Hello!Has it really been a month since last time? With the world lurching from one crisis to the next, I’ve started to recognise that sensation from the early days of the pandemic where your sense of time becomes distorted by so much going on but almost entirely outside of your control. Just like in 2020, there is a lot of anxiety and heightened emotion in the air which is leading to a lot of us feeling unsettled, off balance and no longer quite in control. As a result for many of us, even our best laid plans are feeling close to impossible right now. It’s hard to function normally when you are faced with horrendous news everywhere you look even when your day to day is pretty regular, with a lot of known quantities and established support systems; but throw in a new job, new baby or return from maternity leave, a loss, a job hunt, a toxic boss, dysfunctional work culture or tumultuous relationship and you have a recipe for emotional disaster. This is not the time for a very British ‘stiff upper lip’ or for brushing your feelings under the carpet and marching briskly onwards. If we do that for too long, not only do we find our carpets bulging ominously and the sofa feeling like it’s up on stilts but the anxiety and other emotions we’ve been denying tend to double down.
I love this description of anxiety from The School of Life’s Calm Workbook… it reminds me of a huge warty toad, though I guess that’s a bit unfair on toads.
“It squats in the middle of our minds and refuses to let anything else in or through. Our thoughts become low, relentless, repetitive and stymied…… Anxiety dominates and excludes any other form of mental activity. All that will be in our minds is terror. Impregnable and bullying, anxiety in effect shuts down our central faculties.”
So rather than denying our feelings and letting the 🐸 take over, I’m going to suggest that we all take a moment to really feel our feelings, be they good, bad or ugly, and start to create some space to respond to them with compassion rather than allowing our minds to become stuck on an endless, unhelpful repeat. To help you get started, you can find two brilliant exercises up on the website by following this link. This month’s book giveaway is also very much on point. The Power of Ritual by Casper Ter Kuile is full of wise words about how to inject moments of meaning into our daily lives. As those of you who have worked with me will know, I am a big fan of ritual as a key element of the scaffolding we all need to hold us steady while we navigate challenging times. I start every day with a pot of coffee in my ‘thinking chair’. My day doesn’t begin until I’ve felt the satisfying resistance of the plunger and allowed my thoughts to stir and settle, and often been used as a handy cushion by one of my cats. It’s my permission to pause and start slowly and calmly rather than jumping headlong into action. To be in with a chance of winning a copy, click the big pink button below and tell me what meaningful moments you create for yourself. However you are feeling at the moment, and whatever you are facing in your so-called career, don’t be shy about asking for what you need. Take care. Penny 💖
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