The Little Chap is thriving at school and we couldn’t be happier with things on that front.  Every day he reports his day has been ‘brilliant’ ‘fantastical’ ‘all roses’; he’s been awarded ‘star of the day’ on several occasions, with his TA quietly saying to him he’d get star of the day every day based on his consistent good behaviour.  Out of nowhere he can write his name and is learning his letters with gusto. And he’s starting to make a couple of lovely friendships, completely of his own volition.  He hosted his first playdate yesterday which went swimmingly apart from me burning the pizzas and setting fire to the pizza oven. The children voted with their feet and ran off to dress up as a tiger and a helicopter pilot, leaving their flame-grilled pizza’s mostly untouched.

We’ve also just found an architect who’s totally on our wavelength, who will help us shape this house into something more loveable which feels SO exciting…and SO expensive!!

I continue to work via Skype with three clients a week who chose to migrate with me from our work together in High Wycombe, and the transition to online counselling seems to be working well.  I am really missing my lovely counselling room but the beauty of Skype is I can carefully frame out the fact that I don’t have a client friendly space yet thus retaining a modicum of my usual professionalism, at least on screen.

Screen Shot 2018-10-08 at 19.57.44

And so on the low days, we have to remind ourselves it’s only been a month and a full on mother-fucker of a month at that,  and even so we’re still moving forward, making plans, making friends.  We need to give ourselves a period of grace to adjust to this smaller living malarky and continue to trust that we will find our feet and make this work.

As I am often saying to my clients, when they come with a sense of urgency, it’s about us setting a realistic pace for change to take place; when they realise it’s not all going to get sorted in a session or two I can visibly see them relax into the work and that’s when we can really get started.  I probably need to follow my own advice.

____________________________________

Sweet puppy image source

 

 

Transitioning

Michaela Murphy8 Comments

front of house 1 copy.png

I feel like we’ve made it through a 9-month-long labour.

The time between making the decision to move and actually moving has been long and, at times, decidedly gruelling – we had a very complex property / business situation to untangle (I’m talking ‘SIX solicitors and two tax experts’ complex!) but we are thankfully down to straightening out the very last few threads.

There is a common point in many labours (right before a woman gives birth) that the mother-to-be panics and becomes certain she can’t do it – it’s called the ‘transition phase’.  There was definitely a point of crescendo towards the end of this process where we were hit with constant curveballs, each threatening to totally derail the whole thing, and we started to despair.  Tears were shed, stress-levels went through the roof right up until the very last minute and then the call came to say it was done.  ‘Done, done?’ I asked, ‘as in ‘we can pick up the keys’ done?’ ‘Yes, totally done’, confirmed my solicitor. And in that moment our tiny house was wrapped in a crocheted blanket and placed in our arms.

We impulsively jumped in the car, drove the 90 minutes to pick up the keys, our eyes wide with disbelief the whole way there.  On arrival at the house that hadn’t been lived in for nine months we realised we’d not thought to bring anything useful with us like cleaning products or tools so Vince went to the local independent hardware store and bought a selection of heavy duty gloves, bin bags, an array of cleaning products and a couple of sharp garden tools.  Having pointed out to the shop keeper that he was aware his basket contained the implements to both commit and clean up after a heinous crime, the shop keeper conspiratorially leaned in and said ‘just remember to ditch the receipt’.

NOW THIS IS OUR KINDA PLACE!

And so for the last week and a half we’ve forged ahead to unpack everything and get every room functioning as best we can for a first pass.  We moved in on the Tuesday and the Little Chap started school on the Thursday, talk about skidding in by the seat of our pants.  It’s been a huge change for us all but particularly for him and he’s handled it incredibly (not least nine days without internet access).  Of course there have been wobbles but we are super proud of his adaptability and willingness to start school after almost 5 years of being at home with us, it’s an incredibly nurturing school so we are confident he’ll love it there.

We have lots of plans for both the house and our work but as Vince put it when we were at a particularly low point in the lead up to the move, ‘it feels like we’re seeds ready to burst forth but we’re planted in the wrong pot’.  When I go all the way back to when I started ‘Operation Bloom’, this life change and move has 100% stemmed from that invitation to myself to be open, explore ideas and follow my gut.  Re-reading that first post just now, I realise I still get excited about the book idea I had back in Christmas 2016, and who knows maybe that will manifest but for now this move feels like exactly what we should be doing.  We’re finally in the right pot and are excited to see what unfurls.

Gliding

Michaela Murphy4 Comments

14397271 - two mallard ducks in flight against blue sky

Vince and I like to GLIDE.  We plan ahead and we don’t like to live life by the skin of our teeth; for some that’s exciting, for us it’s stressful.

One of the things we’ve identified that helps with the glide is to automate as much of our lives as possible.  This creates a structure around certain areas which in turn facilitates flexibility in others.

For us gliding is about figuring out which actions bring us closer to a sense of peace and ease, and which take us further away.

Some of the positive actions we’ve integrated into our days are:

Positive Actions: ‘Fully Integrated’ (these are actions we’ve been doing for a year+):

Positive Actions: ‘Work in Progress’ (these are things that don’t yet feel fully integrated but are well on the way):

Positive Actions: Next on the list:

  • Diarise a block of time each week for taking care of admin, ‘to-do’ list items, chores (approx 3hrs).

To back track a little, I noticed a big dip in my energy and motivation levels towards the end of March this year following a relay race of family colds.  For a good 2-3 months after that I continued to feel sluggish and let some of my established positive actions slide.  It didn’t feel good.  I needed to take responsibility for my energy levels and not just self-medicate with sugar and mindless trawls through Facebook.  As a result I’ve been taking the Ayurvedic supplement ‘Ashwagandha‘ which certainly helped reignite my spark.  The effects are super subtle but I noticed a welcome brightness and clarity of thought much later into the evening than I had without it.  After a few weeks of taking the tablets, alongside daily yoga I admitted to my reluctant self that I needed to introduce some cardio <insert fountainous crying emoji here>.

You see, I’ve always told the story that ‘I have a poor relationship with exercise because I never really saw my (naturally slim) parents exercise and I was terrible at sport’, but when I thought about it I was actually able to identify several pockets of time in my post-school life where I have had a good relationship with exercise. I needed to ‘flip the script’ and start telling a different story.  I’ve since joined our local gym and have committed to an hour three times a week. My energy levels have continued to increase along with my productivity, and motivation to ‘get shit done’.

One of the prompts in my Daily Greatness Journal is ‘What is going well and why?’ Consistently the ‘why’ is: ‘X is going well because I’ve made it a priority and I’ve psychologically committed to doing it’.  It really does come down to that.

I’ve mentioned here before that a great trick for me is to schedule these positive actions into my diary ahead of time, so for example I have decided I will go to the gym Monday, Thursday and Saturday mornings first thing.  By making this decision in advance I’ve helped remove that internal negotiation each morning of, ‘shall I go to the gym today?  I’m feeling a bit tired, I could go tomorrow and then I’ll work REALLY, EXTRA, WONDER WOMAN-LY hard because of course I’ll feel less tired tomorrow…’  Without that pre-commitment I’d be extremely susceptible to talking myself out of it, kicking that can down the road.  Instead I’ve identified those slots in my week, and consider them set in stone.  The night before I also write it in my schedule for the next day to further commit.  When I wake up it feels like a done deal, I just get up and go with no shilly-shallying. It really seems to be working for me.

9334609 - alarm clock in the foreground

One thing I’m trying to square is just how long it takes to fit in all the good practices into my day.  Much of it means time away from the Little Chap.  1hr of exercise + 20 minutes meditation + 5 minutes diary writing + 10 minutes YNAB update + 20 minutes on laundry – that’s around 2hrs a day.  For a while I was feeling like I must ‘get through’ those tasks so I can get on with my day but slowly I’m realising those things are my day, that they deserve the time required and that actually the positive effect will benefit the Little Chap.  I have more physical energy for play, meditation is making us calmer and more patient, I’m demonstrating the life skill of setting positive goals and tracking them in a journal, he’ll grow up knowing how to manage his finances, and in the meantime we won’t be overly stressed about money, he’ll see the benefit of keeping on top of things like laundry to avoid that clothes mountain overwhelm.  Of course some of these things can also be done when he’s in bed!  A major revelation to me was looking at how long I could spend on Facebook, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling.  I’m sure across the whole day it could easily have been an hour.  That’s THIRTY HOURS A MONTH!  What could you achieve if you had THIRTY HOURS A MONTH to play with? Our introduction of a daily meditation practice was a no-brainer swap.  Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to prioritise new things and invest in the glide.

When we consider implementing a positive action we usually have to accept an initial sense of loss.  If we want to lose weight we will mourn those times of over-indulging , if we want to fit in exercise we may have to forfeit that delicious extra time in bed, sorting out our finances may mean we have to forego holidays, new clothes, meals out.

Of course ALLL the positive actions don’t magically weave a protective bubble around us and things do go wrong from time to time.  Just recently our car, fridge freezer, a wall of shelves and our loo all broke in the same week.  In the past we’d have felt like the Universe was against us but because we have our YNAB budget we had already, month by month, set aside money in several emergency funds to cover these things.  Of course we’d rather not have had to spend all that money but as it had already been given that specific job it really didn’t sting that much to get repairs and replacements sorted.

Before we make a mental commitment to introduce positive changes, all we can picture is that no-man’s land of restriction but without the benefits those positive actions will ultimately give us.  That looks like a sucky place to be, zero fun.  Emotionally we can be extremely resistant to taking up residence there even if we know it’s only for a while; this is where I’ve found it helpful to ‘fake it ’til I make it’, over-ride emotion by getting practical and make a concrete plan, put things in diaries, walk confidently past our whining doubtful selves clinging on to the takeaway menu like it was a jackpot lottery ticket.

Make deals with yourself on the really tough days:  don’t even think about getting on the treadmill, just focus on getting into your gym kit. Once you’re in your gym kit you might as well drive to the gym.  Once you’re at the gym you might as well do a few belligerent minutes on the treadmill. Before you know it you’ve done your hour and the virtue just drips off you (yesiree that’s glowy virtue I’m wiping off the machines after I’ve used them).  Keep showing up to the task, find your inner grit, accept you’re not gonna love it at first but trust that eventually you will (well you’ll love the after-effects at the very least).

Before you know it you’ll no longer be faking it,  you’ll feel that glide and then YOU’RE OFF…

_______________________

Header pic: Copyright: <a href=’https://www.123rf.com/profile_anagram1′>anagram1 / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Clock pic: Copyright: <a href=’https://www.123rf.com/profile_james63′>james63 / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

No Man’s Land pic: courtesy of: http://tomtunguz.com/